Grand National: why your best bet could be a female jockey
The Grand National is one of the toughest tests in horse racing, requiring nerves of steel and reserves of stamina from jockeys as they guide their charges over the towering fences.
But punters having a flutter on the biggest day for betting in British horse racing would improve their chances of winning big if they backed a female jockey, a new study has shown.
Researchers who analysed the last 20 years of jump races found a bias against women riders among gamblers, leading them to miss out on bigger payouts.
The study showed that when male and female jockeys had equal chances of winning in jump racing, the women’s odds were more profitable. No such bias was found among gamblers in flat racing, where there are no hurdles.
The study, published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, also found that gamblers have increasingly underestimated the ability of female jockeys in the past decade as they have failed to take notice of their rapidly improving results.
Vanessa Cashmore, who carried out the study at the University of Liverpool Management School, said: “Twenty years ago the consensus might have been that women were not strong enough or brave enough to ride over fences, but I think we assumed that we had moved on from this sort of gender bias.
“To discover that females are underestimated now, more so than ever, is both surprising and concerning.”
By comparing betting patterns for 68,865 races, involving 643,647 runners, Cashmore found that on average between 2001 and 2020 female-ridden horses finished one place better than their betting odds predicted.
Starting prices are dictated by the volume of bets placed, and represent the market’s opinion of each runner’s chance of winning. With the betting public displaying a clear preference for male riders, the less-supported female riders start with odds much longer than the outcome of the race proves.
“The results demonstrate significant underestimation of female jockeys in the betting market,” Cashmore said. “Bettors are effectively forgoing profit by choosing not to back female riders.”
The data on betting behaviours was a surprising result from a wider study into female National Hunt jockeys, which was funded by the Racing Foundation, whose research grants aim to drive positive change in the racing industry.
Over the past 20 years female jockeys have increasingly joined the ranks of professional jockeys but their rising representation in jump racing has been slow.
A quarter of jockey licence holders were female in the last two decades but the percentage of female-ridden horses in National Hunt has only risen from 2.4 to 6.5 per cent.
In the past five years women have enjoyed huge success in National Hunt. Bryony Frost became the first female to win a Grade 1 race at the Cheltenham Festival in 2019 and the following day Rachael Blackmore joined her ranks by winning the Albert Bartlett Novices’ Hurdle at the meeting.
On Boxing Day 2020 Frost rode into the history books again when she became the first woman to win the prestigious King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on the 20-1 outsider Frodon.
Blackmore became the first female to be crowned leading jockey at the Cheltenham Festival in 2021, with six victories including the Champion Hurdle. The following month she became the first woman to ride the winner in the Grand National on Minella Times, the fourth favourite at 11-1.
However, the study found that despite these successes, the underestimation of women riders has increased in recent years.
To eliminate the possibility that high-profile female jockeys were the driving force for the underestimation found in the data, Cashmore ran her model again without races in which Frost or Blackmore appeared. This resulted in an increased underestimation of female jockeys by bettors in the final three years of the study.
“Greater underestimation of the general female jockey population, compared to the highest-profile females, suggests that bettors are able to compartmentalise their bias,” Cashmore said.
She said the betting market “might acknowledge that there are a small number of female superstars who are exceptional” but they appear to still think deep down that the rest are worse than their male counterparts.
Cashmore said it could be the result of the betting market failing to appreciate the rate at which females have been professionalising.
Diminishing field sizes in races have driven an increased win rate in both male and female jockeys, but while the male win rate has increased by 1.8 percentage points, the female win rate has risen by 4.7 percentage points.
The study also found that when the type of race and relative rank of the rider was held as a constant, the probability of the rider completing the course was the same regardless of gender.
Last year’s Grand National saw 13 million people bet an estimated £250 million on the race, according to industry research conducted by the Betting and Gaming Council. Cashmore said analysing betting patterns can be more revealing of people’s attitudes to women because “what they stake their money on represents what their true beliefs are”.
“There aren’t many sports where males and females compete against each other and you can see the betting patterns,” she said. “You could ask people what they think in a survey but they may just tell you what they assume you want to hear.
“But by looking at how people stake their money we can uncover what people genuinely believe.”
Aintree Ladies’ Day at the Grand National — dubbed Fabulous Friday — will be held tomorrow, April 14. There is no official dress code for women but organisers have warned attendees that “Ladies Day is called that for a reason”.
“If you’re attending then you have to get into to spirit of the day and dress up. For the ladies, this means colourful dress and hats,” the Grand National’s guide states. In recent years, the day has also become synonymous with celebrity appearances, with Coleen Rooney a regular at the track.
Rooney, the wife of former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, has previously accused the press of shaming women who attend Ladies’ Day.
This article is republished from thetimes.co.uk. Read the original article here.