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Racecourse Guides›All Weather›Southwell
Racecourse Guide

Southwell
All Weather

Rolleston, Nottinghamshire · 15 miles north-east of Nottingham

⚫ All WeatherTapetaLeft-HandedFloodlit
Shape
Oval 1m2f circuit
Straight
5f
Home Straight
3f
Surface
Tapeta
Direction
Left-Handed
Track Type
Galloping
Also at Southwell

Southwell also stages National Hunt racing. Read the National Hunt racecourse guide →

Track Breakdown

Course Overview

Southwell’s all-weather track runs around the outside of the National Hunt turf course at Rolleston in Nottinghamshire, left-handed and flat across a mile-and-a-quarter oval. The geometry matters: two tight bends, each with a slight camber built into them, feed into long back and home straights. The old Fibresand was renowned for resembling American dirt, and the shape of the circuit still reads that way — but the surface that earned the comparison has been gone since 2021. The three-furlong run-in is long enough to expose a leader who has spent too much early. How much early position matters depends on the trip — most in the sprints, least at the staying distances — and the pace section below sets out what the published Tapeta figures actually show.

The track opened its all-weather chapter in November 1989 with Fibresand — a deep, demanding surface that became synonymous with course specialists and kickback problems. Southwell pioneered Fibresand in Britain, and once Wolverhampton replaced its own Fibresand with Polytrack in 2004 it was the last Fibresand racecourse left in the country. Yards within an hour’s drive — Mick Appleby the prime example — turned it into a production line. Then, in December 2021, ARC relaid the circuit with Tapeta, aligning Southwell with Newcastle and Wolverhampton. The pace dynamics shifted. Front-running stayed particularly effective over the shortest trips, but the Fibresand-wide premium on raw early speed went with the surface, and restrained rides became viable across the card.

“A lot of my horses acted better on Fibresand than any other surface. Year after year we bought horses specifically to race on it — but the biggest challenge now is to find those that will be just as effective on the Tapeta there.”

— Mick Appleby, eight-time All-Weather Champion Trainer, At The Races

What Tapeta did not change is the track’s core character: stamina counts. The long straights mean horses work hard for longer than on the tighter UK ovals. The five-furlong races use a dedicated chute to produce a genuinely straight sprint — the only straight-course distance at Southwell — and that is where draw matters most. From six furlongs the round-course bends and the pace generally shape the race far more than stall positions — with one exception, the mile in fields of eleven or more, where the high third of the draw holds a clear edge. In longer handicaps, pace shapes everything. A race run at a genuine gallop over ten furlongs tends to sort out the genuine stayers. Repeated course-and-distance form is useful evidence of suitability here: a horse that has already proved it handles this surface and this shape has removed one uncertainty the form book elsewhere leaves open.

Southwell All-Weather course map

Track Specs

  • SurfaceTapeta (since Dec 2021; Fibresand 1989–2021)
  • Circuit1m2f flat oval, left-handed
  • Straight5f via chute/spur
  • Home Straight3 furlongs
  • Track TypeGalloping — long straights, two sharp bends
  • FloodlightsLED, installed 2019 — the first LED lighting system on a European racecourse
  • Fixtures79 allocated for 2026, both codes — plus meetings transferred in from Chelmsford

Track & History

  • 1898Racing opened on the current Rolleston site — first meeting 16 May
  • 1989Fibresand AW track opened — Britain’s first Fibresand surface (Lingfield’s Equitrack, opened nine days earlier, was the UK’s first year-round all-weather circuit)
  • 1994All-weather jump racing discontinued on safety grounds
  • 2012Flooding forced temporary closure; fixtures transferred to Wolverhampton and Lingfield
  • 2013Reopened February 5 following major renovation
  • 2019LED floodlights installed, enabling evening racing year-round
  • 2021Tapeta surface laid; first meeting December 7
  • 2023The River Greet burst its banks on 20 October during Storm Babet, leaving the track under water; racing returned on 24 November after the Tapeta passed a BHA inspection and trial gallops
  • 2024Tapeta refurbished following the 2023 flooding
Pace Analysis

Do front-runners win at Southwell?

Southwell changed character in December 2021, when the Fibresand that made front-running so hard to oppose here was replaced with Tapeta. The old surface threw up heavy kickback and punished anything asked to come from behind; the new one does not, and horses ridden with restraint are now genuinely viable here. Any pace read built on pre-2022 form is describing a track that no longer exists.

The geometry still favours being handy. The turns are tight, with a slight camber built into them, and the home turn gives only three furlongs to the line. Only the five-furlong trip is straight, run off a two-furlong spur that meets no bend at all, and that is where early speed counts for most. Everything from six furlongs up is run on the round course with at least one turn to negotiate, and the further the trip the more of the oval is in play. Around a bend what matters is being able to hold a position; whether the best one is actually in front or just behind the pace changes with the trip, and the figures below are the reason to check rather than assume.

Run Style Bias — Qualitative Only

▲ Front-runners

Strongest at 5f

─ Prominent

Lowest A/E in the 2024 cut

─ Mid-division

Viable since Tapeta

▼ Held up

Viable at the staying trips

Treat these bars as directional — a reading of how the track rides rather than a statistical measurement. Figures that mix the Fibresand and Tapeta eras describe neither. The fullest published distance-by-distance run-style study of the new surface — geegeez, November 2022, covering the first 293 races from 7 December 2021 to 30 September 2022 — agrees at the sprint trips and warns against extending them: front-runners dominated at 5f and kept an edge at 6f, did badly at 7f, were neutral at 1m, and were beaten by hold-up horses at 1m3f and beyond. The per-trip splits are much smaller than that headline count — the 7f read rests on 32 handicaps, and the author’s own conclusion there was that run style “is not a factor I would consider too deeply over this distance at Southwell”. Read the whole study as a pointer from the surface’s first ten months, taken before the 2024 refurbishment, rather than a settled answer. A later geegeez piece, published on 4 December 2024, went back to the sprint with more of the Tapeta era behind it and reinforced the strongest of those findings: on handicaps of seven or more runners since the surface changed, Southwell’s straight five comes third in its top-ten list of all-weather front-running biases, with front-runners returning an A/E of 1.6 and front-running favourites winning 43.9% against under 19% for held-up favourites. Read the rest of that cut too: the same piece puts the trip’s prominent A/E lowest, so over five furlongs the edge is in the lead itself rather than in merely being handy. No first-party run-style pull has been run for Southwell.

Draw Analysis

Does the draw matter at Southwell?

Draw Bias Strength by Distance
Stars rate the strength of a directional bias — ★ mild, ★★ moderate, ★★★ strong. Non-directional reads (Broadly Fair, No Clear Bias, Conflicting, Unstable) carry no stars.
Measured on the TAPETA era only — handicaps of eight or more runners since the surface was relaid in December 2021 — with the draw cut into thirds inside each field size and cross-checked against the value returned by each quarter of the draw. The Fibresand figures that used to sit here described a surface that no longer exists. Samples are honest but young: 150 to 220 races per sprint trip. They also straddle the 2024 refurbishment of the Tapeta after the 2023 flooding, so where a signal is marginal it is worth asking whether it survives in the more recent data. Higher bar = stronger signal.
5f — Straight
151 races
Low Draw ★
6f — Round
216 races
No Clear Bias
7f — Round
217 races
No Clear Bias
1m — Round
220 races
Broadly Fair (big fields differ)
1m3f — Round
73 races
Too Thin To Call
5f — Straight Course
Low Draw ★
151 handicaps of eight or more runners on the Tapeta. The straight chute takes the bends out of the equation, and the low numbers do hold an edge — by thirds of the draw, cut inside each field size, low runs at an impact value of 1.09 against 0.89 for high. But it is a lean rather than the lottery it is often called, and it is field-size dependent: in fields of eight to ten the low third runs at 1.18 against 0.85, while in fields of eleven or more the advantage disappears entirely (0.99 / 1.08 / 0.94). The Fibresand-era bias was stronger than this. Treat a low draw as a positive handicapping factor in an eight-to-ten runner field, and downgrade it sharply in a bigger one.
6f — Round Course
No Clear Bias
216 handicaps on the Tapeta. One left-hand bend redistributes the field early and no stall block holds a usable edge: impact values of 1.02 low, 1.11 middle, 0.87 high. The middle third is nominally best and the high third worst, but that pattern appears at neither 7f nor 1m, and there is no mechanism at a one-bend trip that would produce a middle-of-the-draw advantage. Pace and run style decide these.
7f — Round Course
No Clear Bias
217 handicaps on the Tapeta. The extra furlong gives the field time to sort itself out before the bend, and the figures say so: impact values of 1.02 / 1.06 / 0.92 across the three thirds. The Fibresand era showed a real high-draw lean here; on the new surface it has not carried over, which is a good illustration of why pre-2022 draw data at Southwell is worth very little.
1m — Round Course
Broadly Fair
220 handicaps on the Tapeta, and fair overall at impact values of 0.97 / 0.98 / 1.04 — but this is the one trip where field size changes the answer. In fields of eleven or more the high third runs at 1.34 against 0.85 for the low across 118 races, a wide enough split to matter. One plausible reading is that the early bend and the extra bunching of a big field compromise the lowest stalls, but what the figures establish is the tendency, not its cause. Fair in a small field; a genuine high-draw lean in a full one.
1m3f — Round Course
Too Thin To Call
Only 73 handicaps of eight or more runners since the relay. The raw split leans low, but 73 races are not enough to separate a bias from noise, and the Fibresand-era figures for the same trip pointed the other way. We would rather give you no call than a confident one built on seventy races. Stamina and pace are the variables here in any case.

Strong bias — material handicapping factor

Moderate lean — worth noting

Broadly fair — not a primary factor

Statistics · Since 2010

Which trainers and jockeys win most at Southwell?

TrainerRunsWinsWin%PlacesPlace%A/EP/L
1 Appleby, M194726713.71%67934.87%0.85-519.65
2 Dixon, Scott16401267.68%41225.12%0.78-369.61
3 Fahey, R A85511713.68%27331.93%0.91-175.03
4 Burke, K R53810519.52%21740.33%1.05+114.96
5 Ellison, B62110316.59%24339.13%0.97-75.57
6 Ryan, K A5008116.20%18537.00%0.95-52.62
7 Shaw, D835809.58%21926.23%0.94-129.51
8 Balding, A M4237718.20%19044.92%0.83-92.46
9 Barron, T D3837619.84%16041.78%0.98+20.67
10 Carroll, A W6867410.79%20129.30%0.86-13.86
11 Evans, P D5867112.12%18130.89%0.88-131.10
12 Bowring, S R5537012.66%18132.73%0.96-81.57
13 O’Meara, D5356812.71%17432.52%0.78-158.13
14 Smart, B4626714.50%16836.36%0.95-5.74
15 Easterby, T D5036512.92%15029.82%1.02+20.71
16 Furtado, Ivan657639.59%17827.09%0.90-204.59
17 Herrington,M4646012.93%15733.84%1.00-24.36
18 Jenkins, J R591589.81%17729.95%0.78-160.07
19 Carroll, D3635615.43%12333.88%1.12+17.60
20 Tate, James2075526.57%11555.56%1.09+56.76

Southwell AW, since 2010. Michael Appleby dominates the winner count (267 from 1,947) but at a 13.71% strike rate, A/E 0.85 and £519.65 down — the biggest trainer loss on the page and a caution against reading the leader as an angle. Scott Dixon is worse per runner at A/E 0.78 across 1,640 runners. The largest yard profit belongs to K R Burke: 105 winners from 538 at 19.52%, A/E 1.05 and +£114.96. Four more names sit at or above an A/E of 1.00 — Declan Carroll 1.12, James Tate 1.09 (26.57% from 207), T D Easterby 1.02 and M Herrington 1.00 — while T D Barron (19.84% from 383, +£20.67) and Brian Ellison (0.97) sit just under it. Below the table, Miss Laura Morgan has returned +£84.88 from 32 runners at A/E 1.69 and D E Cantillon has won 14 of 29 — a striking rate on a short book. One thing to hold on to when reading any of it: these figures start in 2010, so they cover twelve Fibresand seasons against four on the Tapeta. The page’s own warning about carrying Fibresand form across applies to the people as much as to the horses.
Southwell AW · Current trainers, since 2010
JockeyRunsWinsWin%PlacesPlace%A/EP/L
1 Morris, Luke166517210.33%48729.25%0.73-625.66
2 Eaves, Tom11921179.82%32627.35%0.86-223.28
3 Mullen, Andrew96411311.72%31032.16%0.82-346.99
4 Curtis, B A57811119.20%22138.24%1.08+116.95
5 Hart, Jason7499512.68%24933.24%0.91-137.75
6 O’Neill, K T903849.30%26829.68%0.95-103.36
7 Rawlinson, Ali6258413.44%19831.68%0.86-152.79
8 McDonald, P J6747911.72%21732.20%0.85-138.51
9 Mulrennan, Paul6057512.40%18129.92%0.92+7.94
10 Muscutt, D4747315.40%17536.92%0.99-84.42
11 McHugh, B5177013.54%15930.75%1.03-74.41
12 Ryan, Rossa4226816.11%17040.28%0.81-101.03
13 Edmunds, Lewis5986711.20%16727.93%0.91-170.58
14 Tudhope, Daniel3596618.38%14941.50%0.92-37.06
15 Havlin, Robert3586618.44%13938.83%1.02+33.78
16 Probert, David4676012.85%15332.76%0.82-100.28
17 Sousa, Silvestre De2945819.73%11539.12%0.98-48.00
18 Lee, Clifford3855714.81%14838.44%0.95-60.29
19 Sullivan, James P689568.13%17024.67%0.89-51.61
20 Doyle, Hollie4475512.30%15133.78%0.77-154.16

Southwell AW, since 2010. Luke Morris again heads the volume and the losses — 1,665 rides, 172 winners, £625.66 down at A/E 0.73, the weakest sustained rider figure on the page. That is a historical record against SP, not a lay system. Ben Curtis is the standout the other way: 111 winners from 578 at 19.20%, A/E 1.08 and +£116.95, the biggest rider profit here — though he moved to the United States in 2023 and has ridden there since, so it is a record of the old track rather than a live booking angle. Robert Havlin (+£33.78 from 358 rides at A/E 1.02) and Paul Mulrennan (+£7.94) are the only others in profit. Andrew Mullen (A/E 0.82) and Tom Eaves (A/E 0.86) are both heavy losers on big books. As with the trainers, the window opens in 2010, so these are mostly Fibresand numbers on a track that has raced on Tapeta since December 2021.
Southwell AW · Current riders, since 2010
Sire Statistics · Since 2010

Which sires do best at Southwell?

SireRunsWinsWin%PlacesPlace%A/EP/L
1 Exceed And Excel (AUS)6669213.81%24236.34%0.88-102.47
2 Dark Angel (IRE)6928912.86%23533.96%0.87-140.54
3 Kodiac778719.13%21026.99%0.76-163.35
4 Mayson5357113.27%17532.71%0.94-78.61
5 Oasis Dream5507012.73%16429.82%0.93+19.63
6 Dandy Man (IRE)6606710.15%17726.82%0.82-223.01
7 Invincible Spirit (IRE)5096412.57%15129.67%0.86-128.89
8 Acclamation659629.41%18027.31%0.76-116.27
9 Monsieur Bond (IRE)4456213.93%16035.96%1.09-81.83
10 Kyllachy5406111.30%17031.48%0.91-110.79
11 Showcasing5185811.20%15329.54%0.89-79.37
12 Iffraaj4475712.75%13931.10%0.89-61.77
13 Mehmas (IRE)3815714.96%14437.80%0.96-6.33
14 Piccolo3795715.04%13535.62%1.20+52.41
15 Pivotal3035618.48%11437.62%0.99+15.06
16 Dubawi (IRE)2375523.21%9841.35%1.02+68.39
17 Equiano (FR)3725013.44%12734.14%1.03-45.55
18 Footstepsinthesand3275015.29%11133.95%1.03-29.91
19 Captain Rio3704512.16%11932.16%0.96+7.84
20 Shamardal (USA)2584517.44%10942.25%0.87-65.03

Southwell AW, since 2010. That window opens twelve years before the Tapeta went down, so most of what this table measures is Fibresand — read it as the pedigree history of a surface that no longer exists. Exceed And Excel leads the winners (92 from 666) at A/E 0.88, with Kodiac and Acclamation (both 0.76) the weakest returns among the volume sires. Five names in the top twenty clear an A/E of 1.00: Piccolo is clear best at 1.20 (15.04% from 379, +£52.41), then Monsieur Bond 1.09, Equiano and Footstepsinthesand both 1.03, and Dubawi 1.02 — the last of those also the biggest profit in the table at +£68.39. Outside the top 20, Proud Citizen (27.03% from 37, A/E 1.90), Chevalier (+£57.75 from 22) and Theatrical (13 wins from 18) all read well on books far too short to build a rule on.
Southwell AW · Since 2010
How to read these tables. The figures are a first-party pull for this course and code covering runs since 1 January 2010, taken as a snapshot rather than updated live. A/E compares actual wins with the wins implied by starting price, so a figure above 1.00 means the group has won more often than its SP suggested. P/L is profit or loss to £1 win stakes at starting price.
Major Races

Which big races are run at Southwell?

Southwell’s black-type programme is new. The BHA’s Flat Pattern Committee moved two Listed races here for 2025, both from Newcastle, and both are run in late November. With one Southwell running apiece there is no course-specific race trend to read yet — approach them as high-class Southwell races rather than as races with a Southwell history.

The November Listed double

  • Churchill StakesListed, 1m3f. At Lingfield from 2000 to 2023 and Newcastle in 2024; first run at Southwell on 28 November 2025, won by Dubai Honour
  • Golden Rose StakesListed, 6f. The same route — Lingfield to 2023, Newcastle in 2024, Southwell from 2025, where Royal Zabeel won the first running

The Winter Derby is history here

  • 2024–25Southwell staged the Group 3 Winter Derby and the Listed Hever Stakes, on a two-year loan from Lingfield Park
  • 2026The BHA confirmed the transfer of that February fixture back to Lingfield when the trial ended, so the Winter Derby is not a Southwell race now
  • Read acrossWinter Derby form run here in 2024 or 2025 is still Southwell Tapeta form — it is just not a pointer to a race that comes back
Betting Angles
🏃

Early position — strongest in the sprints

The three-furlong home straight gives a closer real time to get at the leaders, but the tight bends come first: a horse that loses its pitch on the turn spends energy recovering it before the straight even begins. Early speed counts for most at the shorter trips, and it is the one Southwell finding two separate geegeez studies agree on: the 2022 distance-by-distance work found front-runners dominant over the straight five and still ahead at six, and a December 2024 review put the straight five third in its top-ten list of all-weather front-running biases at an A/E of 1.6. It does not extend around the whole card — the 2022 study had front-runners doing badly at 7f and hold-up horses on top at 1m3f and beyond — so prefer a horse likely to lead in the sprints, and read the pace map rather than a blanket rule at the longer trips.

🎯

Low draws in the 5f sprint

The straight chute takes the bends out of the equation and the low numbers hold a real, measurable edge on the Tapeta — an impact value of 1.09 against 0.89 for the high third across 151 handicaps of eight or more runners. Two qualifications that matter more than the headline. It is a lean, not a lottery: the Fibresand-era bias was stronger than what the new surface shows. And it is field-size dependent — worth 1.18 against 0.85 in fields of eight to ten, and gone entirely in fields of eleven or more. A high-numbered stall in a moderate sprint field is a genuine negative; in a full one it is close to irrelevant.

📍

Mick Appleby — course knowledge, not a price

Appleby’s yard sits near Oakham in Rutland, under an hour from Southwell, and he has supplied more winners here than anyone: 267 from 1,947 runners since 2010. Read that as knowledge of the place rather than as an edge over the market — across the same runners his A/E is 0.85 and the book is £519.65 down to level stakes, so the price has long since made the allowance. The useful part is his own account, above, of having bought horses specifically for Fibresand and then having to work out which of them would take to the Tapeta. He is worth reading. He is not worth backing blind.

🔄

Course and distance specialists

The specific surface profile — neither as quick as Kempton’s Polytrack nor as wide-open as Newcastle — filters out horses that don’t genuinely like it. Give proven Southwell form real weight, particularly where a horse has reproduced its best figures here more than once. One condition attached since December 2021: it has to be Tapeta form. A course record built on Fibresand is no evidence a horse handles the track as it is now.

💪

Stamina at 1m3f+ — and a rider who conserves it

The long home straight exposes horses running on borrowed time. A track that looks flat and easy but isn’t can tempt riders into going too hard too soon, and a strong early gallop leaves prominently ridden horses vulnerable late. The early Tapeta figures point the same way: over 1m3f and beyond it was the hold-up horses that came out best. A proven stamina profile and a rider willing to conserve it are what to look for at these distances.

📊

Read the rider table as history, not as a booking guide

The rider figures on this page start in 2010 and therefore cover twelve Fibresand seasons against four on the Tapeta. Ben Curtis holds the biggest profit on it — 111 winners from 578, A/E 1.08, +£116.95 — but he moved to the United States in 2023 and rides there now, so that is a record of the old track rather than a rider you can back here. Luke Morris rides the most and carries the weakest return (1,665 rides, 172 winners, A/E 0.73, £625.66 down), which is a past result against SP rather than an instruction. Until a Tapeta-only pull exists, no rider on this page has been shown to beat the market on the surface Southwell actually races on.

⚠ Common Mistakes to Avoid
  • Treating Tapeta as interchangeable with Polytrack. The surfaces share a synthetic base but the track profiles reward different horses. Kempton form does not transfer automatically to Southwell and vice versa. Each page of form needs to be read on its own merits.
  • Over-weighting draw on the round course. Beyond the straight 5f, stall position is largely irrelevant at 6f and 7f. The exception is the mile in a big field: with eleven or more runners the high third of the draw outscores the low by 1.34 to 0.85, so the one round-course draw angle that matters runs the opposite way to the sprint rule. Elsewhere, pace and running style are the variables.
  • Ignoring course specialists. Southwell’s specific surface profile filters hard, and a horse with multiple Southwell wins on the Tapeta is telling you something concrete. That is evidence the horse handles the place. It is not, on its own, a price — the market can read a course record too.
  • Carrying Fibresand form into Tapeta assessments. Pre-December 2021 Southwell all-weather form is largely irrelevant as evidence of suitability for the current surface. The two surfaces reward different horses. Any analysis treating a Fibresand run as proof of suitability for the current track is working from a false premise.
Common Questions

Southwell Racecourse FAQs

Is there a draw bias at Southwell?
Only over the straight five furlongs, and more mildly than its reputation suggests. Measured on the Tapeta alone — handicaps of eight or more runners since the surface was relaid in December 2021, with the draw cut into thirds inside each field size — the low third runs at an impact value of 1.09 against 0.89 for the high across 151 races. That is a lean, not the stall lottery it is often described as, and it depends on field size: worth 1.18 against 0.85 in fields of eight to ten, and gone altogether in fields of eleven or more. Beyond 5f the round-course bends redistribute the field and 6f and 7f are both close to fair. The one genuine exception is the mile in a big field, where with eleven or more runners the HIGH third outscores the low by 1.34 to 0.85 — the opposite of the sprint rule, and the reason it pays to check the trip before applying a draw angle here. Older Fibresand-era draw figures describe a surface that no longer exists and should not be carried across.
Which way does Southwell race, what surface is it, and what kind of track?
Left-handed, flat, and galloping, on a mile-and-a-quarter oval that runs around the outside of the National Hunt turf course, with two tight bends — each carrying a slight camber — feeding long back and home straights. The surface is Tapeta, laid in December 2021 in place of the Fibresand that ran from 1989; Wolverhampton also used Fibresand between 1993 and 2004, after which Southwell was the last Fibresand track in the country. It was the Fibresand, not the shape of the circuit, that earned Southwell its reputation for resembling American dirt. The three-furlong run-in is long enough to find out a front-runner who has emptied, and the early Tapeta figures had hold-up horses coming out best over 1m3f and beyond, so a closer is far from helpless here — but position still counts for most in the sprints.
How does Southwell’s Tapeta form transfer to other all-weather tracks?
Carefully, and not by surface label alone. Tapeta and Polytrack share a synthetic base but the track profiles reward different horses, so Kempton or Lingfield Polytrack form does not transfer to Southwell automatically and vice versa; read each line on its own merits. Within Tapeta, Southwell still rides differently from Newcastle and Wolverhampton. One of the most useful positive signals is course-and-distance form here: this surface and this shape filter hard, so a horse that has already won over course and distance on the Tapeta has told you something no other line of form can. Fibresand course form does not count for that purpose.
Which trainers and jockeys do best at Southwell?
Read the tables with their window in mind: they start in 2010, so they describe the Fibresand years more than the Tapeta ones. Mick Appleby, an eight-time All-Weather champion based under an hour away near Oakham, has supplied far more winners than anyone else — 267 from 1,947 — but at A/E 0.85 and £519.65 down, so he is course knowledge rather than a price. The best returns against SP among the top-20 yards belong to Declan Carroll (A/E 1.12), James Tate (26.57% from 207, A/E 1.09) and K R Burke (19.52% from 538, A/E 1.05, and the largest yard profit at +£114.96). Among the riders Ben Curtis has the biggest profit (A/E 1.08, +£116.95) but has ridden in the United States since 2023. Scott Dixon, David O’Meara and Luke Morris all sit well below 1.00, which is a historical result against SP rather than a current opposition system.
What is the biggest mistake punters make at Southwell?
Over-weighting the draw on the round course — and misreading which way it runs. Beyond the straight 5f, stall position is largely irrelevant at 6f and 7f on the Tapeta; the one exception is the mile in fields of eleven or more, where the HIGH third of the draw outscores the low by 1.34 to 0.85, the reverse of the sprint rule. Assuming the low-draw sprint logic extends around the bend is the error. The other classic since December 2021 is carrying Fibresand form into Tapeta assessments. The two surfaces reward different horses, so a pre-2021 Fibresand run is no proof a horse will handle the current track — and that applies to draw statistics just as much as to form.

Explore

Other All-Weather Tracks

Kempton Park

Polytrack — prominent racers and a handy draw.

Lingfield Park

Polytrack — one of the strongest low-draw biases.

Chelmsford City

Tight Polytrack — pace and a low draw.

Newcastle

Tapeta — galloping straight mile, sharp round track.

Wolverhampton

Tight Tapeta — speed from a low draw.

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