Morning all,

Inside today’s main piece you'll find my final group of Royal Ascot stats & trends.

Royal Ascot Stats & Trends: 2016 – 2021 – Part 3

Today’s two stats & trends looks at the draw in the 1m 4f handicaps at the meeting and three miscellaneous stats.

High Drawn Horses in 1m 4f Races

You would expect a low draw would be all important in big field races on the round course. However, it’s not proven to be the case in the 1m 4f handicaps at Royal Ascot. There are two handicaps over the distance at the meeting the Duke Of Edinburgh Stakes (Handicap) and the King George V Stakes (Handicap). There have been 12 races since 2016 and breaking the results down by segment gives the following results.

Quarter 1 – 1 winner 49 runners 2% -36 6 placed 12%,

2 – 2 winners from 56 runners 4% +1 12 placed 21%,

3 – 3 winners from 6% -36.5 16 placed 30%,

4 – 6 winners from 46 runners 13% +12.5 12 placed 26%.

So, high drawn horses have won 6 races when around 3 would have been expected based on SP.

Stats based on a limited sample size, can be put down to randomness. However, if you look at all the 1m 4f handicaps run at Ascot since 2016 you can see a pattern which the market hasn’t caught up with.

Quarter 1 – 8 winners from 149 runners 5% -95.62 22 placed,

2 – 13 winners from 190 runners 7% -57 53 placed 28%,

3 – 18 winners from 177 runners 10% -16.92 51 placed 28%.

Quarter 4 – 25 winners from 135 runners 19% +57.13 54 placed 40%.

Horses drawn in the first quarter have won 8 races when they would have been expected to win 15.

Jockeys on low drawn horse face a dilemma. Do they use up petrol to make sure they hold a prominent position, or do they drop in and become reliant on luck in running?  This does explain why low drawn horses have such a poor record in 1m 4f handicaps at Ascot.

Miscellaneous stats

All-weather last time

I normally strike a line through runners on turf that ran on the all-weather on their last start. However, when it comes to Royal Ascot I wouldn’t be as quick to dismiss their chances especially those 33/1 & under.

19 winners from 193 runners 10% +70.46 (BSP +113.4) 52 placed 27%.  Those returned40/1 & bigger are 0 winners from 128 runners 8 placed 6%.  Interestingly 13 of the 19 winners came on the straight track.

Sea The Stars Progeny

The progeny of Sea The Stars have gone well at Royal Ascot and they have won 11 races since 2016. With those in races 1m 4f+ and returned 12/1 & under producing – 9 winners from 23 runners 39% +27.12 12 placed 52%. However, such qualifiers were 0-4, 1 placed in 2021.

Odds SP: Avoid big-priced runners

Whilst it’s tempting to go for a big-priced runner in the Royal Ascot non-handicap races they are best avoided. Now Nando Parrado did land the Coventry Stakes (2020) at 150/1 but they are 1 winner from 465 runners -314 21 placed 5%.  In the Group 1’s they are 0 winners from 130 runners 5 placed. That would have got rid of 23% of the total runners in the Group 1 contests at Royal Ascot. In fact, runners returned 22/1 & bigger in Group 1’s are 1 winner from 222 runners 13 placed 6%.

Until Reshoun’s success in last year’s Ascot Stakes (66/1) runners returned 40/1 & bigger were doing even worse in Royal Ascot handicaps. Even including Reshoun such runners are 1 winner from 283 runners -216 10 placed 4% since 2016. Not only do they rarely win but the figures show they don’t place either.  

Good luck with your Friday bets.

John