It was the York Ebor meeting this week and if you followed it you can’t have failed to notice that there were some pretty big priced winners, the biggest being a 100/1 shot.

Maybe I am writing this to make myself feel better about not finding many winners there but there is also a point I am trying to make too.

Over the four days there were 24 races and if we take out the race where there were four 8/1 co-favourites, these 24 races were only won by the favourite on three occasions.

Over the four days that a strike rate for favourites of just 12.5%. On average favourites win around 30% of races so this weeks York results show a big difference.

Why? It is almost certain, in my head at least, that big meetings like this one are overall significantly harder to find the winners. Yes, when you back a 20/1 shot and it romps in you feel great, but which 20/1 shot do you back?

The Average SP of the winner at York this week was 11.86/1

The Shortest price winner was 5/4

The Biggest priced winner was 100/1

And if you don’t have a Betfair account that 100/1 winner was 262/1 on Betfair so may I suggest you…
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The conclusion to draw from this evidence, and no doubt it will happen at many other big meetings, is that they are extremely competitive. Even ‘Starspangledbanner’ the very hot 6/4 favourite from one of the worlds most powerful racing operations got beat. It was the 100/1 shot ‘Sole Power’ that beat the favourite and actually quite comfortably too.

Of course some of the short priced horses did win, but not many of them and where racing is so very competitive it is often better to keep your money in your pocket. Or look for something at a decent price that looks to have a chance and at least you won’t feel a fool for backing the 6/4 ‘sure thing‘ that gets beat.

(And no I didn’t back it but neither did I back the winner either.)

Today’s Tip – The more competitive a race meeting is the greater the need to find a horse that offers value.