This topic comes up so frequently and the 30% average for winning favourites is so embedded in my mind that I seldom question the validity of it.

I came across these track by track figures and some of the statistics surprised me.The percentages are based on an average of the past thirteen meetings at each track.

Eagle Farm.....Winning favourites 29%..Right on cue..But...in five out of the last thirteen meetings (or 38.5%)the average number of winning favourites was a mere 7%..Naturally it follows that the other eight meetings had a very high strike rate of winning favourites.

Doomben.....Winning favourites 30%..Right on cue again..But,,similar to Eagle Farm seven out of thirteen meetings (54%) the average number of winning favourites was a very modest 10.8%.

Rosehill had an incredibly high percentage over thirteen meetings..,.41%

Randwick/Ken was also high at 45%

Sandown/Hill 34%

Caulfield 31%

Belmont (for KV) was 38%

So whilst the average may well be steady at around 30% the wild fluctuations used to finally arrive at that figure make it less than reliable.Also I must acknowledge that thirteen meetings is not a very good population for statistics,but these were the only figures available.

Belmont over the last 2700 races gives 33% favorites and Ascot over about the same amount gives 32%.

The size of the fields no doubt determines the percentage of winners to a large degree.
Now Kojonup, where we're all headed tomorrow has a return of 47.61% favorites over the last 42 races in 7 years or so.

KV

P.S. But then if you'd bet the first horse in alphabetical order at kojonup you'd have scored 35% winners and made a 6% profit. Last horse in alpha order only 21% winners and a loss of 40%.

I think some people on this forum could base a system around that :-)

Mate,,,,There's no pub....

Accommodation in Kojanup

No accommodation listed for Kojanup

Though I did find this,,so i might come too.

Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: Perth, Austraya
Posts: 36



well on saturday just gone i had a rockin 21st in a shearing shed on a farm 15km north of a town called Kojanup, in West Aust. (about 250k's from Perth)

130ppl, enough ******** to drown all of the farm animals and still get drunk when your finished, people who you don't know talking to ya as if you've known them your whole life, decent tunes (here and there, thecountry folk get a little odd with the country music), sleeping on the rocks in a swag next to the car, waking up at 6am buy guys doin 'nuts in the paddock next to ya, then havin a bbq for breaky...does it get much better?

Well i couldnt do it every weekend, cause i'd turn into a total country hick, but every now and then its all good dirty fun
__________________
We'll ride the spiral to the end, and may just go where no-one's been.
Spiral Out.
Keep Going

You must remember that it is an average over a long period of time....

While your stats over 13 meetings might suggest strange happenings to you, you must consider other factors. The biggest of these would be the price of these favourites. Some meetings run with small fields all day, where you would expect shorter priced favourites and obviously a higher strike rate....

I think the most important thing to remember is this: The chance of a horse winning is generally represented by its market share. A horse showing $2 will win about 42-45% of the time returning about 90% of your investment. This is the same for all horses in a race ( although once you get down passed $15-$20, the winning chance becomes alot more volatile.... )

Please note : These are average figures. Alot of people in here will argue that there are $2 favourites that should be almost certainties whereas other $2 favourites are questionable favs....
My opinions here are based on passed stats, and only looking at dividends as opposed to form/class etc....

BJ, you have touched on something that has worried me for a long time!! i.e. no matter how the selections are arrived at, they all seem to adhere to the ultimate law. i.e. all 1/1 money chances will win I dunno , about 45% of the time, all 4/1 shots will win about 20% of the time etc etc. Unfortunately it's quite sobering!!
What I'm saying is that whichever the system, whatever the S/R whatever the ave. SP, when its annalysed over a long period of time, it always seems to follow this unwritten law!!
So it's my belief (even though I bet to the contrary) that this will ALWAYS be the case over time. THe reason of course is that 4-1 is NEVER given for a 4-1 chance (well not for long anyway)
1/1 is NEVER given for an even money chance etc etc. eg. if I flipped a coin I would not give you evens, I would offer 10/11 AT BEST, you see what I'm getting at!!!! Yet we are all still convinced that we can beat the book. It is a bit like the big firms offering 20% deposit bonus, yep they know "overall" they can give you 20% and still beat you!!

Sorry thats a bit negative isn't it, let me close by saying that I've beat em' for more than 2 years!!

PP,
That's because you are a place better.

The difference is this, and the reason why they can be beaten is this:

Within those horses going around at evens, who win say 45% of the time, there are some who win 45% of the time, some who win 40% or so of the time and some who win 50% of the time. The thing is - they average out at that 45%, so people say "oh, it all comes back to the unwritten law that even money chances win 45% of the time." True, averaged out they do, but if you use your nouse and do the form properly, you can pick which ones are the "true" evens chances (ie win 45% of the time) which are the false ones (ie win 40% or less of the time) and which are the value ones (who win 50% or more of the time). The reason they win 45% on average is because it is ON AVERAGE, just as on average I score about 85 for 18 holes, but it can fluctuate wildly depending on many factors, like course, track condition, distance and sobriety.

The trick is to know which are true, false, and overs. and to bet accordingly.

Duritz.

Trying to find profit from Fav. 'in the numbers' alone without hindsight is of course impossible [a lot of punters still try], but as Party pointed out profit is possible, if you can find an edge and somehow he obviously has.

Some simple examples of creating an edge that would increase that overall Fav.30% SR average would be to remove from the stats. [a no bet fav.] all Favourites carrying over 57kg., or perhaps ignoring all Fav. in races over 2200m or less than 1100m., F&M and Cup races come to mind too as races with poor Fav. SR's that could be excluded as no bets [on Fav.].

Removing any of the above races will improve the 30% SR and removing all of the above would improve things even more.

While your stats over 13 meetings might suggest strange happenings to you, you must consider other factors. The biggest of these would be the price of these favourites. Some meetings run with small fields all day, where you would expect shorter priced favourites and obviously a higher strike rate....

I totally agree with the logic that small fields will produce more winning favourites.However the twenty-six Brisbane meetings all had the usual big Brisbane fields.Twelve out of twenty-six meetings producing an average of less than 9% winning favourites seems odd.

Perhaps it is an anomaly.Certainly in a true scientific study those statistics are not significant.However,they are there staring at us,and as gamblers they give us food for thought.

Most forumites would know that I am getting my information from the AAP site.Just click a meeting and you will find the course stats towards the bottom of the left hand column.

To ellaborate? on my previous post as agreed by partypooper(at least for the first point anyway)...

If you bet level stakes on a horse showing the same price, every race you would average about an 85-90% return on the tab..
If you bet on every horse in the race on the tab and outlayed $100 you would return $86 (at the price when you bet, not allowing for shortening divs...).
To me this suggests that we as punters as a combined entity, are able to give each horse in a race an accurate(reasonably) chance of winning.
If this is the case, a horse that starts at $2 on the tab actually represents $2.35 value meaning that if you can get $2.36 or better you have an edge.

Presuming all this, one must get a reasonably accurate figure of the end price of a horse on the tab. You cannot do this by watching the tab market. I find that a certain fixed odds company, let's be dyslexic and call them isa, provides a reasonably accurate depiction of the favourites end price on the tab. Some races it is obvious that they are prepared to risk a horse so occasionly this is not the case but it gives you a pretty good idea.

This is certainly not a certainty by any means, but if you can get about 25% better div than the tab then you should not lose your money quickly (provided that the results come in as expected) and I think that this would give you a better advantage than leaving out some races.

I would suggest from what I have seen, that you can get this sort of value on about ~25-35% of races providing about 10 or more betting opportunities on wed-sun racing per day, if you bet in the right places...

Loose ends...
When I say tab, I am always referring to the home state tab.
Maybe you can only get this value because there is late money coming for other horses, hence reducing the favs chances? (I have no real opinion about late money.)

Question: If I am right about the tabs market share representing the horses chance, what difference would the type of race make? Do we suddenly lose our abilities when a maiden race occurs?
All horses have ran before, whether it be in a race or a trial.

Sorry everybody, but I am really bored and have nothing better to do.....