How to read strike rate tables

Racing records

Runs and wins are counts, strike rate is wins divided by runs

Read the columns from left to right as a story. Runs tells you how much evidence there is. Wins and strike rate tell you how often the trainer, jockey or angle has won. A profit and loss column, where shown, adds what a level stake at SP would have returned.

The live table on this page shows favourites split into odds-on and odds-against.

Racing records

Each runner's SP implies a chance of winning.

Take a trainer with ten runners: four at 3/1, each implying a one in four chance, and six at 9/1, each implying one in ten. Expected wins are 4 x 0.25 plus 6 x 0.10, which is 1.6. If the yard had two winners The strike rate is two from ten, one in five.

Implied chance comes from the decimal price: divide one by it. Evens is 2.0, so one in two; 4/1 is 5.0, so one in five. Some tables scale each race's implied chances so they add up to exactly one, removing the bookmaker margin before the sum.

Racing records

A trainer whose winners start at long odds can have a modest strike rate but beat the market's expectations by a wide margin.

Compare two yards. The second yard has the lower strike rate and the stronger record against the market.

How much do strike rates swing with sample size?

Small samples swing widely. A one in five strike rate from 50 runs fits a true rate anywhere between about 11 and 33 winners in 100, while 1,000 runs narrows the range sharply.

Read the run count first, then the percentage.

A practical rule of thumb: below 50 runs, treat any figure as a hint; between 50 and 200, as a pattern worth watching; above several hundred, as evidence. The table shows why those thresholds are sensible for a one in five strike rate.

How do 14 day and five year strike rate tables differ?

A 14 day table shows current form on a small sample. A five year table shows the long run pattern on a large sample, and both answer different questions.

Use the short window to ask whether a yard's horses are running well right now, which can change quickly with illness or a good run of form. Use the long window to ask what a trainer is good at: a course, a distance, horses returning from a break. A strong long run record combined with a quiet fortnight is worth noting; a hot fortnight with a weak long run record may just be a purple patch.

How do you compare trainers, jockeys and sires fairly?

Public racing records and results from Britain and Ireland.

A leading yard with hundreds of runners and a jockey with thirty rides are not directly comparable. When two figures are close and the samples are small, treat them as the same.

The same discipline applies to sires and owners.

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