Horse Racing Statistics

Very difficult I would have thought. Most horses that are not obviously grey are now described as bay. Brown horses no longer exist but are brown/bay : chesnuts are still around but seem to be diminishing : black 2-y-0s are usually greys but the description is not always changed : there are no roans anymore they are roan/grey at best. I wouldn't bother tbh.

It`s bad luck in racing to register a horse as black. They nearly always list them as bay. That`s why officially only one black colt has won the Derby.

ask greg gory very good with that stuff but he is rebuilding his computer

I was always taught that chestnuts are "weaker" and used to avoid backing them. My experience hasn't proved this, so nowadays I rarely take colour into consideration.

Piebalds and skewbalds are fine for cart-racing, but don't really have a great record in either the standardbred or thoroughbred world.

In fact, I often saw them go through the ring at sales with "no bid".

My personal favourite is bay with a white star on the head. I don't really believe this is a great pointer, any more than I care about white socks etc.
All part of the mythology, imo.

We used to say that a horse with silver in his tail was lucky; I think they must have meant for the boookies.

Michael Church produced some figures for classic winners in his book 'Classic Pedigrees 1776-2005' that gave the following totals for all classic winners up to that point by colour, though it does not give them as a percentage by number of runners by colour:-

Bay 614
Black 9
Brown 171
Chestnut 251
Grey 29

Trying to draw a connection between colour and ability is probably pretty futile, for various reasons, including the fact that a horses carries 2 colour genes - eg a bay horse may have 2 bay genes, or a bay gene and a chestnut gene (bay dominates chestnut). And there is no 'grey' gene - it is a deficiency in a bay or a chestnut gene that has to handed down, and be shown, in successive generations.

(There have been 2 black Derby winners)

Clear favs since 2005.

Bay      84082-28648-     34.07%       -5739.57

Brown    5258-1747-       33.23%       -410.85

Chestnut 21484-7108-      33.09%       -1661.51

Roan     94-33-           35.11%       -8.51

Bay/Brown  366-832-       35.16%       -169.30

Grey/Roan  242/86         35.54%       -9.99     

But i only have a black and white t.v.(Chromophobia ).

Thanks for the responses so far.  Pity you cannot get access to the  RP database with details of their schema and and PL/SQL tool.

Left out grey!

Grey 5816/2004     34.46%   -391.70

Innate ability does not have a colour.

Certainly on those stats Sobs.  Assuming race type makes no difference?

The profitable race types for BAY are:

Maiden Claimer Hurdle
Maiden Seller
Maiden Chase
Novices Hunters Chase
Hunters Chase
Handicap Nursery
Non-Handicap

or should I say

WERE

stats since 2003

You might well ask 'What is a Non-Handicap?'

to which my answer would be

'Well, it's certainly not a handicap'

Yeah...checked everything from ground ,distance,class etc over the years,found no bias,or ''edge'' anywhere,...but you might!

My ''research'' (limited i grant you) or interest came from my grandads belief...''always back a grey when it's soft!!"....no evidence to support this,or any other ''bias'' based on colour...he still made decent beer money from backing greys when the ''clarts'' were flying though!.

Always likely i'm wrong though.

the OP did not say anything about clear favs

My angle was something similar, greys in staying chases.   If no bias perhaps you just seem to "notice" greys more than other horses.   Or perhaps just particular sires skewing the figures on a temporary basis.

...back to the form study

Well type bay into your horseracebase.

2015
bay 11.10%
brown 10.77%
black 7.94%
chestnut 10.25%
grey  10.46%
roan 13.22%
2014
bay 10.99%
brown 10.32%
black 11.70%
chestnut 11.01%
grey 10.89%
roan 13.22%
etc..etc ...et cetera

The profitable race types for GREY WERE:

Claimer Chase
Claimer Hurdle
Novices Claimer Hurdle
Handicap Nursery Seller
Maiden Hunters Chase
Handicap Maiden
Novices Hunters Chase
Hunters Chase
Handicap Novices Hurdle
Claimer
NH Flat
Novices

''skewing the figures on a temporary basis''

===============================================
As with all systems.

Roselier would have have been responsible for more than a few of those 'soft ground staying greys'. Like Sunybay and Wild Can Ridge, for instance. Though although he was grey himself, not all of his offspring would be grey, of course, so if you wanted to study a connection between colour and racing ability - as he was a long-standing, and well-used and successful sire, you could focus on him alone, and study both his grey and his non-grey progeny.

*Wild Cane Ridge

I can remember a bit of Ken Payne's book, where apparently Lester Piggott said to him that horses by Klairon were worth looking at, 'especially the black ones'. I think perhaps he bought Kithairon on that basis - who turned out to be his most-regular moneymaker (or maybe it was all b0llocks - I was young when I read it!).

I don't see why colour should not be a serious criterion

seeing as systems don't work anyway