Backing the Favourite in races that bookies promote with a free bet if 2nd or 3rd

A promotion offered by bookies that is becoming more common is the free bet if your horse comes 2nd or 3rd. This type of promotion started witha free bet if your horse finished 2nd to the favourite which encouraged punters to back non-favourite horses, can they stoop any lower? one asks. Evolving from this is the promotion free bet if 2nd or 3rd which if we really think about this the logical bet would be the favourite.

Today (24 March 2023) VirginBet are promoting two races the first is at Musselburgh at 13:50 a 2 1/2 mile handicap hurdle. Using stats from Adrian Masseys website the following can be assumed to be true as he is meticulous when he complies his stats.
From 2003 to 2022 there were 17720 handicap hurdle races run in Great Britain of these just 29% of favourites won and 57% placed. At Musselburgh 32% of favs won and 57% placed. If we drill it down to distance 30% of favourites won over 2m to 2m 1furlong and 58% placed. The official going today at Musselburgh is good to soft and just 28% of favourites won on this ground and 58% placed. The figures are similar for second race of the day prize money day of the week month of the year. In all about 85% of all favourites in a handicap hurdle will either win or more likely place so again the bookies have done their homework and there is about a 58% chance that the favourite will not win but place and a 14% chance that they wont be paying out anything.
In this case The favourite won and at 3/1 The SP 2nd and 3rd favourites Maimie’s Magic (5/1) and Poppy Rose (11/2) came 6th and UR respectively.

Second race that virgin are offering their free bet if 2nd or 3rd is the 16:20 at Hereford, another Handicap Hurdle being run over 2 1/2 miles as well as being on the same good to soft ground. Hereford has a slightly lower percentage of winning favourites than Musselburgh at 29% but still an 86% chance of the favourite winning or placing over all.
In the case of this race the favourite won again at S.P. odds of 15/8. Both the 2nd and 3rd Favourites pulled up 2 out.

Today the bookies lost and I won