Introduction
A whole bunch of systems start to operate in January. These systems are based on biases or flaws created by the change in age of horses on New Years Day. Systems such as the 6yo in Selling Stakes system identify flaws in the weights allocated to 6yos this month whilst the 3yo Maiden Stakes in January system identifies horses targeted for those specific races in January.

A long running theme of the Flatstats newsletters is the Male / Female bias on the all weather. In this newsletter I show further evidence of the bias when colts vs fillies at the top of the market are analysed.

If you are not a fan of all weather racing I hope you would reconsider! All weather racing is getting better and better each year with more better class races and more better class horses running.

If you do not like the way form works out on the sand why not take a look at the stats?

Have a very prosperous New Year!

Stephen Mainwaring

6yo in Selling Stakes
The 6yo in Selling Stakes System is based on flaws in the weights assigned to different ages in certain selling stakes in January. Being a stakes race the weights assigned are determined by age and gender and in some cases if the horse has won races. The reason why this system works is because there seems to be a bias to 6yos this month since the weights they are assigned are generous compared to the other ages.

4yos are worse off in this type of race. They only get an average weight allowance of about 3lbs. Remember, a few days earlier the 4yo was a 3yo and the 6yo a 5yo. Now at other times in the year a 3yo would be receiving a much greater weight advantage over a 5yo!

Here are the latest impact value and A/E stats for the key races of this system:

The table clearly shows the advantage to 6yos and the big disadvantage to 4yos. The impact value figure of 1.80 for 6yos is four times greater than 4yos meaning that a 6yo is four times more likely to win this type of race than a 4yo.

Note the A/E figures too. A 6yo has an A/E figure above the 1.00 threshold which means that he wins more races than his odds expect him to (under bet by the public). The 4yo has a very low figure of 0.47 which means that he does not win as often as his odds expect him to (over bet by the public).

The 8yo+ age group have a high IV figure but the 0.93 A/E figure is slighlty off-putting. What this shows is that this age group do win more than their fair share of races but they tend to be over bet as indicated by the A/E figure. This age group will consist of experienced, sand specialists who can win these races but will tend to be over bet and thus not profitable for backing.

The full rules for this system are:

•  January
•  4yo+ Selling Stakes 8f or more
•  Aged 6yo
•  First three in the betting (SP)

If you had followed those rules exactly since the system was first created (1-Jan-02) you would have achieved the following results:

8 wins, 24 runs, 33.3% strike rate, 1.28 A/E, 93.9% profit

The number of contenders is small (about four each January) and if you check the results for, say, the past four years you would see that the system has had only nine contenders in total!

The reason for the drop in contenders is due to Banded Stakes races which were introduced in January 2004. Banded Stakes races are the lowest class of racing (Class 7 or old Class H) and since their introduction the number of qualifying races has dropped considerably as some Selling Stakes were replace by Banded Stakes races.

Now that Banded Stakes meetings have been scrapped, and there are only a few Banded Stakes races a week there should now be more Selling Stakes races in January and a good few contenders.

Look out for 6yos running in 4yo+ Selling Stakes of a mile or more in January. They could be good bets and if there are two or three contenders in a race do not overlook doing a reverse forecast!

3yo Maiden Stakes in January
All runners in 3yo Maiden Stakes races in January were 2yos a few days earlier. Now as all horses in such a race will be of the same age there is no actual age advantage. But there are two types of horses which stand out in this type of race: males, and horses which last ran on turf.

As stated many times in previous newsletters females are the weaker gender on the all weather and you should consider marking down their chances when racing against males. January is particularly bad for female runners as this is exactly six months away from the peak in the breeding season cycle (May to October). As females are at their weakest this month males, therefore, are at their biggest advantage.

Males in 3yo Maiden Stakes in January who last ran on the turf have shown a really good record and this must be due to trainers targeting these races. They could have run their horses in 2yo races in November or December but for some reason they waited for this specific type of race in January. Here are the results of backing every male in a 3yo Maiden Stakes in January where the horse last ran on turf.

24 wins, 132 runs, 18.2% strike rate, 1.28 A/E, 93.9% profit

This is a high profit / low strike rate system which may not be to your liking. As the strike rate is on the low side there could be a year where there are just not enough winners to return a profit. So to reduce the risk you may want to look at contenders who are at the top of the market. Here is the record of the first two in the betting:

18 of the 24 winners were from the first two in the betting so just ensuring the selection is at the top of the market will boost the strike rate considerably without limiting the number of contenders.

Doing this will mean that you won't get any huge priced winners (previously there were 3 winners at odds of 20/1+) so you may want to concentrate on the those at the top of the market with a small bet on any outsiders.

Don't forget that you can use the Flatstats System Alerts Feature to identify system bets! Don't bother scanning the race cards or newspaper each day looking for qualifiers for the system - let Flatstats find them for you. You can create an alert for this system and never miss a good bet again:

 Flatstats System Alerts

Colts vs Fillies
The gender bias on the all weather has been known for sometime now and yet it still exists not just in January but all year round. Punters and media pundits still do not understand this bias and still continue to over bet fillies and under bet colts.

Further proof of the strength of this bias can be shown when analysing those at the top of the market: What happens when a colt is the favourite and a filly the second favourite? And what happens when a filly is the favourite and a colt is the second favourite?

Some may say that there is no difference as the market will compensate for this. If fillies are generally known to be the weaker sex then the average price of the colt favourite will be shorter, and the average price of the filly favourite will be higher so it should balance out.

The stats prove this to be incorrect as even with these two scenarios colts are under bet and fillies over bet. Here are the results for backing a colt when favourite and when a filly is the second favourite:

247 wins, 614 runs, 40.2% strike rate, 1.02 A/E, 5.4% profit

Here are the results for backing a filly when favourite and a colt is the second favourite:

140 wins, 429 runs, 32.6% strike rate, 0.89 A/E, 9.4% loss

The results are pretty conclusive: A filly favourite returns a loss when the second best horse on price in the race is a colt, whilst a colt favourite returns a profit when the second best horse on price is a filly.

You can not get a backing system any easier than that: Back a colt favourite when the second favourite is a filly.

The system can be improved if you concentrate on the more established runners such as 3yo or 4yo colts rather than 2yos, and handicaps rather than stakes races.

A dataset has been created showing the detailed stats of this system. You can view the dataset in the All Weather Backing Systems section via the link below. Click the link, choose category Favourites and then select Colt Fav / Filly 2nd Fav from the sub-list of systems.

 Colt Fav / Filly 2nd Fav Dataset

New Features
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•  Flatstats info on your Mobile
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•  Breeding Stats Info
   Pedigree / breeding type information now available on horse, sire and dam stats. View unique wins to runs stats, and sire / dam sire combinations.
•  Quick Filter option on Race Cards
   Filter stats to match the race you are analysing.
•  Enhanced Stats Grid
   The stats grid has been improved to provide more customisable options.
•  List of Contenders of System / CSV Download
   It is now possible to generate a list of runners for a system or stat. You can even download the list in CSV format.
•  Sortable Tables
   Many of the stats tables are now fully sortable. If you want to sort a table by profit, or wins, or strike rate then just click on the table column heading.

You can read more about the new features in the Support / Q&A section or on the message board.

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