What does A/E mean?

A/E stands for Actual over Expected. It compares actual wins against the wins the betting market expected, so a figure above 1 means more winners than the prices predicted.

A/E stands for Actual over Expected, and it's one of the sharpest stats on the ratings because it measures results against the market's own expectations rather than a raw strike rate.

How it works

Every runner goes off at a price, and that price implies a chance of winning (a 2/1 shot is implied to win about a third of the time). Add those implied chances across a set of runners and you get the number of winners the market expected. Compare that to the number that actually won:

A/E = actual winners ÷ expected winners

• A/E above 1 means more winners than the prices predicted, so this horse, trainer or jockey has been beating the market, a value signal.
• A/E of 1 means results are exactly in line with the prices.
• A/E below 1 means fewer winners than expected, so they've been over-bet.

Why it beats a plain strike rate

A 10% strike rate sounds poor, but if those runners were mostly big prices and 10% still beat what the market expected, that's a profitable angle. A 30% strike rate looks strong, but if they were all short favourites expected to win 40% of the time, they've been losing you money. A/E cuts through that by always judging results against the price, so it rewards genuine value rather than just frequent winners.

On the ratings you'll see A/E figures in the stats columns, including the Combined A/E, which blends the individual A/Es. Every stats column is defined in the ratings columns reference.