With the Hong Kong racing season about 75% over with, it's time to take a deep dive into how the three courses have played.
Generally speaking, favorites in Hong Kong win about 31% of the time despite field size right around a robust 12 starters per race.
Over the years, favorites did better on the wide, expansive turf course at Sha Tin compared to the tighter course at Happy Valley. The theory has been that favorites have a better chance of overcoming a difficult trip at Sha Tin since there is over 400 meters to run turning for home. At Happy Valley, the far turn is much tighter and the homestretch is much shorter – about 300 meters. So, even with bigger fields, favorites usually fared better on Sha Tin's turf course. It all made sense.
Overall this year, favorites have won 31% of the time and the average field size for all courses is 11.93 starters per race. But the three component parts of the big picture – Sha Tin Turf, Happy Valley Turf and Sha Tin All-weather – are dramatically different than what was expected.
At the time I did this research a few weeks ago, there were 74 races run on the all-weather track at Sha Tin. Only eight favorites won for a strike rate of 10.81% and the average winner paid a healthy $25.56. In the 2019-2020 season, favorites won 26.53% on the Sha Tin all-weather track so form over it way off this year.
There were 323 races run on the Sha Tin turf course and 98 favorites won for a strike rate of 30.34%. The average win price was $18.30 which is all within the margin of error of what could be expected.
For example, in the 2019-20 season, the percentage of winning favorites on the Sha Tin turf course was 33.17% with the average win price of $17.18.
The shock, and I do mean shock, was the results on Happy Valley's turf course. With 275 races run over it, 100 favorites won for a much higher-than-expected win percentage of 36.36%.
In the 2019-2020 season, favorites won only 23.89% and the average win price was $20.78. Off a statistically significant sample size, to go from 24% to 36% is remarkable and completely unexpected.
Despite the discrepancies, when you put all the ingredients back into the stew, it's basically the same season of racing in Hong Kong as far as form goes. But if there were a betting pool before the season on which turf course would yield the highest percentage of favorites, I would have gone all in on Sha Tin. And, I would have been wrong. By a lot!
Sha Tin Turf 2019/2020
33.17% winning favorites
Sha Tin Turf 2021/2022
30.34% winning favorites
Happy Valley Turf 2019/2020
23.89% winning favorites
Happy Valley Turf 2021/2022
36.36% winning favorites
Sha Tin All-Weather 2019-2020
26.53% winning favorites
Sha Tin All-Weather 2021-2022
10.81% winning favorites
The post Hong Kong Racing Study Guide: Some Surprising Findings About Success Rates For Favorites appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
