One method of trying to narrow down a field and find the potential winner of a race is to follow trends. The gambler will look at the previous winners (and losers) of the race to try and determine if there is a particular type of horse that does well or badly in the contest year after year.
Specific trends could include:
• The fate of the favourite each year
• Horses entered by a particular trainer (you might hear analysts talking about a trainer who ‘farms’ a particular race, meaning they win it regularly)
• Horses carrying a particular weight – maybe no horse carrying more than a certain weight has ever won the race
• Horses that have won or run well in a specific race earlier in the season and come on to run well in the race under consideration
• Horses that have won over the same distance, or maybe are trying this distance for the first time
• The age of horses that win the race or do not do well in the race
This last factor is of particular interest in assessing the 2013 running of the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in Saturday and shows some of the strengths and weaknesses of relying solely on trends.
The favourite is Cirrus Des Aigles, who is seven years old.
Looking back at the last 12 runnings of the race, going back to 2001, the following trends occur:
• 4-year-olds have won 9/12 races
• 3-year-olds have won 3/12 races
• No horse aged 5 or older has won the race in the last 12 years
On the face of it, therefore, the trends system would dismiss Cirrus Des Aigles’ chances – he is too old.
But, as always, you have to dig a bit deeper and ask a few more questions:
• How many older horses have actually run in the race over that period?
• What profile did those older horses have?
• 4-year-olds dominate the winners but how many take part and is it a good strike rate?
Between 2001 and 2012:
• There were 107 runners
• 16 (15%) were three-year-olds
• 51 (48%) were four-year-olds
• 27 (25%) were five-year-olds
• 9 (8%) were six-year-olds
• 2 (2%) were seven-year-olds
So, in fact, it is five-year-olds who have underperformed most in the race, given the ratio of runners to winners. Four-year-olds accounted for almost 50% of runner and supplied 75% of winners in the last 12 years.
In addition, Cirrus Des Aigles’ profile is very different to the two previous seven-year-olds who have run in the race. Youmzain (third at 12/1 in 2010) and Warrsan (4th at 66/1 in 2005) were both coming to then end of their careers when contesting this race.
By contrast, Cirrus Des Aigles is a better performer than either of those horses and was second only to Frankel in the World Thoroughbred Rankings for the period 1 May to 6 November 2012. He is also rated some 11 lbs better than his rivals on Saturday.
This is not to say that he is a definite winner but it just highlights how dismissing certain runners based on the bare trends alone is not always a recipe for success.
