In his latest Myth Busters column, our resident tipster Andrew Mount asks whether fillies and mares are less reliable than colts and geldings. Check out Andrew’s thoughts on the subject here…
I know some pro-punters who don’t like betting on equine females as they regard them to be quirky and less reliable than their male counterparts. Are fillies and mares less likely to back up a win than colts and geldings? Here are the stats for British and Irish tracks since racing resumed after lockdown one in June 2020…
Colts who won on their latest outing ran almost exactly as the market expected – 1099 winners from 5045 bets (21.78%) against an expected winners score of 1099.68. Geldings did slightly better than the market predicted (6502 winners against an expected score of 6788.75) but fillies (-39.63) and mares (-15.05) have negative WAX scores (winners against expected). The other categories are ‘h’ (entire horses aged five or older) an ’r’ (rigs – male horse with only one testicle).
Laying fillies who won last time out would have returned a profit of 2.67% at Betfair SP (after 2% commission) while laying mares would have returned a small loss (-1.09%).
Let’s delve a little deeper to see if we cane turn this into a more profitable lay system by splitting the results into different categories…
Race Type
Last-time out winning fillies/mares show a profit at Betfair SP when bidding to follow up in hurdle or national hunt flat races, though the WAX score for hurdles is still negative. Laying those running on the all-weather at Betfair SP would have returned a profit of 6.75% and laying the chasers would have returned 9.68%. Laying the qualifiers in Flat turf races returned 2.77% after comm.
Handicap or non-handicap LTO
Those fillies/mares whose win came in a handicap had more difficulty in following up than the non-handicap winners…
Days Since Last Run
Last-time out winners who were rested for more than 90 days showed a profit at Betfair SP but those returned to the track between one and 90 days since their win fared worse than the market expected…
Class
The equine females who were bidding to follow up in Class 1 company did worse than expected, as did those running in Class 5/6 level.
We can combine a couple of the above factors to create a potential laying system – fillies or mare, who won in a handicap last time out (Flat or jumps) and who were returning to the track 90 days or sooner after their win…
Laying the above at Betfair SP would have returned a profit of 4.63% after 2% comm. Working on the assumption that fillies/mares plying their trade at a low level are less likely to back up a win, we can limit the system to Class 5 and 6 races to boost the profit to 8.2%. I also looked at race classification to see if last-time out female handicap winners performed better when taking on their own sex but they didn’t.
For information, here are the qualifiers for the next couple of days (regardless of class)…
…it will be fascinating to how many, if any win, and whether we’d profit by laying them at Betfair SP.
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