Statistics overview – Hedger Pro

Introduction

These guides explain what each Hedger Pro statistic measures, how it is calculated, and how to read it. Each guide starts with a short summary and then goes into more detail for those who want to dig in.

The statistics

Short name	Name	What it tells you	Guide
SG	Speed Grade	How fast a horse ran compared with a par time for the race.	Speed Grade
IV	Impact Value	How far the price came in during the race compared with what is typical for its starting price.	Impact Value
DB	Distance Beaten	How far behind the winner they usually finish.	Distance Beaten
PRB	Percentage Rivals Beaten	What share of their rivals they finish in front of.	Rivals Beaten
PD	Price Drop	How much of the possible in-play price drop they achieve.	In-play price moves
BR	Book Reduction	The in-play probability gain: how many percentage points of win chance the price gains in-running.	In-play price moves
HP	Hedge Potential	How much profit backing at the starting price and laying in-running could have locked in.	Hedge Potential
POP	Popularity	Price vs money: whether the money matched on a horse suggests a shorter or longer price than it is trading at.	Popularity

Every form figure is an average over the period you choose, so the short names do not start with A for average.

Ideas that apply to most statistics

Most statistics come in several forms: a figure for a single run, a rolling average over a period, best, worst and trend figures, a normalised 0-100 score, and a rank within the race. These all work the same way across SG, IV, DB, PRB, PD, BR and HP.

Who has form figures

Form figures are calculated for horses, jockeys, trainers and trainer-and-jockey combinations. You choose the period on the research form and on the cards table.

Entity	Periods available
Horse	6 months or 1 year
Jockey, trainer, trainer + jockey	4 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks, 6 months or 1 year

Rolling figures

A rolling figure is the entity’s average over the period before the race date. The race day itself is never included, so a figure on a past race card shows exactly what was known before that race.

Rolling figures are worked out as totals divided by totals, not as an average of daily averages. A day with five rides counts five times as much as a day with one. For example, a jockey’s rolling Speed Grade is the total of all their grades in the period divided by their number of graded rides.

Best, worst and trend

Best and worst are the highest and lowest rolling averages the entity has had during the period. They are the peaks and troughs of the form line, not single runs.

Every earlier date in the period that has a rolling figure for the entity is looked at. Rolling figures exist on the days the entity was declared to run, so this is the best and worst their form figure has been on the days they ran.
Best is the highest of those rolling figures and worst is the lowest.
Trend is the current rolling figure minus the average of those same earlier rolling figures. Positive means improving: the current form figure is above its average level over the period.
For statistics where lower is better, such as distance beaten, all three are flipped, so best is the lowest and a positive trend still means improving.

For example, a horse’s 1-year Speed Grade:

Date	Single-run SG	Rolling SG going into that date
Jan	104	100.0
Mar	96	101.0
Jun	99	99.3
Today	–	99.8

Best is 101.0, not 104.
Worst is 99.3, not 96.
Trend is 99.8 minus the average of 100.0, 101.0 and 99.3 (100.1), which is -0.3.

So best and worst sit much closer together than the best and worst single runs would.

Normalised scores (0 to 100)

A normalised score turns a rolling figure into a percentile. It is compared against every entity of the same type and the same period, not against the entity’s own history.

For example, a jockey’s 12-week Speed Grade is ranked against every jockey 12-week rolling Speed Grade, covering all jockeys on all dates. A score of 80 means it is better than about 80% of those. A score of 20 means better than only about 20%.

A normalised score is not a percentage of anything in the race. A normalised Impact Value of 75 does not mean 75% impact. It means the rolling Impact Value is better than 75% of the others.

For statistics where lower is better, such as distance beaten, the scale is flipped so that a higher normalised score is always better.

Race rankings

On race cards, runners are ranked against each other on the normalised scores:

Rank: 1 is best in the field. Tied runners share a rank.
Gap: for the top runner, how far clear of the second it is. For everyone else, how far behind the top runner they are.

Rankings are available for SG, IV, DB, PRB, PD, BR and HP, and also wins, runs and strike rate.

Which runs count

Non-runners are always excluded.
A run needs a Betfair starting price (BSP) to be included in the form statistics.

Jockeys and trainers

A horse runs every week or two. A jockey may ride several times a day. Over a period, a jockey’s good and bad rides average out, so jockey and trainer rolling figures sit in a much narrower range than horses’ figures. A middling raw figure for a jockey can still be very good. The normalised score takes this into account, because jockeys are only compared with other jockeys over the same period.