art – Betornot

Santa Anita Park

This is the first of a set of featured posts detailing the trends of Favourites racing on the U.S. Race Tracks taking into account just the distances and race types.
In the UK the considered average strike rate for winning favourites hovers around the 33% mark. This figure for Santa Anita Park, In January 2026 is an Impressive 44% with an average BSP of 2.75. Backing to a £1.00 level stake, a 2% commission was implemented on winning bets. In January there were 132 races at Santa Anita. These races produced a £17.35 profit. This is a 13% ROI (Return on Investment). This result is quite good. We can explore the stats further to try and find a better strike rate. We should keep the average odds somewhere near the same.
The table below outlines the ROI and P/L for each distance run. This data is from January 2026. The analysis starts with the distances run.

Distance	Races Run	P/L to £1.00 Level stake	ROI
5f	11	-£4.01	-36%
6f	54	£25.05	46%
7f	11	-£8.45	-77%
1m	46	£4.74	10%
1m 1f	9	-£0.34	-4%
1m 4f	1	£0.36	36%

The highest performing distance in terms of ROI is the 6 furlong races. As you can see from the table above, these races produced an impressive 25 point profit. The only other profitable distance is 1 mile with a 10% ROI. Betting on the single mile and a half race is foolish. The odds were very short on the exchange at 1.36. They would have been even shorter in the thieving sportsbooks.
Having determined the best distance in terms of ROI we can break this down further into race types. The Next Table shown below breaks down the same stats from the 6 furlong races into the 7 different race types run over that distance in January

Race Type	Races Run	P/L to £1.00 Level stake	ROI
Allowance	2	-£2.00	-100%
Allowance Claiming	12	£1.72	14%
Claiming	15	£14.72	98%
Grade 3	1	-£1.00	-100%
Maiden Races	14	£7.94	57%
Maiden Claiming	8	3.67	46%
Stakes Races	2	-£0.01	-1%

The inference here is that the best performing races where the favourites won were Claiming, Maidens, and Maiden Claiming races. If we had backed Claiming, Maidens, and Maiden Claiming races over 6 furlongs in January, we would have seen success. Out of the 37 races run, the favourites won 65% of the time. This resulted in an overall profit of £26.34 and an ROI of 71% to a £1.00 level stake after 2% betfair commission.

If we discount the 1m 4f race, the only other distance that produced a positive ROI was 1m. At this distance, 46 races gained a 10% ROI and a £4.74 profit after commission.

The Table below, as before, breaks down the different race types

Race Type	Races Run	P/L to £1.00 Level stake	ROI
Allowance	2	-£2.00	-100%
Allowance Claiming	7	£1.59	23%
Claiming	15	£2.20	15%
Grade 3	1	£2.73	273%
Maiden	8	£1.80	23%
Maiden Claiming	10	£0.07	1%
Stakes Race	3	-£1.65	-55%

There isn’t really much to shout about over this distance regarding winning favourites. As with the other non-profitable distances, it is probably betornot to bet at all.

Summary
Betting to a £1.00 level stake at Santa Anita in January would have been profitable. You would bet on the BSP favourite for each race. A reasonable profit would have been made over the course of the month. This of course is just one race track and one month of analysed data. These figures, though, have been pulled from the Betfair website. The odds can be significantly better than at the bookmakers at the official ISP (Industry Starting Price).
There are occasions where the Bookmakers favourite is different from Betfair’s favourite. This happened during the 2nd race on 2nd January. The BSP favourite was Molly Jenson at odds of 2.92. Molly Jenson won, while the bookmakers favourite, EAST BOCA KIBBUTZ, came 2nd at an ISP of 2.3 and 3.75 at the exchange!! Molly Jenson went off at odds of 3.4 at the bookies!
Skulduggery or just a betting frenzy on the exchange just before post time?

Disclaimer
These figures shown on this post are meant to guide you. They highlight the possibilities of making a small profit from backing favourites in certain races at the U.S. Tracks. I accept no responsibility for future results. They may or may not result in profits. Care should be taken to bet only what you can afford to lose.

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The ASB Classic is the first WTA 250 tournament of the year on the WTA 250 Tour. Comprising of 32 players competing for tour points and prize money that will advance their world standings as the points accumulate. As with other posts in this series I will be looking at the fate of the top eight seeded players for each tournament furthering my own research into making small profits by laying these players to a fixed liability of £1.00 (which is 10% of a starting bank of £10.00) at the Betdaq exchange, where at present I enjoy a 0% commission rate.
The top 8 seedes in order of rank were for this tournament as follows
1. Keys. M
2. Mertens. E
3. Anismova. A
4. Sun. L
5. Tauson. C
6. Raducanu. E
7. Osaka. N
8. Volynets. K

Both Mertens and Raducanu withdrew from the tournament before the start due to injury.

Round 1

With just 6 of the top 8 seeds starting the maximum loss if all seeded players won in the 1st round would be £6.00. Both the 3rd and 4th seed lost their first round matches. Sun (4) losing 6-3/3-6/6-3 and Anisimova (3) losing 2-6/6-2/6-3. The table below shows the P/L of the first round matches where each of the seeded players were laid to a £1.00 liability.

Round 1 resulted in a small loss of 34p and 4 players advancing into the 2nd round.

Round 2

With 4 of the top 8 seeds progressing into the second round and a 34p loss from the 1st round our maximum loss if all players won the second round would be £4.34. Unfortunately for our laying strategy this is exactly what happened. The table below shows just this.

A total loss of £4.34 after round 2 still leaves us £5.66 of our £10.00 bank intact and is ample to now see us through to the end of the tournament.

Quarter Finals.

The quarter finals have eventually seen the match up of 2 of our seeded players, Touson and Keys so we now know that our Maximum loss for the Quarter finals is not £4.00 as in the second round but £2.00 plus whatever the outcome of the matched up seeded players returns. This could be a profit if the favourite has short enough odds and loses or a small offset loss if she wins
In the event of it No 8 seed Volynet loses to Parks and in the Match up match between Touson and Keys, Keys was the odds on favourite to win the match but Touson won it in straight sets 6-4/7-6. This produced an overall profit of £1.95 for the Quarter Finals round as shown in the table below.

If we add this profit to our previous losses in the 1st and second rounds we still have a loss of £2.39.

Semi- Finals

With just 2 of the seeded players in the semi finals and each playing another player our maximum loss for the semis is just £2.00 if both players advance to the final. And this is exactly what happened unfortunately. Both players won in straight sets Tauson winning 6-4/6-3 and Osaka 6-4/6-2. This brought our total tournament loss to £4.39 with a similar situation as in the quarter finals where two of the seeded players play each other. The table below shows the semi final results

The Final.

The tournament organisers must have been very pleased with themselves as the seeding worked and 2 of the seeded players meet in the final but depending on which one wins will either increase our tournament loss or decrease it depending on the odds. Osaka was the odds on favourite at 1.53 and if she wins then our tournament loss would be increased. If however she were to lose to the “underdog” Tauson who had lay odds of 2.79 then we would win more from Osaka’s loss than from Tauson’s Win and it would decrease our overall tournament loss. The table below shows just what happened.

As you can see in the table we lost £1.00 with Tauson winning but we won £1.89 with Osaka becoming runner up. This gave us a 89p profit to add to our tournament loss of 34.39 giving a total of £3.50 loss. The table below shows all the lay bets made and odds with stakes for each match.

Summary

Over the whole of the tournament we would have made a total of 18 bets at £1.00 liability. The early exit of Anisimova and Sun helped preserve the bank to a certain extent and from this point a total loss whilst possible proved unfounded and left us with a workable bank of £6.50 of which we can take into the second WTA 250 tournament using liability bets of 65p.

Disclaimer

If you liked this content please “like” so I can get some feel for the effort I am putting into this being beneficial to others who are looking to make a couple of quid but no fortunes.

Please gamble responsibly and dont bet more than you can afford. The content of this post is historical fact and in no way guarantees the out come of future tournaments.

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Backing Favourites To Win