This week is going to be slightly different in terms of my normal “style” of article. Each week I come up with various ideas or angles in an attempt to find profitable betting avenues. Some hit the jackpot, or at least show promise! Others are consigned to the bin. Over the last week I have noted down some of the ideas I have had and I will share with you my findings. All the ideas discussed in this article are connected with pace or the running styles of horses.

 

Idea 1 – Winning Front runners at Lingfield are worth following next time out

 

As I have written about before, it is very difficult to make all the running (lead all the way) at Lingfield on the all weather, especially at 7 furlongs or more. My idea was to see if I could profit from horses that have won at Lingfield at 7f or more by making all or most of the running. My starting point was to see if a profit could be made by backing them on their next start. The results going back to 2005 were as follows:

 

Qualifiers	Winners	Strike Rate	Profit / loss	ROI
181	31	17.1%	-£18.00	-10%

 

Last time out winners generally lose around 15% so it was a fairly encouraging start. However, I thought that it may be worth looking at the courses these results were achieved on. My guess was to avoid Lingfield again – to win once from the front is hard enough, let alone twice in a row. Here are the results without including returns to Lingfield:

 

Qualifiers	Winners	Strike Rate	Profit / loss	ROI
106	21	19.8%	+£15.46	+14.6%

 

A satisfactory profit, but not one you are going to get rich on due to the limited number of qualifiers per year (around 25 on average). It should be noted that any horse returning to Lingfield should be avoided – 10 wins from 75 for a loss of £33.46 (ROI -44.6%). So a potential laying angle into the bargain.

 

As my initial query had only gone back to 2005, I decided to widen the research to look at 2002 to 2004 to see if there was similar pattern. I would have gone back further, but in 2001 the Lingfield all weather surface changed from equisand to Polytrack which is a totally different surface. Using data from a different surface would not be valid.

 

Let us look at all qualifiers (won at 7f+ at Lingfield LTO making most or all of the running) from 2002 to 2004:

 

Qualifiers	Winners	Strike Rate	Profit / loss	ROI
116	18	15.5%	-£41.80	-36%

 

Ouch … this does not look good. The only hope now was that horses returning to Lingfield next time had an equally poor record, or preferably an even worse one. Then at least we would have a laying system that had proved itself over 7 seasons. Unfortunately horses that raced again at Lingfield next time almost broke even during this 3-year period – a loss of just 88 pence (ROI -1.7%) thanks to 11 wins from 52.

 

The problem of course with many ideas is that you often end up with inconclusive results, not enough data, or in this case an idea that does not prove profitable. The only thing you can do is move onto the next theory! 

 

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