As part of my pace handicapping methodology, over the winter I collated a list of All Weather pace biases over all race distances at Lingfield, Wolverhampton, Southwell and Kempton.

To extend the dataset, from the beginning of this year’s flat season I started to note pace biases from every turf distance across all of our UK race courses.

The table below list the percentage winners from three pace categories

  • F = front runners
  • M = mid field runners
  • B = behind (held up) runners

I ordered the table by “F” to determine which courses assist horses that like to play “catch me if you can” from the gate.

Course Distance
Chepstow 7f
Folkstone 5f
Chester 5f
Catterick 5f
Bath 10f
Ripon 5f
Folkstone 12f
Newbury 5f
Hamilton 13f
Kempton 5f

Note the predominant distance that aids front runners on a paced biased course is 5 furlongs. No shit Sherlock! If you miss the break, 5 fulongs is not a lot of time to make up ground; throw in a poor draw, a horse that likes to run behind a wall of horses is doomed from the start.

Note also that Bath’s 1m2f distance makes the top 10 from 120 course/distances/pace datapoint’s collected so far.

There is a 1m2f race at Bath on Wednesday. Maybe its time to unload the betting bank!

Update: 6/5/09

Updated the pace data last night and corrected an error which resulted in the 1m2f distance at Bath moving up the table. I’m putting my theories to the test here.

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