Whether in business, the stock market or sport, past performance cannot predict future results.
But there are certain instances where patterns and trends emerge that simply cannot be denied. In football, for example, the teams with the best Expected Goals (xG) counts tend to do the best – it’s not an exact science, but predictive enough to be relevant.
In golf, certain courses correlate closely with one another – meaning that players that perform well at one will tend to do well at the other. For example, in the ten years of the Farmers Insurance Open between 2013 and 2023, seven players that have won or finished second at Torrey Pines have finished first or second at The Masters too… despite there being hundreds of miles separating the California course and Augusta National.
There is a similar theme in horse racing, with some of the major races throwing up trends and patterns that have to be considered more than simple happenstance. Over the past ten years of a race, maybe eight of the winners have won at that track before, won over a specific distance or even a particular renewal that acts as a warm up.
As mentioned, these trends – which we can loosely label as ‘pattern form’ – are not guarantors of success from a punting perspective. Just because a horse ticks all of the boxes, does not mean they will perform on the day; perhaps they run well and are hampered, or the going simply does not suit them.
But even so, these patterns can provide plenty of useful pointers and indicators as you begin your analysis of a particular race.
Pattern Form for the Cheltenham Gold Cup
Given that the Cheltenham Gold Cup is a flat weight race (11st 10lb for male horses, 11st 06lb for five-year-olds, down to 11st 03lb for mares), there are fewer ‘moving parts’ for punters to consider than a handicap race like, say, the Grand National.
Even so, there are still some patterns which have been useful when predicting who will be crowned the best three-mile chaser in the land at the Cheltenham Festival.
For example, all ten of the winners from the past decade of the Gold Cup (as of 2024) were aged 7-9 at the time of their triumph – a fair-enough hint that any horse younger or older can be struck from your research.
Seven of the last ten winners of the Gold Cup were priced at 7/1 or shorter, which indicates that the classiest horses in the field are routinely identified by the betting public – hence their favouritism or next best status.
Official rating is another pattern form factor – only Lord Windermere in 2014 had an OR lower than 164 at the time of his victory.
All of the last ten Gold Cup champions had run at Cheltenham in some capacity before – be it at the Festival or otherwise, while nine of them had enjoyed a warm-up race roughly a month prior to Gold Cup Friday.
You need to be backing classy horses in the Gold Cup, which perhaps goes without saying. Each of the last ten winners had prevailed in a Grade 1 renewal before, with the Irish Gold Cup and the Savills Chase at Leopardstown particularly useful primers.
So that’s an insight into what it takes to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup – with a decade’s worth of winners all showing similar patterns and form lines along the way.
Pattern Form for the Grand National
You would think that a race as chaotic and unpredictable as the Grand National would be devoid of predictive patterns, but while it is a harder race to unravel, there are still some trends worthy of knowing.
The last eight champions have been aged between seven and nine, but it’s their official rating and handicap that is perhaps most instructive. Of the last eight completed Grand Nationals, all of the winners have been rated at 146 or above and carrying between 10st 3lb and 11st 9lb in weight.
Having had a previous run over the Grand National course at Aintree has proven to be useful, while many of the race’s champions in recent years had ran last time out at the Cheltenham Festival.
And going the distance is obviously key in a race that takes place over a gruelling 4m 2f – nine of the last ten winners of the Grand National had run six times or more over 3m+, with the majority of those having won – or shown strong form – over the longer trips.
Here’s an interesting stat as well: in the modern era, roughly 50% of Grand National winners have returned to the Aintree showpiece a year later and placed (albeit with the help of an eight places paid promotion).
The Grand National is notoriously difficult to unravel, but if you’re prepping your bets – or simply want to be a fount of knowledge for friends and family – this pattern form is an ideal starting point.
Pattern Form for The Derby
It’s interesting doing pattern form for races on the Flat because, again, there are fewer variables than over obstacles – now, things like speed, stamina, sectional times and ascending form are the key factors to consider when analysing a race.
Even so, renewals like the Epsom Derby do offer up patterns and trends for punters to work with. One of the most pertinent is the obvious stall bias that unravels at Epsom – in the last ten editions of The Derby, only one horse has won with a draw lower than seven, while six of the champions have been anointed from stall ten or higher.
Eight of the last ten champions won a race in the Grade 1-3 band before, while the same number had at least two Flat wins to their name all told.
And again, class is king in The Derby, with five of the last ten winners either the favourite or second-favourite to prevail, while six of them were rated 117 or higher – discounting the ungraded 2020 champion Serpentine, seven of the last nine were rated 110+.