After a week’s hiatus, Andrew Mount’s Myth Busters is back to look ahead to the big meeting of the week at Sandown. He poses the question: are low draws vital for sprints at the Surrey track?
Sandown’s first Flat fixture of the new season gets underway on Friday and I’m especially looking forward to the opening bet365 handicap (1.15), a 5f Class 2 contest run on the separate sprint course.
After the draw was reversed in 2011, putting stall 1 against the far side rail, a huge bias favouring low draws became apparent. From the beginning of the 2011 season until the end of the 2016 campaign all we had to do to make a heap of cash was to back stalls 1 and 2 blind in 5f Sandown races and combine the pair in a reversed forecast, regardless of field size, going or race class. Here are the full 5f results, split by draw, for that six-year period…
Of the 125 races, no less than 56 (44.8%) were won by the runner drawn in stall 1 or stall 2 and backing the qualifiers blind would have returned a profit of £56.66 to a £1 level stake at SP (+22.66% on turnover). Backing the same horses at Betfair SP yielded a profit of £122.03 (48.81%) after 2% commission. This provided punters with a huge edge but like with most good betting systems, the profits dried up as the bias became common knowledge.
Over the next five seasons (2017 to 2021) we’d have still made money by siding with stalls 1 and 2 in every 5f race but the profit was down to £14.91 (+7.53% on turnover) and the WAX score (winners against expected) was below market expectations.
In the past two seasons we’d have made a loss by backing stall 1 and only a tiny profit (+£1.00) by siding with stall 2…
However, a lowish draw still seems helpful, with stalls 3 and 4 returning a good profit. Those drawn in stall 7 or higher generally struggled, recording just three wins from 87 runners (3.45%) for a loss of £68.00 (-78.16% on turnover). The expected number of winners, based on their prices, was 7.88 giving an Actual/Expected score of just 0.38.
Early pace is arguably more important than the draw in Sandown sprints nowadays; front-runners are nine from 41 in the past two years (22% strike-rate, +£35.00), prominent racers are 18 from 120 (15%, +£66.70) and hold-up horses just eight from 132 (6.1%, -£96.25). However, predicting how a race is going to be run is not as simple as glancing at a pace map and, frustratingly, the majority of those front-running or prominent-racing 5f Sandown winners in the past two years were ridden patiently in their latest start! It’s possible that the jockeys on the low-drawn runners fought to maintain their good early position, regardless of how their mounts were ridden previously.
Perhaps the angle of attack this season is to side with those drawn in stalls 2-6? Had we done so in the past two seasons we’d have landed 29 of our 172 bets (16.9% strike-rate) and made a profit of £88.13 to a £1 level stake at SP (+51.24% on turnover). At Betfair SP the profit was £176.81 (+102.79%). These figures are skewed by a 66-1 winner, but it was still profitable without that one and perming stalls 2-6 in exotic bets such as the Tote Exacta, Trifecta and Swinger is another angle.
bet365 Gold Cup Odds: All the latest betting for Sandown end-of-season showpiece
It’s a fascinating 2024 bet365 Gold Cup at Sandown Park this Saturday, as not only do you have returning champion Kitty’s Light at the head of the latest bet365 Gold Cup Odds, but you also have a strong Irish contingent looking to bag the coveted prize with a certain Willie Mullins potentially unleashing some star…
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