A reader wrote in through the contact form last week with a question that sounds simple and turns out not to be: what is a sire's place strike rate by the exact number of runners in the race? Not small fields against big fields. Five runners, then six, then seven, each on its own line. He had tried elsewhere and been offered bands.
It was a fair ask, so it is now built. The System Builder has two new breakdowns.
Field Size (exact)
Alongside the banded Field Size split you already had - 2-4, 5-7, 8-10, 11-15, 16+ - there is now Field Size (exact): one line for every exact runner count in your cohort, with runs, wins, win rate, and win-and-place on each. Search the breakdowns for "field size" and both tables come up together, which is the quickest way to see what a band is doing for you and what it is doing to you.
Take the example from the video: runners by Dubawi, colts and geldings, British turf handicaps since 2018 - just under 1,200 runs. The 5-7 band reports a 40.6% place rate. Split it exactly and six runners is 45.7% while seven runners is 37.1%. Same band, eight points apart.
Why the exact number matters
Because the place terms turn on it. Two places up to seven runners, three places from eight, four in a handicap of sixteen or more - and the place column counts them the way a bookmaker would. In that same cohort, seven runners places at 37.1% and eight runners at 44.8%. Almost eight points, for one extra runner, because the eighth runner opens a third place. Any band that spans that change averages the step away.
Race Age Band
The second addition splits your results by the race's own age conditions: 2yo only, 3yo only, 3yo+, 4yo+, and so on. These were always filters - you could restrict a system to them - but you could not group by them and see all of them side by side. Now you can. For the sire above: 40.2% in three-year-old-only handicaps, 32.7% once the race opens to older horses.
Both at once, on the Grid
Put one down the side and the other across the top and the Grid answers the whole question on one screen - runner counts against age bands, place strike rate in every cell, shaded against the system's own average. Where a cell has too few runs to mean anything it is greyed rather than dressed up as a percentage, and every figure carries the run count behind it.
A note on honesty, because it applies to the example: the cohort in the video is not a betting angle. Its own verdict strip reads market-par, and not statistically significant. What these breakdowns give you is resolution - the ability to see a real step where an average had smoothed it flat, and to judge for yourself whether the sample behind it is worth anything.
Back-tests cover every British and Irish result since January 2018 at real prices. Both breakdowns are available now in the System Builder, included with RaceMetrics Pro and Proform Premium.
