Hove is one of today's busiest venues and the trap bias data over the last 60 races makes for interesting reading. Two traps dominate: trap 4 wins at 28.8% (15 wins from 52 runs) and trap 6 at 25.6% (11 from 43). Between them, those two boxes have accounted for more than half of all recent Hove winners despite making up only a third of the runners.
At the other end, trap 5 is the cold spot. Just 4 wins from 44 runs gives a win rate of 9.1%, the lowest at the track by a wide margin. If you're backing a trap 5 runner at Hove, you're fighting the geometry of the circuit as much as the competition.
What does this tell us about the kind of dog that wins at Hove? The track rewards middle-to-wide runners who can hold their position through the first bend. Trap 4 gives a dog enough room to break cleanly without being pushed onto the outside rail, and the 28.8% win rate suggests the first bend favours dogs who can sit just off the rails and pick their line. Trap 6, despite being the widest draw, also performs well, which is unusual. At Hove, width is clearly not the penalty it is at tighter circuits like Valley or Kinsley.
The average winning time at Hove sits at 28.28. For today's card, run your eye over the trap 4 and trap 6 runners first. Dogs with a recent best time near that 28.28 mark who also draw one of those two boxes have both the pace and the positional edge. Conversely, think twice before backing any trap 5 runner unless they are head and shoulders above the field on ability. The numbers say that draw is working against them from the moment the traps open.