Introduction
All weather racing is still unpopular with the majority of punters. Many punters choose to forget flat racing in November and either concentrate on the jumps or give up racing until the turf season starts again in March.

One reason given for this is that all weather racing is substandard and consists of low class plodders. But this view is now outdated as British all weather racing is improving year after year.

One key indicator is the percentage of owners who run horses on the all weather. As the above table shows more and more owners are accepting the all weather as a platform for racing. With nearly 70% of owners (including Godolphin and The Queen) now running horses on the all weather why is it that punters are still turning their backs on this form of racing?

British all weather racing is leading the world. The superb Polytrack surface created by Martin Collins is not only installed at three of our courses (with Great Leighs making it four early next year) but is also to be the surface of choice in the US.

The Americans are realising that Polytrack is much kinder to horses and fairer overall and are digging up their dirt tracks to install Polytrack.

If you are a punter who has had a negative view of all weather racing then you may want to think again. All weather racing has improved over the years and will improve even further.

Don't leave it until jumps meetings are abandoned before you discover all weather racing. Take it up now and start betting against punters who do not have the stats!

Stephen Mainwaring

Turf to All Weather Transition
Are you finding it difficult to win at the moment? Are the horses you are betting on losing when you confidently expected them to win?

This downturn in fortune can happen to many punters at this time of year. The reason for it is because punters do not adapt to the change in season.

Just like at the start of the flat turf season in March the start of the all weather season can seem like the twilight zone. Form does not work out, favourites fail miserably and there are many horses winning who should not win 'on paper'.

During these periods punters can choose to give up betting for a few weeks to let the 'form settle'. But there is no need to do that. All you have to do is to temporarily change the way you select horses.

If you are successful with form based methods during the summer then don't use them during the end of the flat / start of the all weather. If you tend to pick favourites throughout the year then change to picking outsiders for a few weeks instead.

Forget Form
At this time of year form does not work out as it does throughout the rest of the year. The stats show that November is the month where shock wins are more likely.

Impact Value Stats for horses with 000 form figures from their past three runs

What this table shows is the Impact Value stats for 'three duck egg horses'. Horses who finished worse than 6th (indicated by a 0 in their form) in their last three runs were analysed. November is the month where duck egg horses are more likely to win as indicated by the impact value stat of 1.23.

The good news for form punters is that the form does indeed settle down in December. During this month the duck egg horses are least likely to win.

Impact Value Stats for Favourites

This table shows the impact value stats for favourites. Again November stands out. The impact value in this month is the lowest of all months of the year indicating that favourites are not winning their fair share of races.

Clearly punters need to change their way of thinking around the time of the season change. Rather than back fancied runners consider laying some of them or just try and find nice outsiders to back instead.

Turf and Sand Form do not Mix
At this time of year there are many races where a turf hotpot is forced to run on the sand and this surface may not be suitable for it.

If a trainer has a horse fit and ready for winning at this time of year it makes sense to run it on the all weather rather than put it away for the winter. But the mistake trainers and punters make is that they do not check the sire stats to see if the horse would be suited to the all weather.

Seasonal Stats
Another problem with the time of year is that some trainers tend to wind down during the back end of the turf season and do not start their all weather campaign until December or January.

A good example of this is Gay Kelleway. She has mentioned a few times on At The Races that her yard does not do well on the all weather during the Autumn and that she aims to get her team fit from December onwards. This is evident from the stats.

Gay Kelleway Season Stats

Autumn (September to November) is the worst time of year for backing a Kelleway runner on the all weather. The strike rate is nearly half of what it is for the other seasons and the loss backing her runners is huge compared to the summer or winter.

If you dig deeper into the stats you will see that December is a good time to start backing her runners. If her December runners had run in September to November you may find that other punters will not back them as the form figures may not look good. In this case it should be easy to find value bets as the majority of punters will be put off by the poor form figures.

 Gay Kelleway Trainer Stats

All Weather Gender Bias
Forget draw biases. The biggest bias on the all weather is the gender bias. This is a bias against female horses which has been known for quite some time but the reason why it exists is still unknown.

First a recap of what the gender bias actually is.

On the all weather fillies and mares perform much worse than they are expected to when racing against males. This could be stated as 'obvious' because with all species females tend to be less athletic than their male counterparts.

But the gender bias is so much stronger on the all weather than on the turf as the following table shows:

Ratio of Male to Female Winners

The table shows the ratio of male winners to female winners in races where at least one female raced against at least one male. In All Races on the all weather males win 1.53 times more females. In 3yo+ Handicaps on the all weather males win 1.66 times more than females. Compare those figures with the same races on the turf. Notice that the female bias is not so strong.

There have been many suggestions as to why the bias is stronger on the all weather but most can be discounted.

One suggestion is that the bias is stronger on the all weather because most races are run in the winter and fillies win more in the summer months. The stats prove that this is not the case.

Another suggestion is that because the all weather consists of lower quality races connections are sending their lower quality fillies to race on the sand.

That last suggestion is preposterous, as why would connections run their lower quality fillies, but better quality colts on the all weather? Not only that but running an analysis on the better class all weather races such as Group races and Class A to C (1 to 3) shows that fillies and mares underperform in this level of racing too.

Laying Female Favourites
If you are new to laying and want to try a simple system then just lay all fillies who are favourites and are racing against at least one male on the all weather.

Lay Filly Favourites in Mixed Gender Races

1301 correct lays from 1821 bets, 71.4% correct rate, 4.2% profit (5% commission, 10% above SP)

If laying is not your game then identify races where a filly is favourite and just back the male with the best chance of winning. As the filly will more often than not be a false favourite it is quite likely that the male will be a value price.

 Flatstats Laying Systems

Flatstats Alerts
A few months ago Flatstats introduced a new Horse \ System Alert service. This is not just a horse reminder service - it is a service which can alert you when any horse, jockey, trainer, sire, or owner is running on the flat.

This service is fully automatic and allows you to be alerted to any stat which is available on the Flatstats Stats pages. If you like the look of a stat you can 'snapshot it' and choose to be alerted when ever there is a horse running with that particular stat.

e.g. be alerted when Sir Michael Stoute runs a first time out horse, Sire Sadler's Wells has a runner on soft going, or when owner The Queen has a runner at Windsor.

A few weeks ago a Flatstats subscriber was alerted to a 100/1 winner. The clever punter had spotted that a certain owner was very profitable at Lingfield so he decided to create an alert and be informed the next time that owner had a runner at the track. On 27 September 'Salient' appeared on his screen and he duly backed it. Not at 100/1 but at 220.0 on Betfair!

The Flatstats Alerts is one of the most popular features of the site. It's all included in the price and some say it's well worth the subscription just for this feature alone.

Read the alerts guide and see how it can be of use to you. All you need to do next is to find some profitable stats and be alerted to them. Here are some suggestions for the all weather season:

• Trainer M A Jarvis All Runners
• Trainer C A Cyzer Last Ran 28+ Days
• Sire Desert Sun 3yo or Older Runners
• Jockey B Doyle Middle Distance Races

 Flatstats Alerts Guide

 Flatstats Snapshot Guide

New Features
A lot of new features have been added to the site since the last newsletter. As already stated above the fully automatic Alerts feature is one. Here are a list of some of the others:

• Betfair Price Information Page
  Identify steamers, drifters, where the money is going, weight of money and win price / place price disparities.
• Betfair Win and Place Prices
  Betfair win and place prices are now shown on all racecards, daily systems sheet, ratings pages and on your alerts. Instantly see the price of a horse you fancy.
• Stats Grid
  See key stats for all runners in one table! This was a most requested feature and is helping subscribers find many decent bets including placepot type bets.
• CSV Downloads (Download to your Spreadsheet)
  Do you want to integrate Flatstats ratings and cards data with other systems or ratings? Now you can by downloading CSV data of all runners.
• Configurable Pop Up Windows
  It is now possible to configure exactly where and what size you want all pop up windows (cards, reports etc.) to be
• Site Support Q&A Section
  Read the answers to typical questions we get asked.

You can read more about the new features in the Site Support Q&A section itself.

 Site Support Section / New Features

Please note that even though the site has grown and now offers many more features than last year we are still the same great value price!

If you have not subscribed before why not try us for one month? As this is the all weather season a one month subscription is only £24.95. Subscribe today and try out the Flatstats Alerts feature.

Current Subscription Costs

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