| By :
David Duffield
Many punters quickly put a line through horses that are drawn out wide, following the ‘don’t back a horse from a bad barrier’ rule. But exactly which barriers are the bad ones? And if most punters only want to back horses from inside barriers, are these ‘well drawn’ horses then overbet by the market? To answer these questions we will take a look at the statistics for all barriers at all TAB meetings over the last 3 years. (Focusing on the first 5 horses in the market) Barrier 1 = 15% loss on turnover 2 = 19% 3 = 18% 4 = 12% 5 = 16% 6 = 13% 7 = 15% 8 = 14% 9 = 13% 10 = 9% 11 = 7% 12 = 4% 13 = 1% 14 = 5% 15 = 6% 16 = 32% (profit) You can see that barriers 1 to 9 each lost at least 12% on turnover, while the worst result for any of barriers 10-16 was 9%. And if we group these results into blocks of four: Barriers 1-4 = 16% loss on turnover Barriers 5-8 = 14% Barriers 9-12 = 6% Barriers 13-16 = 1% It’s very clear to see that overall you are actually better off focusing on horses drawn in barriers 10-16. It would be too simplistic to say that this is solely because the inside barriers are overbet and start under the odds, because it’s interesting to note that every single barrier had a winning strike-rate of 14-17%. The evenness of the winning percentage across all barriers will come as a surprise to many punters, as will the marked differences in profitability. So if we are to believe that backing horses drawn outside is likely to be more profitable for punters, let’s see if this is confirmed by the performance of the two barrier extremes across different field sizes. In 10 horse fields, barrier 1 lost 8% on turnover while the outside barrier (10) lost just 1%. In 12 horse fields, barrier 1 lost 18% on turnover while barrier 12 lost just 2%. In 14 horse fields, barrier 1 lost 8% on turnover while barrier 14 actually broke even. In 16 horse fields, barrier 1 lost 2% on turnover while barrier 16 made a 40% profit, albeit from a small sample size. In each of these field sizes you are a minimum of 7% better off backing the very outside barrier rather than barrier one. Gives a new meaning to the term bad barrier doesn’t it? While all the raw numbers above support backing horses from outside barriers, this is obviously a general rule and one that shouldn’t be followed carte blanche. You should still analyse each race on an individual basis because the track, distance, jockey, race pace, horse’s racing pattern and recent form are just a few of the other factors that also need to be considered before you place your bet. If you have any rules or favourite sayings of your own that you would like tested please drop me a line at championpicks at gmail dot com Good luck David Duffield
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