Underbet Non-Hcap Cheltenham Chase favourites - February 2022

[gbettle]

Howdy all,

Hope this message finds everyone well - roll on Cheltenham.

Speaking of Cheltenham, I've read an interesting theory*, that, "in non handicap chases leading up to Cheltenham the favourites do disproportionally well as the uncompetitive nature of the racing due to the festival approaching led to small fields and underbet favourites."

From that article TL;DR: 

"... in simple numbers qualifiers from February favourites have shown a profit since 1998 to 2019 in 15 months and a loss in only 7 months to SP (starting price, *not used BSP as not going that long) and an overall profit to SP of 5.5% with an A/E 1.1. Incredible really on a massive sample size of 1600 qualifiers on short prices at SP."

I've checked that - with Adrian Massey - and indeed a BSP profit is achieved:

• 2012 to 2021, 630 bets, 330 winners, 109.2% returns
• remove the novice chases:  2012 to 2021, 321 bets, 179 winners, 119.0% returns

Would anyone be kind enough to peer review these \ collaborate with their own another source\dataset? 

* - https://www.mylittletip.co.uk/post/knowing-too-much

 

[MCLARKE]

I only have numbers for the last 8 years but these do show positive returns.

For December and January I have 46 winners from 117 runners with an AE of 1.11.

Hurdles have an AE of 1.22, chases 0.84.

Worryingly, the last 3 years have all shown losses !