Introduction
Hello, and welcome new subscribers.

Sir Michael Stoute is having his best ever season. He is currently out in front on the leaderboard with a 39% strike rate and a 56% ROI. But can he continue this good run? Probably not because his current good strike rate is due to his exceptional performance with first run of the year horses. Stoute is a master at getting lay off horses ready for the new season. It is highly unlikely that he can make his horses win at the beginning, the middle and the end of the season.

We are starting to roll out our new Ratings. For now, the ratings are based on sire stats but will later include trainer and jockey stats. The sire stats are performing quite well in races where other punters have little information to go on - 2yo races, maiden stakes etc. If you have found Flatstats too time consuming in the past then try the new ratings. They really do save a lot of time.

It's the Derby this weekend. Have a look at the sire ratings and see our tips for the Oaks and the Derby. Take advantage of our special offer. If our tips fail to win either the Derby or the Oaks, you get a 10% bonus!

Stephen Mainwaring

PS
Did you back Six Perfections in the Irish 2000 Guineas? If you read Pittsburgh Phil's view on the race you would have laid it again. Remember, don't listen to hype, read the facts at  Pittsburgh Phil's Place

Stats for Sir Michael Stoute
So far in 2003 Sir Michael Stoute is top of the leaderboard table based on strike rate. Upto 1st June, he's had 39 winners from 100 runners. That is a 39% strike rate.

That strike rate is standing out like a sore thumb. In previous years, Stoute has just hovered around the 20% mark. So what is so special about this year?

If you look closer at his stats you will see that he does well in the Spring, but then the strike rate drops as the season progresses. In previous Springs' he's hit 23.0%, 19.4% in the summer and 16.8% in the Autumn.

The good record in the spring is nothing to do with the going, neither is it to do with Stoute's first time out record (which incidentally, is poor). Stoute's good fortune in the early part of the season is attributed to his record with horses having their first run of the year (except first time out runners).

If you had backed every Stoute runner, who was having it's first run of the season, having previously raced last season, you would have hit a strike rate of 24.7% and made a profit of 23%.

This is something in which Stoute is now mastering. In the early to mid 90's, Stoute was only hitting strike rates with this method of around 15%. But since 1997 he's really perfected this and is achieving 25-30% strike rates. So far in 2003, the strike rate with his first run of the year horses is an astonishing 44%.

So, if Stoute is so good with his first run of the year horses, then what is he like when those horses run again in the same year?

Obviously, he doesn't fare so well this time. Since 1997, backing all Stoute runners on their second and subsequent starts of the same year has hit a 21% strike rate and returned a loss of 19%.

Digging deeper we can see that it is the handicapper who is clobbering Stoute.

You can expect Stoute's strike rate to start tailing off now. He's already unleashed 55 first run of the year horses so far this season: 24 of them have won.

Definitely avoid his last time out winners running again in the same season. Stoute's record with repeat winners in the same year is 17.7% strike rate, 30% loss. Again, handicaps are the worst races.

Clearly punters are shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Once Stoute has won with a horse, forget backing it next time in the same season.

Sire Ratings
When analysing a race using sire stats, the key stats to use are the going, course, distance, class, race type, age range, field size and last ran stats. If you just use those stats, you can easily see if a horse will be suited to the race or not.

To save you time in analysing races we have now introduced Sire Ratings. These are ratings based purely on the above stats. The ratings produce a figure which indicate how well suited a horse will be to the race.

You can either use the ratings for finding win bets by concentrating on those top rated, or for finding lays by looking for fancied runners near the bottom of the ratings. Below is an example of finding a lay with fancied runners:

2:45 Haydock Sire Ratings

In this race, Gone To Ground was backed from 7/2 into 11/4f. Punters looked at the form of the horse (463 with the last race being a 3/4L 3rd) and decided this was the 'best' horse in the race.

The sire stats painted a different picture. They revealed that he would not be suited to the race. He scored very badly for the race class, and for the last ran interval. In the end, he finished 7th of the 11 runners.

The sire ratings are the first part of a comprehensive rating system. Soon we will be adding trainer and jockey ratings. Doing this will allow us to create an overall power rating and an all important betting forecast so you can see if a horse is a value bet or not.

You can read more here:

 Sire Ratings

And the Greatest Sire is...
Deciding which sire is the greatest is as difficult as deciding who is the greatest jockey, sports person, or pop star. How do you define greatest?

From a punting point of view, the greatest is the one who wins you the most money. In this instance, the greatest sire just has to be Pivotal.

Pivotal ran 6 times in 95/96. He won 4 races including the Nunthorpe at York, and the King's Stand at Royal Ascot. Owner/Breeder Cheveley Park Stud surely knew they were onto a good thing back then.

Pivotal is now in his 4th year at stud. His record so far is quite impressive:

80 wins from 639 runs (12.5%), £229.86 to a level stake £1 (36.0%).

The strike rate may not look much but the profit backing all his runners is 36%. You can better this by filtering out certain races.

You could just about double the profit if you ditch any of the following:

• Middle or long distances
• Quick returns
• Low grade courses

The reason why Pivotal is so profitable is because punters are underestimating his chances. His A/E ratio for most races is above the magic 1.00 figure. This means that the odds of his runners is higher than his chance of winning.

If you want to play around with his stats, you can use the Pivotal dataset here:

 Pivotal Dataset
(choose Pivotal Sire Stats from 'choose system' drop down list)

Over at Pittsburgh Phil's Place a whole thread is being devoted to Pivotal.

 Pivotal Watch

The Derby and Oaks Analysis
We have created datasets for these two races. The key stats identified in the datasets are:

The Derby
Long shots are rare. In the 20/1+ price range there was just 1 winner from 82 runners. In the past 10 years, if you had backed every runner who started at less than 20/1 you would have actually made a profit.

Last time out winners dominate the results. 8 out of the past 10 winners (note Irish and other overseas form excluded) won their race prior to the Derby. Backing all LTO winners has returned a profit of 34.4%

The Oaks
This is a good race for those at the front of the betting market; there is little chance of outsiders winning. In the past 10 years, 4 favourites, 4 second favourites and 1 third favourite won. If you had just backed the 1st and 2nd favourites in the past 10 years you would have had the winner 80% of the time and made a nice profit.

Last time out winners did not fare as well as the Derby. Backing all LTO winners returned a 58.7% loss.

Combining the above information with the Flatstats sire ratings should reveal some good bets

For the Oaks, we really should be concentrating on those at the top of the market. The Flatstats top rated selection, Santa Sophia, is unfortunately one of the outsiders. The third rated selection, Hanami is also third in the betting so that one has a more realistic chance. Seeing as Santa Sophia is clear top rated, she is worth an EW bet but the main bet is Hanami.

In the Derby we need to concentrate on anything under 20/1, especially if it is a last time out winner. The top rated selection is Kris Krin and he fits the bill perfectly. But wait! This is a Stoute horse who has already won first time this season. We have already seen that Stoute makes a loss with his repeat winners in the same year.

An exception can be made here though due to the good value available for Kris Krin. If you look at the ratings of the market leaders you will see that they are lowly rated. Refuse To Bend is rated 12th, Alamshar 19th, Brian Boru 10th, and Alberto Giacometti 9th. Because the market leaders are rated low, this boosts the chance of Kris Krin.

Flatstats Derby and Oaks tips
Kris Krin, Hanami

 The Derby and The Oaks 10 Year Datasets

How Many Favourites?
Last Monday, it seemed that an "unusual" amount of favourites were winning. By mid evening, some punters seemed to latch on that the day was a good day for favourites due to many favourites winning earlier in the day.

But was it a good day? What is a good day for favourites?

The following stats are based on strike rates for favs and do not take into account profit or loss. The stats indicate how many favourites we are likely to see in any one day.

How many favs win in any given day?
Favourites win about 32% of the time. Therefore, on a standard 6 race card we can expect about 1.9 favourites to win. On a day where there are four meetings (similar to last Monday), we would expect about 8 favourites to win. On Monday 12 favourites had actually won.

So, was that an exceptionally good day for favourites?
Not really. The strike rate for winning favourites that day was still only 48%. You can expect days like this (and of course days when say just 20% of favourites win), due to differing field sizes, the quality of competition in each race, the types of races etc.

What is the chance that no favourite will win on any day
On days where there is just one meeting, this can happen often. In a previous article we found that on a standard 6 race card, 9% of the time no favourites would win at all.

0 winning favourites: 9.0%
1 winning favourite: 27.6%
2 winning favourites: 32.7%
3 winning favourites: 21.4%
4 winning favourites: 7.7%
5 winning favourites: 1.3%
6 winning favourites: 0.3%

It is more likely that there will be no winning favourites than 4, 5, or 6 at any one meeting.

What about stats for the complete day and not just one meeting?
Analysing 3727 race days on the flat since 1993:

186 days (5%) the favourite failed to win 10% of the races
756 days (20.3%) the favourite failed to win 20% of the races
1669 days (44.8%) the favourite failed to win 30% of the races
2722 days (73.0%) the favourite failed to win 40% of the races
486 days (13.0%) the favourite won at least 50% of the races
120 days (3.2%) the favourite won at least 60% of the races
32 days (0.85%) the favourite won at least 70% of the races
15 days (0.40%) the favourite won at least 80% of the races

On the majority of racing days (73% of all racing days) the favourite never wins more than 40% throughout the day. One in every 20 racing days (5%) there will be less than 10% of winning favourites. One in every 117 racing days (0.85%) the favourite will win at least 70% of the races.

Using the above stats, you could create a backing or laying method; you could also work out some kind of a stop at a winner plan. But the best advice for favs is to look at each one on their own merit. Use the sire stats for 2yo's, and other lightly raced horses. Use the Flatstats race stats and of course, favourites stats.

Just one final point. A favourite in the 6th race, does not know that the favourites have already won the first 5 races - but punters do.

Special Offer
For the Derby weekend only (well, OK, we will be generous: Thursday 05-Jun-03 to Monday 09-Jun-03 inclusive) we will increase all new subscriptions periods by 10%! So if you sign up for the month, you will get an extra 3 days free, sign up for 3 months you will get an extra 9 days free.

But wait, here is an extra special deal. We like a gamble. We are convinced that either of our Derby or Oaks tips will win. If they do not, we will double the special offer! If Kris Krin or Hanami fail to win you will get 6 or 18 extra free days.

Signup today. You will get the 10% bonus, you may even get 20%.

 Join Flatstats Here >>

Special Note to subscribers who have signed up since 1st June. We will increase your subscription period by 10% or 20% too.