How do you evaluate horses first up as betting proposition?

In this interview with Nadia Horne on RSN Winners, professional Dean the Trial Spy discusses horses first up from a spell and how to best evaluate them as betting proposition.

Read the Interview transcription here:

Nadia Horne: Dean, Good Morning.

Dean Evans: Good morning Nadia. How are you going?

Nadia Horne: Yeah not too bad thanks. Look today what we’re going to discuss is talk about horses first up from a spell, and just evaluating them as betting propositions, because it can be one of the hardest things to try and work out what type of level each individual animal will perform at first up.

Dean Evans: Yeah absolutely you know it’s difficult and certainly in this day and age the way that the class system works, and the weight system means you know that a lot of the races are relatively even and it’s very hard to win a race with an unfit horse, so you know fitness is certainly a main form factor that punters need to look at when doing their assessments, but you know the question is when you’re looking for value how does the market treat first up horses, and you know having raced recently is being overemphasized by the punting public, so we’ve just sort of had a look at a bit of data from 2010 to 2014 inclusive across all TAB meetings, to do some detailed analysis and see whether there’s any edges in backing first up horses.

Nadia Horne: OK well lets talk a little bit about some things that we maybe should take note of, first of all their market rank, their SP price, how much weight do you put on that?

Dean Evans:  Yeah it’s interesting, horses sort of racing first up and starting favorite have a reasonable record it’s around a 5.8% loss on turnover but that is a bit better than the benchmark and from the SP rank to sort of 2nd to 5th , it’s all around that sort of 4% to 7% mark and once you get to sort of SP rank 8 to 14 you’re looking at sort of between a 15% to 56% loss on turnover, so you know it certainly shows that with a poor record of longer priced horses that the favorite long short bias is still alive and well, and you know interestingly though for each of those first five positions in the market favorite, 2nd favorite through to 5th favorite, horses that were first up were actually better betting propositions than horses that weren’t first up so it sort of what it shows there the betting public actually seems to be overestimating a little bit the importance of having raced recently. I guess it’s just saying that if you’re interested in backing a horse that’s resuming from a spell, and it’s in the market with a bit of support, then don’t be put off by that.

Nadia Horne: I suppose the mindset always is too that the horse isn’t at it’s peak and it’s going to take a lot of benefit from the run, but one thing that you do have to take into consideration and look we hear a lot of trainers across our radio station along through a lot of other media outlets and they’ll say look this horse isn’t fully wound up and that can be somewhat of a deterrent, but when you’re working off of figures sometimes you know well that horse doesn't have to run up to its max to win the race anyway so you really have to put that into play and work out from a level where that horse is going to perform at.

Dean Evans:  Yeah that’s a great point, its more about assessing how well the horse has run in the past first up and even if it isn’t at peak fitness, there are plenty of horses that simply have the class and ability to be able to take out a race even if they’re only you know 70% or 80% fit.

Nadia Horne: For sure, look the stat of being a previous first up winner this is such a broad thing that we throw out, OK they might have won a race first up but that might have been their first ever race start in a maiden.

Dean Evans:  Yeah so for this analysis we’ve looked at going forward just the first 5 favorites, and we’ve actually taken out first starters just so we can sort of focus solely on horses resuming from a previous campaign. So overall that group of horses, your first 5 favorites excluding first starters loses around 6% on turnover betting at best tote, what’s really interesting is the horses won first up before, the punting public seems to get too excited for the horse that has a first up win to their name, so horses resuming without a first up win lose just 3.8% on turnover, which is a fair bit better than the benchmark, but those that have won the first up before actually do 3 times worse with an 11% loss on turnover, so quite interestingly the betting public seems to overestimate a horse who has won previously first up.

Nadia Horne: Yeah definitely, because once again we look at stats. It’s no different to distance stats or race stats or stats over track conditions. You do have to dive a bit deeper than just having a look at their overall record.

Dean Evans:  That’s right it’s not about just looking at the form guide and seeing if it’s had a win. It’s really down to what class has it raced in previously when it ran first up, what speed rating has it run and how close has it been able to finish and what sort of class, you know you might win a weak maiden out at Tamworth and have a first up win to your name, but you know another horse might have run a close fifth in a maiden beaten one and a half lengths at Randwick, and obviously that sort of form is going to be stronger really the proposition in terms of whether that horse can run first up, so it’s about delving deeper into the form rather than just looking at the pure stats which the market seems to be doing.

Nadia Horne: Understand. What about track condition?

Dean Evans:  We’ve sort of discussed before you know on wet tracks as to where on the track your horse needs to be, and the numbers still strongly indicate you don’t want to be backing horses resuming from a spell on a wet track. 3.4% loss once over for a good track drops to 9% on a soft track and a 12% loss on turnover on a heavy track. So you know the wetter it is the harder it is for a horse to win first up.

Nadia Horne: Definitely because it just takes that little bit more out of them, and then you can see that really affect them all the way through the preparation as well.

Dean Evans: Yeah that’s right, you see a lot of horses that have run first up on a heavy track that like you say sort of knocks the wind out of them and they often don’t come up for the rest of the prep, so its often a real danger point for the trainers. You really want to make sure your horse is fit enough to get through that wet track, and even if it doesn’t win you have to make sure it doesn’t knock the wind out of them for the rest of the prep.

Nadia Horne: What about the distance first up. I suppose you have to look at each individual animal and see what their profile is like over a certain trip as well.

Dean Evans:  Yeah that’s absolutely right. Interestingly for races 1000 meters and below, only a 2.7% loss on turnover which is a good 4% better than the benchmark, so certainly easier for horses going 1000m or less. Basically from a 1000 to 1400 it’s all around that sort of 6.8% loss on turnover, which is about the benchmark and interestingly when we did this analysis a few years ago you could have made a profit simply by backing a horse first up over a mile, or more and perhaps you know the trainers that adopted those sort of European style training methods for some of the imports and that sort of thing, but interestingly the market has caught on to that and that’s now a 7% loss on turnover, so the edge that previously was there backing horses over 1600 plus, the market seems to have taken that into account now.

Nadia Horne: What about their age?

Dean Evans:  Yeah it’s quite interesting you can suggest that 3, 4 and 5-year old horses can be relied upon to sort of race well resuming. 4-year olds have a 4% loss on turnover and 3 and 5-year olds around 6-7% but the round benchmark. What was interesting is that certainly older horses have a very poor record, and I guess that makes sense. They usually take longer to come to hand. But 7 and 8-year olds are sort of 18% and 10% loss on turnover, which was significant but the real interesting one was 2-year olds which had a 16% loss on turnover. I guess that sort of comes down to the fact that they can’t always be relied upon I guess to pick up where they sort of left off last campaign when you quote 2-year olds, and then some of the other 2-year olds are now that they’re up against you know in their next prep are are sort of bigger and stronger and have come on more, you know really interesting that 2-year olds first up have you know a really poor record against what you would presume is probably first starters a lot of the time.

Nadia Horne: No that’s a very good point that you do bring up. You often see some dramatic fluctuations in horses’ performance ratings through that period of their career. In particular, too between the age of 2 to 3, it’s very hard to sort of get a real handle on where they’re at.

Dean Evans:  That’s right you know it’s really difficult. That’s where trials and you know if you can get some sort of insight into track work as well can tell you a lot. Because a lot of those 2-year olds and 3-year olds as you say they grow and get bigger and stronger, and some of then just don’t and so they can’t continue to build and improve on their sort of class and speed ratings, whereas the other up and comers can, and so race form on it’s own as the numbers sort of indicate often doesn’t give you much of a guide at all.

Nadia Horne: No exactly. And we’ve often seen in particular with 2-year olds through the last couple of seasons, where early on in a 2-year olds career in the early part of the season where the fillies are dominant, and then as you start to get a little bit more into the back-end of the season if not just towards that Sydney carnival the colts and geldings really start to measure up and sort of shorten that gap.

Dean Evans:  Yeah that’s right they sort of seem to grow at slightly different rates, and you’ve then got the training methods of course of different trainers as well where you’ve got sort of you know some trainers that get going really early like Gai is very good at it, and others like Chris Waller who sort of about now in that last sort of quarter of the season seems to get his 2-year olds up and winning everywhere, so that has a bit to do with it as well.

Nadia Horne: Just going back to gender and looking at some of the stats there first up from a break, is there much difference between the two?

Dean Evans:  What is interesting is basically if you’re a male and intact you’re not a very good betting proposition. Colts and Horses are a 10% and 12% loss on turnover whereas geldings, fillies and mares all sort of around that benchmark 6% so definitely seems that you know the males that haven’t been gelded appear to be pretty poor betting propositions first up.

Nadia Horne: And we can also know well just due to record on certain trainers who do sort of tend to target their horses first up, where other trainers they like to have their horse with somewhat of a building preparation, and I’m sure there’s great difference in a lot of the stats here with trainers.

Dean Evans:  Yeah there is. A lot of it of course again comes down to what the market perceives, and how much the market over bet certain trainers, so Hawkes racing who aren’t necessarily known I think for getting their horses ready first up actually topped the list with a 13% profit on turnover backing their horses first up. Gerald Ryan who is noted, 11% profit on turnover, and Joe Pride another one who has a really good record with 10% profit on turnover backing all of his first up horses. Conversely, ones that appear to be overbet Robbie Griffiths 22% loss on turnover, David Hayes was around the same, Michael Kent with 19% who’s more of a trainer is stayers, Mike Moroney with a 17% loss on turnover. And interestingly, some of the big names like Darren Weir, he’s another who’s known for having horses deep into preparation he’s a 16% loss on turnover and probably the really, really surprising one is Gay Waterhouse who certainly gets them ready first up, but maybe the market’s just overemphasizing that at the moment, again a 16% loss on turnover backing all of her horses first up.

Nadia Horne: Yeah no that’s a very interesting one that you bring up, and I suppose that does have a lot to do with just the general SP price of hers because usually first up from a break the market finds them.

Dean Evans:  Yeah that’s right I mean, you know when you’re looking at these stats it’s not about looking at the strike rate of trainers you know Gai’s a fantastic trainer of getting horses ready first up, and I believe when we discuss second up horses backing her actually had a really positive influence, but you know obviously it appears that the market sort of notes her as a first up trainer and overbets her and then somebody like the Hawkes stable I guess where people don’t expect them to have the horses wound up first up means you’re getting a better price from there and you can actually make a profit backing their horses first up.

Nadia Horne: You bring up some very good points. Thank you Dean

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