Odds of a horse falling?

I’ll type this like you are clueless on horse racing LOL apologies if not but I’m sure some people are and would benefit from my wisdom!

So you have 3 types of races on the national hunt jumps meets:

1) National Hunt flat race – Usually at the end of meetings, won’t see ANY fallers here
2) Hurdles – Much smaller obstacles meaning less chance of a faller. Can happen and does but for the benefit of these offers I’d avoid unless getting a very low QL
3) Chase – These are the ones where u do see fallers a lot of the time. Complete guess but I’m going to say around 10% of the horses fall/unseat or are brought down

So for the Coral offer (and I think Winner/Betstars/Titan) you should focus on subset 3. There are usually 2 or 3 chase races per meeting. If you are betting randomly then fair enough maybe look for less than £1 QL for a £25 FB. However SURELY there is form to consider here and I’ve been doing quite well out of considering it the past few weeks. For example I took a QL of £2.70 on a horse that had fell the last 2 times, and guess what it fell again. Some horses are simply better jumpers than others.

So my quick tip would be take a look at the form line. If there are any F or U’s in the last 6 races then look for a lowish QL, but I’d probably go up to a few quid on a horse thats recently fell, especially if its the last race and his confidence is low.

I found these stats which obviously include both chase and hurdle races:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2008/dec/04/horse-racing-jumps-falls-unseateds

I will throw my two pennies worth in. I think you need to look for high profile races. Because the more competitive the more chance of a faller. Alot of horses fall because they are going too quick Also in a big race with good prize money. Jockeys take more risks. Also check out which courses are stiff and the going. I’ve lost count how many horses have fallen at Chepstow due to soft going and a stiff home straight.

Stiff?

<– Horse newbie

Good points bazza…problem being these offers might not be available by the time the more competitive jumps racing kicks in :(

Bet man I based that 10% chance on the attached link suggestING it was around 7% for all jumps races…so thought fair to estimate 10 for chases and 5 for hurdles?

Hi mathcedem.

Your 7% is coming from what? The article only gives figures for the top 20 jump riders and is not broken down by an overall average. Ruby falling 7.4% of the time all the way down to Mick Fitzgerald falling only 2.9%. The article is also out of date by about 8 years.

Thanks for the info on Chases and Hurdles and different race types.

Anyway. I have some data for races myself that I pulled off “at the races” website a while ago.

For races where the description is like ‘Chase’ then I have sample results of 245,000 horses and 3.5% result was ‘U’ and 5.9% the result was ‘F’. So I think this equates to hitting the money back refund 9.4% of the times depending on the T’s and C’s (if it includes both Unseated and Fallers?).

For ‘Hurdle’ – 456,000 horse – 1% U and 2.1% F. So not really likely to be hitting a refund much at all with the Hurdles.

Of course you would expect the favourite to be better. 5.9% faller rate in Chases drops to 5% faller rate if you filter just the favourites, and for unseated 3.4% drops to 2.8% for favourites. The top horses are the ones you usually get the lowest Qualifying Losses, but these guys are more likely than the average horse to make it to the finish line – so don’t expect to hit a refund on these as often as 9.4%.

Some horses fall a lot. These guys seem to fall 50% of races in my data (bearing in mind its out of date by a couple of months, I notice some have redeemed themselves in that last month or so):
Thegreendalerocket
Alder Mairi
Parlour Of Dreams
Key To The West
Simple Joys
Tea Caddy

Some races this year/last year had a pretty high faller rate. All these had 20% or more fallers. They seem to be mostly 3 mile plus races too…

https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Warwick/16-January-2016/1535
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Kempton/12-February-2016/1405
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Cheltenham/11-December-2015/1235
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Musselburgh/01-January-2016/1335
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Navan/22-November-2015/1440
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Down-Royal/30-October-2015/1550
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Gowran-Park/21-November-2015/1555
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Kempton/16-May-2016/1605
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Newbury/29-December-2015/1250
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Fairyhouse/20-April-2016/1925
https://www.attheraces.com/racecard/Cheltenham/15-March-2016/1650

Actually the news gets worse. My data is going back to 2000. So I grouped it by year to see that year on year the faller rate seems to be dropping. With about 8% falling in 2000 chases down to about 4.6% falling in 2015 chases. In 2015 the total faller + unseated is only 8% and filter by favourite and it is only 7%.

Its not a great offer and would be staying away from it unless you happen to know a lot about racing and find a situation where rider, horse, going, race type, distance all align for the perfect chance of a faller and then take a minimal QL on that….

No to be fair matchedem was very close with his guess of 10% and he admitted it was a pure guess :)

But I think it could be much closer to 7% chance of getting a refund. Which is hardly worth it in my opinion – again unless you know a lot about horses (form, going, distance) and you notice a bunch of parameters align to form the perfect opportunity.

I don’t think you are going to get a tight match on a poor horse that is likely to fall or not complete the race.

Good data there.
Especially the 3m spot which seems so obvious now. More fences to jump, and when tiring…… which I think accounted for cue card towards the end of a tiring season as much as anything else

any idea the best way to find ‘chase’ meetings? On the bookie sites all i see are meeting location and off times…(horsie newbie – apologies)