The Racing Horse has often referenced the unique nature of the Cheltenham Festival as something not remotely comparable, but then each racecourse and surface has its own individual character and identity, understanding and accepting these nuances and their accompanying aggregations, must help sports bettors.

Southwell Racecourse replaced their Fibresand surface with the more user-friendly Tapeta, then raced on it for the first time on Tuesday 7 December 2021. So, after three months we thought it prudent to give members our thoughts on things so far.

After 24 meetings and 186 races on the new surface at Southwell we are beginning to receive and digest some interesting numbers as the overview reveals itself. Yes, we know 186 races is a very small sample, but an early indicator has already produced a profit for this author!

So what do we know so far?

We know the top two in the market are winning at 61.83%. Given the modified nature of the course we anticipated a figure significantly higher than 51% but not this high! Will the strike rate hold up I hear you say? There is evidence to suggest it might, and if it does it represents a huge edge for members!

Winning favourites
Non-handicap                   Handicap
2yo:    0-2  for  0% (-2.00)    1-6    for 16%  (-2.50)
3yo:   10-22 for 45% (+0.61)    8-32   for 25%  (-9.40)
4yo+:  10-19 for 53% (+2.95)    35-105 for 33%  (-4.34)
Total: 20-43 for 47% (+1.56)    44-143 for 31% (-16.24)

WINNING FAVOURITES:   64-186 for 34% (-7.32)
SECOND FAVOURITES:    51-186 for 27%
TOP 2 in the MARKET: 115-186 for 62%
10/1 and BIGGER:      29-186 for 16%

If you remember, we talked about the configuration of the course and how the Tapeta surface would give hold-up and front running horses racing equality. There appears to be no discernible bias on either side of the track and we have only witnessed a few hard luck stories, most of which were jockey (human) error. The course has now become the fairest of our 6 AW UK Racecourses.

We know 77% of the racing here have been handicaps and most of them very poor grade handicaps, this factor alone facilitates unpredictable and erratic results. For example, leading trainers at the course so far include Derek Shaw (7%), Scott Dixon (7%) and Michael Herrington (9%), so once we have better class horses racing here from the likes of Charlie Appleby (28%), William Haggas (22%) and Roger Varian (20%) the figures must surely solidify.

Only 23% of the races have been non-handicaps of which favourites win at 47% and a level stake profit to SP. We expect the 23% to rise to around 29% this year containing lots of juvenile maidens and novices races, we know the 3yos produce the biggest winning strike rate for favourites in those types of races!

We know, only 29 of the 186 races have been won by a horse priced 10/1 or above, meaning a huge 84% of the races are won by horses shorter than 9/1.

We know winning favourites are currently scoring at 34% (-7.32 to SP) so above the national average. For contextual purposes Wolverhampton (Midlands & Tapeta) hits 36% over 5 years, but they raced 183 non-handicap races in 2021 with 44% winning favourites. It is reasonable to assume Southwell will beat that percentage this year and probably every year from now.

It is important to acknowledge Tapeta courses Wolverhampton and Newcastle have settled surfaces, well known to trainers across the board and have a wide range of non-handicaps and handicaps in all classes and age groups. We do not have specific figures for winning second favourites at those two courses, but the industry consensus quotes around 54% for the top two in the market winning, but in non-handicaps and not handicaps! Southwell is currently striking well above that figure and it is our belief the winning favourite totals can only increase. It is this edge that is getting us excited!

Whilst accepting each race is a totally unique and a separate entity, we primarily believe in mathematics, aggregation and the wisdom of the crowd. Acknowledging then using these components we hope our Racecourse Templates assists those betting thought processes.

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