The Ebor Handicap is open to horses aged three years or older. 

The race is run at York over a distance of 1 mile 6 furlongs and currently the most valuable flat handicap in Europe to the tune of £71000+ prize money for the winner. 

With that amount of dosh up for grabs, there are plenty of eyes on the prize and therefore some very useful horses entered in the race from some very powerful stables. 

With some many horses in the field having bomb proof credentials, this year renewal is unlikely to buck the trend of making it extremely challenging for punters target the likely winner and as a collective, there are no crumbs of comfort from the market as a useful guide to the relative chances of each horse.

Take a look at SP prices of past Ebor winners in the screen image taken from the Proform software below:

 
So, it’s “another” fiendishly difficult puzzle for punters to unravel on the last day of the Ebor Festival however, in this week’s blog we use a couple of very useful features in our Race Guides to hopefully identify the key runners and riders in this year’s race.  

 

How the Ebor was won 

Using the Proform software, we analysed the traits of every Ebor Handicap winner since 1997, a process that takes minutes using our system builder.

Unsurprisingly given the competiveness of the race, there was only one factor that stood out amongst all the different angles analysed.

 

The table above indicates the pace stats for the Ebor since 1997. 

Those of you who have read previous blogs should be aware of the symbols and items in each column but in summary

• Horses that raced prominently [P] have won 5 races from a population of 125 horses and with an A/E of 0.83 perform 17% below normal expectation.
• Horses that raced held up [H] have won 11 races from a population of 193 horses and perform 11% above normal (A/E 1.11)
• 16 horses have tried to make the running [L], only 1 has won.  

If we look at statistics based on the pace profile of the horses most recent race below 

 

Those with an eye for detail would have noticed that horses that like to race “held up” (highlighted in Green) have won the majority of Ebor Handicaps.

Now we are not suggesting these runners are “locked in” but if profit is your motive (and name me one punter that isn’t motived by profit), these horses should be the ones to focus on as potential betting propositions. 

 

Putting the Pieces together 

One of the many time saving features of the Proform Race Guides is the ease you can determine the track bias for every distance at every racecourse in the UK and Ireland.

 

The image above from our race guide details the Pace Bias Statistics for 1m6f at York.

Based on impact value (IV), horses that like to race held up are 1.28 times more likely to win over this distance. Over the years, horses with this pace characteristic have yielded a profit of £18.16 to a £1 stake at starting prices.

So, all we need now is a way of identifying which horses with a “Held Up” pace profile are racing in the Ebor? 

That task is made easy using our unique Race Guide Pace Map as shown below:

 
The pace column is calculated from the horses last three runs, the number is then used to map the horses pace profile on the scale below based on the following key predicted pace style for each runner h = held up, m = midfield, p = prominent, l = led.

It is left to the reader to take it from here regarding form analysis for the likely held up runners, but like attempting a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, as least we have provided you the edge pieces which you can then use as a framework to work inward using pieces from your own selection methods. 

 

Do you want to see more?
Every day on our web site we provide a FREE stats and Race Guide.

As well as providing detailed horse racing statistics with profit pointers, our race cards contain horse ratings for each contestant, unique pace information for every runner plus other time saving features to make pre-race analysis easy.

To download today’s Proform Race Guide for the Ebor Handicap, click on the link here