“Against all odds, when the ‘no’ outweighs the ‘yes’ faith become the only bridge to your answer” ― Ikechukwu Izuakor
Always back the outsider of three was something I often got told in my early days around the racecourse and the betting shops. No doubt you will have heard this one too.
Despite getting a 10/1 winner using this method, back in the mists of time when still a teenager, I have always taken it with a pinch of salt and considered it a myth.
That is, until I started doing research for this educational piece. Delving into the statistics.
Using all data for last ten years (2010 – 2019) there have been 1499 qualifying races in Britain and Ireland and 222 of them have been won by the outsider of the three. That is a strike rate of 14.81%, yielding a profit at starting price (SP) of 45.07 and a massive 250.3 at Betfair Starting Price (BSP)
The fact that a profit was attained surprised me to say the least, but on reflection it should not have done, as these races are often tactical affairs, and sometimes not run at a true pace. The proof is in the pudding, when almost 15% of the time the outsider wins.
For those of you that love a system these numbers can be tweaked to get an even better strike rate and a higher return.
Digging a bit deeper, the starting price of the winners over that ten-year period ranged from 15/8 to 33/1. The 33/1 shot was NOBLE GLANCE, who won a Novices Hurdle at Fontwell on 22nd August 2019, in the hands of Matty Batchelor. A neck back in second was DANBORU, the 2/1 second favourite, and last home was the odds-on jolly WIN MY WINGS, who finished 1¾ lengths behind the winner. This was a complete reversal of how the betting market anticipated the result.
By only concentrating on those horses which went off at between 15/8 and 33/1 our figures now read:
1396 races, which produced 222 winners, increasing the strike rate to 15.9% and the profits to 148.07 at SP and 353.3 at BSP which is a marked increase.
My next step was the elimination of horses wearing any kind of headgear. We now have 152 winners from 896 races – a 16.9% strike rate, which isn’t a big improvement on that score, but the profits of 219.49 at SP, and 377.32 at BSP tell a different story.
Next, I took juveniles and veteran horses out of the equation, and ran the stats with just runners aged between 3 and 10. This gave 135 winners from 734 races, an 18.39% strike rate, and profits of 256.62 SP and 412.39 BSP.
At this stage it occurred to me that colts and entire horses were showing a loss. So, I ran the data again with just fillies, mares, and geldings. This improved the numbers to 131 winners from 678 races, 19.32% strike rate, and another increase on the bottom line to 274.62 SP and 425.39 BSP.
My final filter was to remove all runners that had raced in the previous seven days. This time, the strike rate went up to 19.84%, with 125 winners from 630 races and another jump on the profits over the ten-year period, to 284.12 SP and 434.46 BSP. **
To put these figures into perspective we are looking at an average of 63 qualifying races a year and a return of investment (ROI) of 45% (45% profit) and average winning odds of just over 6.3/1
Not too shabby for something that many people believe is a myth. ** All quoted profit is to a level one-point stake and your one point can be whatever you can afford for example if one-point equals £1 then 284.12 points equals £284.12.
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