As promised in this month’s Racing Ahead article, Betwise are previewing different races here every week to shortlist each contender’s probability of being the front runner in the race.

The first question a good cynic should ask is: What’s the point of trying to predict front runners?  Here are a few reasons:

1. In races under a mile, any runner that is prominent early has a c. 30% chance of winning the race.
2. It is often possible to back probable front runners before the race and lay them off in running at a profit.
3. Predicting the likeliest front runners is key to pace handicapping, and working out draw advantage.

All our front runner rankings are produced automatically, using the Smartform Database, looking into every runners’ previous history and assessing their running styles against each other for the race in question.  We’ve found that the method has the best record of success in smaller fields over sprint distances – so we’re picking out the 4.15 at Beverley as today’s race.

Below are the list of likely slowly starters (LAGGERS), followed by the list of faster starters (LEADERS) that we would expect to front run today.  The first figure after the horse’s name shows the chance that we think that runner has of leading (or being a lagger) today; the figure after the horse’s name indicates its stall position today.  So, for the list below, we think that Fullanby and Fitz Flyer each have an approx. 30% chance of starting slowest today, and we think it is 46% likely that Masta Plasta will be prominent and/or lead from the start.


LAGGERS:
Fullandby, 0.31, 4
Fitz Flyer, 0.27, 3
Look Busy, 0.20, 1
Kaldoun Kingdom, 0.17, 6
Tombi, 0.06, 2
Masta Plasta, 0.00, 5
LEADERS:
Masta Plasta, 0.46, 5
Tombi, 0.28, 2
Look Busy, 0.21, 1
Fullandby, 0.05, 4
Kaldoun Kingdom, 0.00, 6
Fitz Flyer, 0.00, 3


As with using any tool for race analysis, the analysis does not stop on one rating, and it’s important to interpret these figures in the context of today’s race.  Concentrating purely on who will front run for a second, we also note that our second ranked front runner, Tombi, is wearing first time cheekpieces, which it’s possible may bring about earlier speed.

On the race itself, it’s a decent quality race, as we can tell from the Class (2) and prize money on offer, so running styles alone are unlikely to tell us which horse will win (in a lower class race where all horses are exposed, stealing a lead on an average field can be a bigger advantage).  On this score, Masta Plasta is well rated, but has less potential for improvement than the rest of these, at age 7.  Plus, he has not won since 2008.  Furthermore, a 46% chance of being the front runner, still means a 54% chance against.  Even so, he’s our likeliest contender, some way ahead of the rest, and very unlikely to start slowly.  Tehrefore, at 6.0 + he is worth considering as a back to lay bet (but not on this evidence alone to win) since he should be well in contention until the closing stages of the race.

Lots more work can be done on the analysis of this or any other race using these ratings – bringing into play speed figures and relative ability for example.  One of the nice features of Betwise’s leader/lagger ratings is that you can use and interpret them as you wish as an input for your own analysis, whatever betting angle you are looking at – from laying slow starters, backing to lay front runners, to predicting pace and win strategies.