Field sizes

[thewexfordman]

Why do certain courses constantly have small fields at every meeting? Bangor, Fakenham, Ludlow are three examples and for a grade 1 track Kempton. To my uneducated eye watching from the comfort of my sitting room I can’t see anything wrong with those tracks in terms of course conditions except perhaps the tightness of fakenham. Obviously location goes against fakenham too. Uttoxeter, Worcester and aintree aren’t a million miles from Bangor and Ludlow yet they don’t seem to have the same number of small field races.

Any ideas?

[Gingertipster]

Too much racing.

Value Is Everything

[LostSoldier3]

Fakenham and Bangor aren’t the easiest places to get to. Both (especially Fakenham) also very sharp tracks and not ideal for proper National Hunt types.

Ludlow’s field sizes are improving year-on-year, think they’ve moved into the division above the other two tracks now. The prize money is really good.

[LD73]

Agreed there is too much racing and also an assumption that there are always loads of horses just waiting for somewhere to run – case could be that many horses that could run in some of these races may either be not ready, injured or ran in a similar type race recently and don’t want to run again so quickly.

Then you have the old problem of you might have a horse that could run but a higher rated horse(s) then turn up and rightly or wrongly you feel that from being a race it could have possibly won it is now a race where it could finish 2nd, 3rd or 4th and finish close enough to ruin the handicap mark.

Also which seems to be more prevalent these days is the fact that outside of handicaps connections are more wary about pitching good horses in against each other outside of the festivals (and even then there are usually alternative races on offer) and actively seek to avoid clashes if at all possible.

The thing that I annoys me is when people in the media seem to indicate that this is a recent problem that racing is having and it wasn’t like this back in the day.

[arazi91]

Dont know how this will format but some data

From 2014 + Season 2016/17 – Current(14/11/17)
AVG FS AVG FS
Aintree 11.34 Aintree 10.53
Ascot 8.76 Ascot 9.09
Ayr 8.05 Ayr 8.39
Bangor 7.62 Bangor 8.16
Carlisle 7.91 Carlisle 8.26
Cartmel 8.30 Cartmel 8.30
Catterick 8.02 Catterick 8.09
Cheltenham 12.14 Cheltenham 11.66
Chepstow 9.49 Chepstow 10.05
Doncaster 8.69 Doncaster 7.96
Exeter 8.97 Exeter 9.10
Fakenham 6.56 Fakenham 6.51
Ffos Las 7.41 Ffos Las 7.87
Fontwell 7.37 Fontwell 7.29
Haydock 8.44 Haydock 8.78
Hereford 8.82 Hereford 8.82
Hexham 8.44 Hexham 8.67
Huntingdon 7.85 Huntingdon 8.18
Kelso 8.37 Kelso 8.29
Kempton 8.66 Kempton 7.88
Leicester 7.43 Leicester 7.46
Lingfield 7.43 Lingfield 8.35
Ludlow 8.53 Ludlow 8.11
Market Rasen 7.52 Market Rasen 7.51
Musselburgh 8.25 Musselburgh 8.18
Newbury 8.97 Newbury 9.18
Newcastle 7.95 Newcastle 8.00
Newton Abbot 8.09 Newton Abbot 8.10
Perth 7.51 Perth 7.67
Plumpton 7.55 Plumpton 7.41
Sandown 8.40 Sandown 8.25
Sedgefield 7.43 Sedgefield 7.67
Southwell 8.02 Southwell 8.06
Stratford 8.48 Stratford 8.19
Taunton 8.97 Taunton 9.06
Towcester 8.21 Towcester 7.69
Uttoxeter 8.84 Uttoxeter 9.33
Warwick 8.65 Warwick 8.77
Wetherby 8.39 Wetherby 8.64
Wincanton 8.22 Wincanton 7.93
Worcester 8.49 Worcester 8.53

[arazi91]

First column is from Jan 1 2014 up to 14/11/2017
Second column is from Oct 2016 up to 14/11/2017

[arazi91]

Ludlow since 2003

2017 8.09
2016 8.74
2015 8.68
2014 8.65
2013 9.30
2012 9.34
2011 8.69
2010 9.52
2009 10.24
2008 11.52
2007 11.05
2006 11.06
2005 10.98
2004 10.41
2003 9.30

[arazi91]

Fakenham since 2003

2017 6.30
2016 6.80
2015 6.47
2014 6.65
2013 6.62
2012 7.60
2011 7.03
2010 7.35
2009 8.23
2008 8.84
2007 8.59
2006 8.76
2005 9.14
2004 8.55
2003 8.10

[arazi91]

Bangor since 2003

2017 8.03
2016 7.85
2015 8.04
2014 6.48
2013 7.38
2012 8.16
2011 7.83
2010 8.66
2009 9.58
2008 10.22
2007 10.37
2006 9.59
2005 9.80
2004 9.59
2003 9.49

Kempton since 2003

2017 8.08
2016 8.88
2015 8.29
2014 9.28
2013 9.22
2012 9.51
2011 8.70
2010 9.76
2009 9.37
2008 10.12
2007 9.06
2006 8.97
2005 10.14
2004 10.49
2003 9.48

[thewexfordman]

Brilliant info arazi. The tracks I named seem to be heading downhill in terms of average. If someone asked me which course gets a higher average runners between Bangor and Southwell I would have put a lot of money on southwell having a higher average, but the stats show differently. I’m mainly interested in what makes some courses more popular than others or are some course managers simply better fixture planners than others?

[arazi91]

thewexfordman

Southwell since 2003

2017 7.95
2016 8.06
2015 8.18
2014 7.89
2013 8.23
2012 9.11
2011 8.32
2010 9.45
2009 10.48
2008 10.40
2007 9.81
2006 10.83
2005 11.23
2004 9.50
2003 8.00

[arazi91]

All Hurdle Races UK – Since 2007

2007 11.51
2008 11.68
2009 10.94
2010 10.57
2011 9.96
2012 9.76
2013 9.75
2014 8.86
2015 8.91
2016 9.08
2017 8.71

All Chase Races UK – Since 2007

2007 8.74
2008 9.08
2009 8.66
2010 8.00
2011 7.37
2012 7.59
2013 7.60
2014 7.15
2015 7.42
2016 7.62
2017 7.32

[arazi91]

Different playing field , but James Willoughby with some Field size data on Worldwide Flat Group/Grade Racing

[arazi91]

link here

https://www.thoroughbredracing.com/articles/field-sizes-how-us-trailing-most-nations-top-level/

[arazi91]

All Grade 1 NH Races – UK Since 2007

2017 9.44
2016 9.12
2015 9.45
2014 9.84
2013 8.69
2012 9.76
2011 10.00
2010 10.85
2009 11.97
2008 10.77
2007 11.15

[arazi91]

The Big Grade 3 Handicaps have held up quite well

All Grade 3 Races NH – UK Since 2003

2017 18.47
2016 18.08
2015 18.77
2014 18.33
2013 18.94
2012 17.94
2011 18.52
2010 19.84
2009 19.04
2008 17.88
2007 17.96
2006 18.78
2005 19.25
2004 17.38
2003 19.13

[jackh1092]

12.50 Tomorrow, 19entries….reopened to 3 declared…becoming laughable this.

16, 8, 13, 13 the last 4 renewals…

something wrong for sure.

Twitter: Jackh1092
Hindsight is 20/20 so make the most of it!

[Author]

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