Since 2019 we have collected data for UK/IRE Horse Racing. Most of the data is provided by a 3rd party, RaceCardGuru. (Website is currently under development). This data is processed overnight with many additional calculations performed in order to create various ratings and statistics. Once all the data has been processed, the Daily Racecard can be accessed from inside TSM. The data can also be queried inside TSM using The Selection Hunter for your own bespoke Selection Systems. Since 2023, we have also been collecting UK Greyhound Racing data. This is also available in TSM in both Racecard Format and in The Selection Hunter.
Racecards and Selection Hunter started their lives in our sister software – The Bet Machine – TBM. This is an automated betting bot that connects to Gruss Betting Assistant to place bets automatically on either the Betfair or Betdaq Betting Exchange. Many users have created their own selection systems using Selection Hunter in TBM and automate the selections, turning a hobby into a profitable side business.
It only seemed fair, that TSM users should have access to The Selection Hunter. Last month, this was finally made a reality when The Selection Hunter was added to both the Desktop Version of TSM V8 and our online browser based TSMapp.
In this blog post we are going to cover some of the ratings available in UK/IRE Horse Racing. There are over 100 criteria that you can search on with UK/IRE Horse Racing. The criteria/glossary can be found in the help manual – https://www.thestakingmachine.com/docs/TSMV8-Desktop/UKIREHorseRacing1.html
Let’s start with the 3rd party ratings.
Racing Post Rating – (RPR) are compiled by The Racing Post. They are actually measured in pounds (lb). So if a horse is rated 150 and another horse is rated 140 then we can say the 1st horse is 10 lb better than the second. All horses that do not yet have a rating are shown as 0.
Official Rating – (OR) are compiled by the British Horse Racing Authority. As with RPR they are measured in pounds (lb). All horses that do not yet have a rating are shown as 0.
Top Speed – (TS) are produced by The Racing Post in conjunction with their RPR. It is a measure of what a horse has actually achieved with referrence to a standard time.
Now lets look at our own bespoke ratings systems that are available in TSM/TBM.
Merlin Ratings – (MR) – First seen in 2020. This is a statistics based rating system using historical results to calculate if a winning/losing edge for each variable exists. There are over 30 variables used in Merlin Ratings. The statistics that are used are updated periodically to account for any trend changes over time. Most recently updated in November 2024.
A quick example would be Beaten Favourite (BF). Looking at Class 0 Races (Irish Racing), since Jan 2023, BF have a strike rate of 17.85% against non BF with a strike rate of 8.09%.
Another example is Last 6 Average Positional Score. This is a rating provided by RaceCardGuru with a range of 0-5. Again looking at Class 0 Races (Irish Racing). A horse with a rating between 0 and 0.5 has a strike rate of 7.04%. Compare this to a horse with a rating between 3 and 3.5 where the strike rate is 22.95%
The Merlin Ratings start with a base of 150. Each variable is checked and any edge is added. If the edge is negative then it will be subtracted. This leaves Merlin Ratings from around 100 all the way up to around 250.
Merlin Ratings V2 – (MR2) – Designed in the same way as Merlin Ratings but using far less variables. Last updated in 2022 so using older statistical data.
Predicted Position (PP) – Introduced in late 2022. Multiple variables are compared between each horse in the race. Predicted Position is number of runners – number of 1v1 wins. Any horse with a PP = 1 means on paper they are better than every other horse in the race. There can be duplicate positions however there can only be one PP = 1. Note that not every race will have a PP = 1
Predicted Position uses Machine Learning to decide how much weight should be given to each variable. This is based on passing historical data into the Machine Learning Software. An algorithm is produced by the Machine Learning software that best fits the historical data.
Lets have a look at how the above ratings compare. As well as the Rating itself being available in TSM/TBM we also have the Rating Rank for the current race that Horse is in. We can use this to query and filter in the Highest Rated Horse for a particular rating for each race.
You can recreate the above queries yourself using TSM or TBM. However be aware that the results returned are limited to 20,000 bets. When analysing the data for this blog post, restrictions have been turned off allowing us to show the full 23,000 + results needed.
So what do these results show us ? Several Observations –
- If we were to back the rank =1 for any rating on its own we would not make a profit in the Win Market. The best performing rating is PP (Strike Rate) and even that will produce a minus £653 profit. There is no long term edge in backing every selection.
- The same applies to the Place Market. There is no long term edge in backing every selection irrespective of which rating you use.
- The strike rates are very similar for each rating when we also add the criteria that the selection must of been the favourite at the off. However PP is slightly higher at 41.83%
- Backing the Favourite in each race without any other criteria will produce a strike rate of 34.02%. All Ratings increase this base rate.
- When backing the highest rank in the Place maket,when it is also favourite, will produce a strike rate ranging from 69 to 71%. Each has a slight edge as the cumulative profit is positive for every rating.
Conclusion – Ratings on their own provide a great indication. They need to be used in conjuction with other variables or specifc types of races. You can use TSM to easily pin point where there maybe an increase in edge. For instance, it is widely accepted that favourites are often over backed on the exchanges. This eliminates any value in the bet. Over time, if you back these horses that dont have any value you will lose money. One way to reduce this, is to avoid backing horses with very low odds. An example of this is shown below. This is the results for Merlin Rank = 1. The additional criteria of Favourite Rank = 1 and the BSP Odds between 2.5 and 4. This shows a strike rate of 33.6% and a positive edge for both win and place market.
There are plenty of other areas where a long term edge can be found when using ratings. It just takes a bit of patience to find it sometimes !
