EBOR HANDICAP: Analysing A Horse Race At York For The Winner

Today’s the day of the 2020 Ebor Handicap horse race at York racecourse.

The race is named after the Roman name for York, Eboracum. It was first raced in 1843, and started at a distance of two miles, but was later reduced down to the one mile five furlongs it’s run over today.

In 2019 the prize money was increased to £1,000,000, turning it into the first British handicap race to be worth one million pounds. This year the prize money has been reduced, in line with other racing, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

EBOR STATISTICS

Statistics tell us what types of horses previously won this race. More importantly, they can steer us clear of horses that have a severe disadvantage.

WEIGHT CARRIED

AGE

ODDS

DSLGR (Days Since Last Good Run)

From these Ebor Handicap statistics, we can see that the advantage lies in horses that:

• WEIGHT: Carrying between 125 and 130 pounds
• AGE: Aged six or seven years old
• ODDS: Higher than 20
• DSLGR: Had a good race between 8 and 90 days

THE ANALYSIS

At the time of writing, which is 10am on the day of racing, there are twenty one runners. All of this analysis is done using the Race Advisor’s tools.

Usually I would remove horses with odds of higher than 29/1, as I don’t like betting on them, but in this case that would be foolish as we’ve just shown that horses with odds higher than 20.00 have an advantage.

Instead we’ll start by using the Ebor Handicap statistics above to reduce the field. If we take out any horse that hasn’t had a good race in the last 8 to 90 days, it reduces the number of runners to fifteen.

Of those, the horses aged six or seven reduce the field down to just seven runners.

All of these horses fall into the weight category, with the exception of Fujaira Prince, who is carrying 134 pounds, but I’m going to leave him in as he met the other conditions, is the current favourite and marked. asone of our Contenders.

I may also bring back some of the runners we’ve removed later on, to make sure that they don’t have any advantage we’ve missed.

Here they are:

I’ve ordered them by the PR Odds, which puts Fujaira Prince as the strongest, followed by Euchen Glen and Island Brave.

Next I’m going to run a Monte Carlo simulation on them, which results in this…

Fujiara Prince is first again, but not by a huge margin. Followed closely by Island Brave and Euchen Glen, the same two as on PR Odds but in the opposite order.

What’s very interesting, and what you don’t see very often, is that all of them, based on the Monte Carlo simulation, are offering potential value in the odds.

SPEED GRAPHS

If we look at just these runners on the speed graphs for recent races, we can see an interesting picture.

This includes all races that the horses have ever competed in, there are no filters. You can see that there are three horses that look strongest, these are the orange, light red and dark red horses, otherwise known as Island Brave (orange), King’s Advice (light red) and Hochfeld (dark red).

But don’t miss Fujiara Prince, who also looks strong but hasn’t raced quite as recently.

The horse that was highlighted from the previous tools was Euchen Glen.

Not a huge disadvantage, but slightly worse than the others above.

Adding in a filter for the same conditions as todays race, inlcuding Heritage Handicap classifications, changes the picture slightly.

I don’t know about you, but Fujiara Prince at odds of 5.8, isn’t starting to look like quite such a good bet!

HORSE HISTORIES

Let’s take the horses we’re considering to be strongest and see how they’ve performed over similar conditions in the past.

FUJIARA PRINCE

It’s clear that this horse can perform over similar conditions, and that it can also win. However the distances it has won by aren’t huge.

EUCHEN GLEN

The recent performance for Euchen Glen has been nowhere near as good as Fujiara Prince, but the horse is only carrying 9-2 today, which puts it into contention. It placed in a similar race at Doncaster on the 14th June.

Prior to that we have a big layoff back to 2018.

Theres definitely evidence that this horse can perform, and may have good place chances. Current odds 27/1 on Betfair.

HOCHFELD

Performing very well recently at Goodwood, previous performances haven’t been as strong. There’s definitely possibilities, but he’s going to have to run an excellent race to be able to contend.

ISLAND BRAVE

A great race from Island Brave at Ascot just a couple of weeks ago. Only carrying 8-13 today, this could make an impact, but the raise in class could cause issues for this horse.

However, coming down to 2019,. we can see some good performances, like on the 24th August 2019 where the horse only came 2.45 lengths behind the winner. The race at Ayr on the 22nd June 2019 was also strong, showing this horse potential and most likely the odds of 110 are too high!

THE OTHER EBOR RUNNERS

We mustn’t forget the other runners in the race, we shortlisted the field pretty brutally at the beginning, so let’s have a quick glance through a few of the Race Advisor’s fast analysis tools.

MONTE CARLO SIMULATION

PR ODDS

What we see in both of these is that there is very little difference from one horse to the next. The sign of a super-competitive race.

Across both, we see Fujiara Prince at the top, followed by a few horses we’ve not considered.

Island Brave and Euchen Glen are middle of the pack, and Hochfeld and King’s Advice are towards the bottom of the field.

HOW I’M GOING TO BET ON THE EBOR HERITAGE HANDICAP 2020

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the analysis so far. If you have, please spend a few seconds sharing it with your friends by hitting the share button at the bottom of this post, and then leave me a comment to let me know who you’re betting on today.

Who am I betting on?

It’s clear that Fujiara Prince has a very good chance of performing well in this race, but I’m not sure I want to be betting on the horse with odds of 7.20.

I think that Euchen Glen and Island Brave have stronger chances than their odds suggest, and may give us a good price for a place.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I don’t often go for horses that have such high odds.

But it’s a fun bet, and I’m going to enjoy watching it, so I’m going to go for both of these with an 80/20 in six place market.

While their chance of winning is slim, their prices are very high and they have a reasonable chance of placing in the top six, and their odds are offering value for this bet.

If you prefer the win markets, or the front of the market, then Fujiara Prince is likely to be able to win this race. Competing at the front, all with possibilities are Trueshan, Pondus, Verdana Blue, Pablo Escobar and Ghostwatch are all potentially strong runners in this race.

But today they’re not for me, I’m going with the higher odds. I’m going with the advantage being to horses with odds of over 20/1. Does that mean they’ll win? No. But in a race with so many strong runners, they’ve got a far better chance than their odds suggest.

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