Who can use it: Enterprise and above.
What is Draw & Pace?
Draw & Pace is an Enterprise-exclusive racecard tab that cross-references historical draw position performance with running style (pace) data to identify tactical advantages for each runner. It answers the question: does this horse have the right draw for the way it likes to race?
For flat races, it analyses both draw bias and pace style. For jumps races (where there is no draw), it analyses pace style only.
How to Access
- Open any racecard and click the amber Draw & Pace tab (marked with an E badge for Enterprise)
- Data loads on demand the first time you click the tab and is cached for 30 minutes
Course DNA Banner
At the top of the tab, a summary banner shows the historically favoured draw group and running style at this course and distance — for example, "Low draws + Led style favoured at 1m (IV 1.58)". This gives you an instant overview of the tactical landscape before diving into the detail.
The draw bias is determined from aggregate LOW vs HIGH win rates (requiring at least 20 runs per group and a 30%+ difference). The pace bias uses the best-performing style from the Pace Style Stats table (requiring at least 30 runs and IV of 1.1+). This avoids small-sample outliers — the summary reflects broad, reliable trends rather than a single high-IV cell with few runs.
Pace Forecast
Based on every runner's historical running style, the system predicts whether the race is likely to be run at a strong, moderate, or slow pace. It counts how many runners are typically leaders, prominent, or held-up, and derives a pace forecast from the balance:
- Strong — 3 or more likely leaders; expect a fast early tempo that may suit closers
- Moderate — 1–2 leaders; the race is likely to be run at a fair tempo
- Slow — No clear leaders; may suit prominent racers who can steal a march
Running Styles
Every runner's historical pace profile is classified from the Proform database into three categories:
- Led — Typically races at or near the front from the start
- Prominent — Races handy, usually in the first third to half of the field
- Held Up — Typically races at the back and finishes strongly
The dominant style is determined from the horse's last 10 finished runs (a race it pulled up in or fell in is left out, as in the System Builder) with recency weighting — the most recent run carries 10× the weight of the 10th-last run. This means a horse that has changed its running style in recent races will be classified by its current style, not diluted by old career history. The percentage shown indicates how dominant that style is in the weighted profile (e.g., "67%" means 67% of the weighted total).
Draw × Pace Heatmap (Flat Only)
The centrepiece of the tab is a 2×3 heatmap crossing draw groups (Low / High) with pace styles (Led / Prominent / Held Up). Each cell shows:
- Impact Value (IV) — The large number. IV above 1.0 means that combination wins more often than expected; below 1.0 means less often. Cells are colour-coded from deep green (high IV) through amber to red (low IV)
- Win% — Raw strike rate for that combination
- Runs — Sample size (more runs = more reliable)
- Runner silks — Jockey silks of today's runners overlaid on their cell, so you can instantly see who is in a sweet spot
Draw groups use a midpoint split matching the existing Meeting Pace page: draws 1 to ceil(fieldSize / 2) are Low, the rest are High.
A gold border highlights "sweet spot" cells where IV is 1.2 or above. These are historically strong combinations at this course and distance.
Impact Value by Stall (Flat Only)
Below the heatmap, a bar chart shows the historical IV for each individual stall position at this course and distance (5-year lookback, minimum 5 runs per stall). Bars are colour-coded:
- Deep green: IV 1.5+ (strong advantage)
- Green: IV 1.2–1.5 (moderate advantage)
- Light green: IV 1.0–1.2 (slightly above average)
- Amber: IV 0.8–1.0 (slightly below average)
- Orange: IV 0.5–0.8 (disadvantaged)
- Red: IV below 0.5 (strongly disadvantaged)
Runner card numbers are shown in the stall labels so you can see which stall each runner has been allocated. Jockey silks are displayed alongside horse names in the runner table.
Pace Style Stats
A table showing how each running style has performed at this course and distance over the last 5 years, including runs, wins, win percentage, and IV. This helps identify courses where front-runners dominate or where hold-up horses thrive.
Runner Tactical Table
The main runner table brings everything together. A Table / Visual toggle switches between a traditional table and a visual mode with stacked pace bars and heatmap-coloured IV cells. Both modes are fully sortable and the toggle preference is remembered via localStorage.
All columns are sortable by clicking the header:
| Draw | The runner's stall number (flat races only) |
| Draw IV | Historical Impact Value for their specific stall at this course and distance. In visual mode this is shown as a heatmap-coloured cell (green = advantage, red = disadvantage) |
| Pace | The runner's dominant running style from their last 10 runs, recency-weighted (table mode only — visual mode replaces this with the pace bar) |
| H% | Percentage of recent runs where the horse was Held Up. Sortable — click to find the most patient runners |
| P% | Percentage of recent runs where the horse was Prominent |
| L% | Percentage of recent runs where the horse Led. Sort descending to find the most likely leader |
| Pace IV | Blended Pace IV — a weighted average of all three style IVs at this course, using the horse's actual style distribution as weights (see below) |
| Tactical | Tactical Score — a distance-weighted composite of Draw IV and Pace IV (see below). Gold highlight = best in race |
| Zone | Whether the runner is in a Sweet Spot (draw-group + pace combo IV > 1.0) or a Dead Zone (IV < 0.8) |
Visual Mode
The visual mode replaces the Pace badge with a stacked pace bar for each runner, showing the proportion of their recent runs in each style:
- Blue (left) = Held Up — the back of the field
- Amber (middle) = Prominent — racing handy
- Red (right) = Led — at or near the front
The bar reads left-to-right as back-to-front, representing where the horse typically races in the field. Draw IV, Pace IV, and Tactical Score cells are displayed with heatmap background colours matching the matrix colour scale.
Tactical Score Calculation
The Tactical Score combines Draw IV and Pace IV using a distance-dependent weighted geometric mean, reflecting research that shows draw is more critical in sprints while pace becomes dominant over longer distances:
- Sprints (5–7f): Draw IV weighted 60%, Pace IV 40%
- Mile and beyond (8f+): Draw IV weighted 40%, Pace IV 60%
- Jumps races: Tactical Score equals Pace IV (no draw component)
A score above 1.0 suggests conditions favour the runner; below 1.0 suggests they face a tactical headwind.
Blended Pace IV
In any race, only 1–2 horses can lead, a few more race prominently, and the majority are held up. This means "Led" will always have fewer historical runs than "Held Up". While the course-level IV already accounts for this frequency difference, a naive approach of assigning each runner their dominant style's IV would give a horse that leads 38% of the time the same benefit as one that leads 90% of the time.
To solve this, the Pace IV uses a blended weighted average based on each horse's recency-weighted style distribution from their last 10 runs:
Pace IV = (% Led × Led IV) + (% Prom × Prom IV) + (% Held × Held IV)
The percentages come from the recency-weighted profile, not raw career totals. This means a horse that has recently switched from held-up to prominent will have its Pace IV reflect its current style.
For example, at a course where Led IV = 1.58, Prominent IV = 1.32, Held Up IV = 1.05:
- A horse that leads 90% of recent runs: Pace IV ≈ 1.53 (benefits fully from the Led advantage)
- A horse with 38% Led, 31% Prom, 31% Held recently: Pace IV ≈ 1.34 (partial benefit)
- A horse with 80% Held Up, 20% Prom recently: Pace IV ≈ 1.10 (mostly reflects Held Up conditions)
Filter by going
The course figures can be narrowed to races run on a chosen going with the Filter by Going box. Two tick boxes beside it make the going follow each race as you move round the card, so a meeting on Heavy and another on Good each use their own ground. Both are off until you tick one:
- Today's going uses each race's own official going.
- Today's going ± 1 uses that going and one step either side, for a bigger sample: Heavy takes in Soft, Good to Soft takes in Good and Soft, and an all-weather Standard takes in Fast and Slow.
Ticking one unticks the other, and your choice is remembered.
Persistence
Your chosen sort column, sort direction, and Table/Visual toggle are all remembered across races and sessions via localStorage.
Jumps Races
For jumps races (Chase, Hurdle, NHF), there is no draw, so the heatmap and per-stall chart are hidden. The tab shows the Pace Forecast, Pace Style Stats, and the Runner Table with Pace and Pace IV columns only.
Data & Methodology
- Course-level statistics (heatmap, stall chart, pace stats) use a 5-year lookback from the current date, matching the methodology used on the Meeting Pace page
- Runner pace profiles use the last 10 runs with linear recency weighting (most recent = 10× weight of oldest), ensuring current form takes priority over historical patterns
- Data is filtered to the same course, race type (Turf/A.W./Chase/Hurdle/NHF), and truncated furlong distance band
- Per-stall stats require a minimum of 5 runs per stall to be shown (avoiding unreliable small samples)
- The draw × pace matrix filters to historical races with a similar field size (at least 60% of today's runners) to ensure the LOW/HIGH split is meaningful
- Results are cached server-side for 30 minutes