Founder & Editor · Last reviewed 2026-11-07
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See the Cheltenham November Meeting live hubOr the full Cheltenham November Meeting festival guide — dates, venue, ticketsIn 1,444 British and Irish handicaps with 16 or more runners, the horse that finished fifth started at a median price of 12/1. With a fifth place paid, a £5 each-way bet (£10 staked in all) on that horse would have handed back £20.00 at the median price, where standard terms pay nothing.
That is the number behind every "extra places" offer on a big Saturday. Standard each-way terms in a handicap of 16 or more runners pay a quarter of the odds for the first four places. Bookmakers often add a fifth, and on the biggest races a sixth. We went through our own results archive to see what those extra places were worth: who finished there, at what starting price, and what the place half of an each-way bet would have paid.
What we found:
- The horse in fifth was a 10/1-or-bigger shot in 65% of these races, and 20/1 or bigger in 30%. For comparison, the horse in fourth, the last place standard terms pay, started at a median 12/1.
- At those prices the place half on its own usually covers the whole bet. 94% of fifth-placed horses started bigger than 4/1, which is where a quarter-odds place starts paying back more than the £10 staked.
- Among horses sent off at 10/1 or bigger, a fifth place meant 31% more each-way payouts than the standard four places. A fifth and a sixth together meant 63% more.
- The extra place is still a long shot for any one horse. Of the 19,718 runners at 10/1 or bigger, 15.5% finished in the first four and 20.3% in the first five.
Every result figure on this page comes from one data file that our own script rebuilds from the results archive, so none of it is typed by hand. The method is set out in full below. To work out a single bet, use the each-way calculator.
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How we counted
Method in brief
- Source: Stablebet's results archive, built from Sporting Life results for every British and Irish meeting. Races run from 1 October 2023 to 6 November 2026.
- Races: handicaps (including nurseries) in Great Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland, picked out by race name. Where the feed also flags handicaps, which it has done for 1,799 races, the name rule agreed 100% of the time.
- Field size: horses that came under orders, not the number declared. Each-way terms are set on the runners that start, so non-runners are left out. Fallers, pulled-up horses and the rest count as runners.
- Main sample: 1,444 handicaps with 16 or more runners (26,673 runners, median field 18). 544 were in Britain and 900 in Ireland; 773 were on the Flat and 671 over jumps.
- Second sample: 5,006 handicaps of 12 to 15 runners, where standard terms are a quarter of the odds for three places, so the first extra place is fourth.
- Prices: starting price only. No early prices, no Best Odds Guaranteed.
- The bet: £5 each-way, £10 staked in all. The place half pays a quarter of the SP odds. A horse in an extra place loses the win half, so the place half is the whole return.
- Clean-up: one listing per race (24 duplicate listings in the window were dropped, matched on shared runners). Every race needed a full result to two places past the standard terms. 16 races in the main sample had a dead heat around fourth to sixth; these were paid in full.
- Small samples: any slice under 100 races is shown with its size and not read into.
All of these figures come from one script that reads the archive directly and writes them to a single data file. Run it again on the same archive and window and it gives the same figures.
What the horse in fifth was worth
Every handicap in the main sample has a horse in fifth. The question is what price it was. If fifth usually went to a short-priced horse, an extra place would pay back less than the stake and the offer would be worth little. It mostly goes the other way.
| Starting price of the horse in fifth | Horses | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 4/1 or shorter | 89 | 6.2% |
| 9/2 to 9/1 | 411 | 28.4% |
| 10/1 to 20/1 | 588 | 40.6% |
| 22/1 to 33/1 | 259 | 17.9% |
| Bigger than 33/1 | 100 | 6.9% |
Handicaps of 16 or more runners in Britain and Ireland, 1 October 2023 to 6 November 2026. 1,447 horses finished fifth; a dead heat for fourth leaves a race with no horse in fifth.
The arithmetic for one bet is simple. On a £5 each-way bet, the place half returns £5 plus a quarter of the odds on £5. At 4/1 that is £10, exactly the £10 staked. Anything bigger than 4/1 returns more than the whole bet, even though the win half is lost.
Across the sample:
| £5 each-way on the horse in fifth (place half only) | Return |
|---|---|
| At the median starting price (12/1) | £20.00 |
| Average across every horse in fifth | £25.67 |
| At the median price, if the extra place pays a fifth of the odds instead of a quarter | £17.00 |
The average sits above the median because the biggest prices pull it up: 6.9% of fifth-placed horses started bigger than 33/1. The median is the fairer guide to a typical race.
The fraction matters too. Some bookmakers reserve the right to cut the fraction from a quarter to a fifth of the odds when they add a place, and at least one major bookmaker's published rules say it pays an extra place in handicaps of 12 to 15 runners at a fifth. Read the fraction as well as the number of places before you count an offer as better.
Sixth place, and the 10/1-plus horses
Sixth place
A sixth place is rarer, and usually kept for the biggest fields. The horse in sixth started at a median 14/1, against 12/1 for the horse in fifth. It was 10/1 or bigger in 68% of races, and 95% of sixth-placed horses started bigger than 4/1. On a £5 each-way bet, the place half on the sixth would have returned £22.50 at the median price.
| Place | Median SP | 10/1 or bigger | £5 each-way, place half at the median SP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fourth (last standard place) | 12/1 | n/a | paid under standard terms |
| Fifth (first extra place) | 12/1 | 65% | £20.00 |
| Sixth (second extra place) | 14/1 | 68% | £22.50 |
Horses at 10/1 or bigger
Each-way backers mostly play at bigger prices, so we looked at those horses on their own. In the main sample 19,718 runners started at 10/1 or bigger. Under standard terms 3,051 of them were paid out on the place half. A fifth place would have paid 947 more, and a sixth another 978.
| Terms | Share of 10/1+ runners paid on the place half | Payouts against standard terms |
|---|---|---|
| Standard: four places | 15.5% | baseline |
| Five places | 20.3% | 31% more |
| Six places | 25.2% | 63% more |
Across every runner, not just the bigger prices, what the place halves paid back in total rose by 29% with a fifth place and 61% with a fifth and sixth.
Britain and Ireland, Flat and jumps
Split four ways, each slice is still over 100 races.
| Slice | Races | Horse in fifth: median SP | 10/1+ payouts added by a fifth place |
|---|---|---|---|
| Britain | 544 | 12/1 | 30% |
| Ireland | 900 | 12/1 | 31% |
| Flat | 773 | 12/1 | 31% |
| Jumps | 671 | 12/1 | 31% |
Handicaps of 12 to 15 runners, and the Paddy Power Gold Cup
Plenty of feature handicaps do not reach 16 runners. With 12 to 15 runners, standard terms are still a quarter of the odds, but for three places, so an "extra place" offer pays fourth.
We ran the same count on 5,006 handicaps of 12 to 15 runners (median field 13).
| 12 to 15 runners | Fourth (first extra place) | Fifth (second extra place) |
|---|---|---|
| Median starting price | 9/1 | 11/1 |
| Started at 10/1 or bigger | 49% | 55% |
| Started bigger than 4/1 | 85% | 88% |
| £5 each-way, place half at the median SP | £16.25 | £18.75 |
Smaller fields mean shorter prices: the extra-place horse here started at a median 9/1, against 12/1 for the fifth in the 16-plus races. It still started bigger than 4/1 in 85% of races. For horses at 10/1 or bigger, paying fourth added 46% to the number of place payouts. This is also the band where the fraction can drop: at a fifth of the odds, the median fourth-placed horse would have returned £14.00 instead of £16.25.
The Paddy Power Gold Cup
Cheltenham's Paddy Power Gold Cup is the big handicap chase of the November Meeting, and this year's running is on Saturday 14 November. It is often talked about as a big-field race, but in our archive the 2023, 2024 and 2025 runnings had 14, 15 and 12 runners. Each of those fell into the 12 to 15 band, so standard terms paid three places and an extra place paid fourth.
| Year | Runners | Fourth home (first extra place) | SP | £5 each-way, place half |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 14 | Fugitif | 12/1 | £20.00 |
| 2024 | 15 | Madara | 16/1 | £25.00 |
| 2025 | 12 | Conyers Hill | 14/1 | £22.50 |
Three runnings are three races, not a trend, so read the table as what happened rather than what will. If 16 or more go to post this year, the standard terms become four places and the main sample above is the better guide. Check the declared field and each bookmaker's terms on the day; our Cheltenham extra places page covers which bookmakers we rate pay more places at the course.
Cheltenham on its own: a small sample
Cheltenham handicaps draw some of the biggest fields of the jumps season, so we cut the main sample down to the course. It leaves 54 handicaps of 16 or more runners (1,061 runners) in the window, and 38 of 12 to 15.
| Cheltenham handicaps, 16 or more runners | Figure |
|---|---|
| Races | 54 |
| Horse in fifth: median SP | 18/1 |
| Horse in fifth: 10/1 or bigger | 80% |
| £5 each-way on the horse in fifth, place half at the median SP | £27.50 |
| Horse in sixth: median SP | 14/1 |
Both Cheltenham slices are below the 100 races we set as the floor for reading anything into a slice, so this table is a description, not a finding. A few big-priced horses in fifth can move a median a long way in a sample this size. The British, Irish, Flat and jumps figures above, each built on hundreds of races, are the ones to lean on.
What it means for extra-place offers
The data answers one narrow question well: when a bookmaker pays an extra place in a big-field handicap, the horse that fills it is usually a decent price, so a place there is worth having. Here is how to use that, and where it stops.
An extra place is worth more than it sounds. "Five places instead of four" reads like a small change. In these races it went to a horse that started at a median 12/1, and for the place half of a £5 each-way bet that is the gap between nothing back and £20.00 back.
Check the fraction. The figures here assume the extra place pays a quarter of the odds, the same as the standard places. If a bookmaker drops to a fifth when it adds a place, every place payout on the bet shrinks, not only the extra one. Our extra places explainer goes through how the offers work and which of the bookmakers we rate run them.
Check the field. Terms follow the number of runners that start. A race priced up as a 16-runner handicap that loses a non-runner drops into the 12 to 15 band, and to three standard places. That changes which horse an "extra place" is paying.
It does not make each-way a winning bet. The extra place pays the horse that finishes there, and most horses do not finish there. Of the 19,718 runners at 10/1 or bigger in the main sample, 20.3% finished in the first five. Bookmakers know the value of the places they pay and set their prices with that in mind. We used starting prices throughout; we have not measured whether the bookmakers offering extra places price those races differently, so nothing here says the offers beat the market.
For the basics of how the two halves of the bet settle, see our guide to each-way betting. For the major festivals, our Cheltenham extra places page lists the offers, and the AI Lab has tested whether each-way betting is good value as a system.
Frequently asked questions
Bet responsibly
Extra places make each-way bets more tempting on the big Saturdays, and the bets still cost twice the stake of a win bet. Set a budget before the racing starts and stick to it, and treat any free bet as part of that budget. The odds favour the bookmaker over time, however many places are paid. If gambling stops being fun, free confidential support is available from BeGambleAware on 0808 8020 133. 18+.
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