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Horse Racing People to follow on Twitter

/in , /by

Original post published 26th March 2012. Latest revised list published 1st February 2018

The Racing Post last Friday published a controversial list of 'Racing's Top Tweeters'. It listed the top hundred racing personalities, by number of followers.

So why was it controversial? Well, in my opinion, anything which is based on quantity over quality must be flawed. I mean, imagine if there was a 'racing's top blogs' based on the same notion. geegeez would be very close to the top... I rest my case! 😉

As an example, the number one racing personality according to the Racing Post, was Michael Owen! Yes, you know, the occasional footballer and occasional racehorse owner, Michael Owen. Number four was Alex Hammond. Very attractive, especially as a twitter-follower-magnet... but adding value? Come off it.

So, partly in rally against such a lazy piece of journalism (in my opinion), and partly because I'd love to encourage a few more of you into the tweet space (for reasons I'll share at the end of this piece), here is my strawman top twenty-t'ree Twittery tweeters.

By strawman, I mean this is intended as a starting list, which is up for discussion. It is based on a subset of the people I follow, and of course there are squillions of others out there, many of whom will also be worth following. So, where you see a glaring omission, leave a comment, and I may update the list. It's my aspiration to create some sort of living guide to the top tweeters.

I should say that I've deliberately omitted any trainers or jockeys, largely because anything they say which is worth knowing gets re-tweeted by some of the below. And trainers and jockeys generally tweet a load of old crap around the occasional important snippet. (There are probably exceptions but I've yet to find any. I welcome suggestions in this space).

[Note, with respect, I'd encourage you to suggest other people's twitter feeds rather than your own. Thanks!]

To sign up for a Twitter account, just go to https://twitter.com/ and follow the (very simple) prompts.

As and when you're a registered user, you can follow my suggestions below - should you so wish - by clicking their @name, and then clicking the 'Follow' button that appears in the newly opened window. Simples, as a certain fictional meerkat of dubious origins might say.

OK, to business. Here's my starter list...

Official

@BHAPressOffice

They say: The official twitter feed of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA).
I say: what they said! A great resource to keep abreast of top table goings on in British racing.

@BHAStewards

They say: Official feed of the British Horseracing Authority Stewards. Enquiries, notices and raceday information.
I say: A one stop shop for stewards' reports, jockey changes and other important/instructive raceday updates.

@RCAGoingReports

They say: Daily going reports across all tracks from the Racecourse Association. Information correct at time of posting.
I say: My first port of call each morning when I'm having a bet. Latest going as of the morning of racing.

@HBFBritain

They say: Horseracing Bettors Forum. Officially recognised voluntary body representing views/concerns of those who bet on British horseracing.
I say: Increasingly credible lobby group for British punters. Good source of news updates on progress. [Full disclosure: I have been a Forum member since its inception]

@PJAOfficial

They say: The PJA supports professional jockeys and promotes, protects and represents their interests and welfare.
I say: Useful source of jockey-related info, usually at the general level.

Media

@geegeez_uk

They say: Geegeez is the #1 independent UK racing site, with its Gold service offering leading edge form tools, and a proven profitable tipping service.
I say: Yes, all of that. And so much more.

@LydiaHislop

She says: Racing fan. And journalist. Stalker update: Lie Forrit, Taws & Djakadam are used to it. Beware, Vanishing: you're my latest fixation. I miss Antigua Sunrise.
I say: Articulate, honest, passionate, knowledgeable. Everything I believe a racing journo should be. Top class. Easy enough on the eye too… (can I say that?!)

@RacingTrends

He says: Irish Horse Racing punter. Form, pace, video analysis. Write for ,  and . Contrary bastard.
I say: Top scribe, always thought-provoking, always data-driven, often found on the virtual pages of geegeez.co.uk.

@LegLockLuke

He says: Muck out, ride out, and talk about horses on radio and television for a living. Just started producing, filming and editing on my own and loving it....
I say: Luke Harvey. Lovable joker. Occasional buffoon. Deservedly won the 2017 HWPA Broadcaster of the Year award.

@TonyPaley

He says: Guardian and Observer racing editor
I say: A bit ‘establishment’ perhaps, but then he has a serious day job to jeopardize. Also a hopeless PNE romantic (as all fans of lower league football should be).

@ClaimsFive

He says: Write about horse racing for The Guardian. Just looking for the next winner. "A journalist of no doubt good repute" (BHA barrister)
I say: One of the most determined journos in the game (apols for damning with faint praise somewhat), and a solid value judge to boot.

@Greg_Wood_

He says: Racing correspondent. Brighton & Barca fan. Love baseball too. All views mine.
I say: The third brain at Guardian. Strongly held views, always well articulated. Covers much of the overseas action for his 'paper.

@LeeMottershead

He says: Racing Post hack generously voted racing journalist of the year by some ever so nice people. A lover of the gee gees, Strictly Come Dancing and home baking.
I say: Just about the only Racing Post journalist worth reading (sad but true), and surely not long for that world as the bright lights of TV will tempt him away. Eloquent, erudite, and just a little bit soft. Lovely.

@MCYeeeHaaa

He says: TV presenter on Attheraces and ITV Racing. 2010 HWPA Broadcaster of the Year. Winner of the 2010 Racing Post Broadcasters' World Cup.
I say: Matt Chapman. As you can see from his blurb, not shy when it comes to self-promotion. And of course not shy when it comes to broadcasting. Extremely well-connected modern day Thommo, which is probably the biggest back-handed compliment I can pay anyone. In any case, an occasional guilty pleasure. I do enjoy his opinionated candour.

@Tony_Calvin

He says: Freelance betting journalist/consultant/tipster./broadcaster.
I say: Opinionated. Lover of value longshots, and sometime guardian of the betting markets.

@HonestFrank

He says: Journalist. Interests include horse racing, football, Olympics.
I say: Francis Keogh. The sort of feed for ‘you heard it here first’ news, often in the wider sporting context.

@DavidJAshforth

He says: ex-various things.
I say: Unquestionably one of my favourite racing journalists ever. Now dealing with serious illness, and sharing the bittersweet battle in typically sanguine fashion. Top tweeter. Terrible tipster. 😉

@Helynsar

He says: Timeform Radio pundit, Cheltenham resident, new husband, hopelessly optimistic broodmare owner.
You say: Rory Delargy. Knows his nags, not a prolific tweeter but always makes sense

@kevinblake2011

He says: Ex-Timeform/J R Gask. Now freelance racing journo (RP, Irish Field etc), horse breeder, business owner and kickboxer. Topped the 2011 Irish Field Naps Table.
You say:  Very knowledgable, outside-the-box views, ATR blogs worth a read

@NickLuck

He says: Broadcaster and Writer...  ; Director ; 
I say: Consummate broadcaster, establishment voice, perennial gong-winner

@GCunning12

He says: The Racing Club, Hong Kong.
I say: Former RUK stalwart, currently exiled in Hong Kong. Often pithy interjections on UK racing, Man City and rugby league

@SurfnTurfRP

He says: Associate editor at the Racing Post. Facilitating exponential change (nice one that, got it out of a mag). Opinions etc
I say: One of the wittiest racing writers you probably don't know about. Always worth looking out for his weekly column.

@RacingPost

They say: Keep up to date with the latest racing news & enjoy our great competitions. Followers must be 18+. 
I say: A great account to keep up to date with the latest racing news.

@AtTheRaces

They say: The biggest horse racing channel in the UK and Ireland - on TV, online and on our award-winning app
I say: Some really good video snippets, as well as updates on ATR-covered racecourses

Form judges

@RowleyFileRRR

He says: Freelance racing writer and form/time analyst. Chips into: Timeform, ATR, Irish Field, others. Chair HBF. Fellow RSS, Judicial Panel.
I say: Simon Rowlands. Some very interesting analyses of racing from outside of the usual spectrum of interpretation, as you'd expect from one of the top number-crunchers in the game. Colleague (chairman) on Horseracing Bettors Forum.

@DavidJohnsonTF

He says: Horseracing mainly, work as Flat Editor for . Enthusiastic only about running these days, despite perennial injuries. My views, not my employers
I say: Obviously sound judge of flat racing.

@EddieTheShoe

He says: Racing, football, occasionally cricket.
I say: Eddie Fremantle. Former Guardian journo, now freelance with RUK and others. Fulham fan and forthright racing analyst.

@Bickley14

He says: Full time sports punter/analyst and writer/broadcaster on RUK. Most sports esp racing, NFL, cricket, rugby league and football. Former Betfair staff.
You say:  Tweets plenty of interesting stuff and because he travels to different meetings each day is good for updates on travel problems and any other live snippets from the course. Very good on the NFL too, if you like that sort of thing.

@FinalFurlongPod

They say: Horse Racing's favourite Podcast previewing the biggest races with an array of special guests.
I say: Excellent craic, strong opinions, and generally thought-provoking as well as laughter-inducing.

Bloggers

@Mattbisogno

He says: Horse racing publisher, syndicate manager and punter. Creator of the Geegeez Gold next gen formbook... Opinionated, vocal and frequently wrong. AFC Bournemouth.
I say: You don’t need me to tell you what I’m like. You already know well enough! My Twitter presence is a bit more ‘snapshot’ (i.e. less considered) than most of my blog ramblings. Might be worth a look though.

@TenEmbassy

He says: Writer of the Daily Punt, monthly writer for Betting Insiders, bits & pieces for Radio Winchcombe, Normally mooching on a racecourse somewhere.
I say: Smart guy. Funny guy. Nice guy. Eminently readable output!

@NarrowTheField

He says: Author of Horse Racing Trends book 'Narrowing The Field - Using The Dosage Method to Win at National Hunt Racing' - Member of the Twitterati, owners of Trending.
I say: Ben Aitken. ‘Hairy Ben’ as I call him. Dosage guru, trends analyst and all round hairy man. Prefers jumps to flat, but then, don’t most people?

@HawkWing2002

He says: Lucky enough to have worked in Ballydoyle, studied Equine Science in U.L & now working with ATR. Blogger for Paddy Power. Big sports fan too, Man Utd & Tipperary.
I say: Declan Rix. Interesting perspectives on Irish horses, and the sort of chap likely to reply to your questions. Twitter should, in my opinion, be about access / information, and Declan fulfils the remit.

@TonyMacRacing

He says: Trends compiler. Highlights are The Festival and York Ebor meetings. Proud to have owned a winner in MISS WIZZ.
I say: Tony McCormick. Trends analyst, and owner of Irish Big Race Trends. (Strong) opinions, and also writes the popular Each Way Double Dutch thread on the Gold Forum…

@MalcolmBoyle2

He says: I wrote the first book ever written about betting on football Win At Fixed Odds Football Betting back in 1993 with nine subsequent horse racing books penned.
I say: Our own placepot and stats man, Mal tweets  some interesting snippets on the racing most days.

@AntepostPunter

He says: Managing to eke out a profit in the clandestine world of UK racing. Any info provided is given in good faith but in Racing things can change at short notice.
You say: Very, very useful! Reveals declarations

@AdamWebb121

They say: Average racing fan. Work for the Press Association. One For Arthur's biggest fan. Views my own and not of my employer.
You say: People with such a passion are always worth listening to and Adam looks at things differently.

Others

@Rods_Tweet

He says: CEO of Great British Racing & British Champions Series Ltd. Husband. Dad . Seagull. Avocado farmer. Runner.
I say: Rod Street. The man behind Racing For Change and Great British Racing. Partly responsible for racing’s recent renaissance. Rod is a keen tweeter, and often shares interesting titbits from the wider world. Just fancy that!

@GeorgePrimarolo

He says: Law and horse racing.
I say:  Tongue in cheek generally, and from good Italian stock (or, at least, Italian stock!)

@JamesAKnight

He says: Racing. Betting. Other.
I say: Coral head of racing trading. Frequent tweeter, often deliberately antagonistic. Usually gets a bite from somewhere...

 

 ********

As I said, I'm keen for more of you to dip your toe into the warm Mediterranean waters of Twitter, and savour sound bites in easily digestible format from your favourite racing bods, and perhaps even me! 😉

To sign up for a Twitter account, just go to https://twitter.com/ and follow the (very simple) prompts.

As and when you're a registered user, you can follow my suggestions above - should you so wish - by clicking their @name, and then clicking the 'Follow' button that appears in the newly opened window. Simples, as a certain fictional meekat of dubious origins might say.

And if you're already connected on there, do leave a comment/suggestion below as to who you reckon is well worthy of a 'follow'.

Thanks!

Matt

Tony Keenan: The Bookmakers’ Perspective

/in /by

The bookmaker-punter divide is one where the boundaries are permeable with many people playing both sides, writes Tony Keenan. Ian Marmion is one such example: Ian has worked with a number of the big betting companies as well as punting professionally for a time; and, along with some friends, he has a few horses in training, not least Ch’Tibello with Dan Skelton.

Much of what I write for Geegeez tends to be punter-centric but it is worth remembering that there are multiple sides to any story. With that in mind, Ian was kind enough to give me his thoughts on the state of the betting industry at present as well as on how racing interacts with it.

 

Let’s start with some biography Ian, what’s your background and how long have you been working in the betting industry?

I suppose I was always a keen punter and got into the industry with various jobs like a cashier and betting shop manager.  I then worked in the raceroom at Paddy Power before moving to Victor Chandler where I progressed through the company, coming back to start operations in Ireland in 2005 when we go some pitches and shops. I thought I was home for good but one day I was over in Gibraltar for a meeting and having been very critical of the firm’s trading policy (which I felt was antiquated) I was asked by Victor to sort it out!

In truth, I was a mug punter up to that point, though I was strong numerically and had a good eye for product. We had a lot of high-stakers and lead accounts, which is very different to how that firm operates now, and I was able to educate myself on how to win. We were aggressive punters in the market and I was following others’ opinions but learning plenty. Over a period of years it got to a point where I was making more money punting than working and having had a tempestuous relationship with Victor I thought I was good enough to give it a go full-time.

I reckoned my bets were coming from about 30% what I got in Chandler’s, 40% other contacts I had made along the way and 30% my own opinion though I probably got that pie wrong! It started badly as I had two consecutive losing months for the first time in a long while but it soon turned around and I was at it full-time for five years.

My skill was getting money on, that’s what I was good at. I was doing business for warm punters with about 10 lads in shops. They’d be ready to go at 10 in the morning, know what shops to do at 10.15, get the message what to bet at 10.30 and have everything done by 11. Getting on is as important a skill as picking winners.

 

You’ve since come back into the betting industry proper; what was your reasoning for stepping back from the punting and joining BetStars as trading director with their sportsbook?

There were a few different reasons. With the punting, I was getting a bit sick of it and some of the developments in the game weren’t helping. It was certainly harder to get on with overnight pricing killing a lot of what we did in the shops in the morning, and the machine [Betfair] was definitely getting more of a grip on Irish racing. Where once we were getting twelve monkeys [£500 at 12/1] at half-ten in the morning, now it was three hundred at 7s. With BetStars, PokerStars were launching a sportsbook and it was going to be based in Dublin; I thought if I turn this down I’m never going back to Ireland and I’m here three years in which time the punting has taken a back-seat.

 

The elephant in the room is account restrictions so we may as well deal with that. When I talk to punters, rightly or wrongly, it’s the only issue they want to discuss. Now maybe there’s some selection bias there as I talk a bit to people who have an idea what they’re doing but restrictions are happening. What are your thoughts on them, both from a work perspective and personally?

With BetStars, we are a new sportsbook so we’re trying to attract customers and inevitably you attract sharp business first. Our horse racing runs profit to 4% return after Best Odds Guaranteed, 7% before BOG which is reasonable and we’ve restricted about 6% of customers this year. Recreational customers have a typical profile. They bet in or around your average stake, they play a good mix of singles and multiples, they tend to do multiples early and singles off the show and they tend to play on higher grade racing. As a new entrant we get a lot of customers that fall outside this typical profile. We don’t have many punters who bet in or around our average stake of €xx [redacted] who we have to restrict. Typically there will be a blatant reason to restrict them and more often than not that blatant reason will be they are arbers.

I’ve been both sides of the fences and for many reasons – cost and technology for example – undoubtedly the quality of trader is not what it once was. There is a part of it where ‘arbers’ is just an excuse where a trader doesn’t want to make a difficult decision, playing lads that aren’t inside the model. That said, I don’t think this is a problem for the tenner and score punter in shops and even online but outside of that, there’s a nervousness and good punters do get caught up due to lack of skills in trading rooms. However, bookmakers have no obligation to feed money to pros or non-recreationals, arbers or bonus abusers.

When I’m looking at it, there are a couple of reasons I wanted to bet a punter. Firstly, when I had a fair chance of beating him and secondly if he told me something I didn’t know myself and that includes bets to a reasonable size.  I didn’t want followers or people just following the machine; you’re not going to beat them and they’re not offering you anything. You can have some winning accounts but you don’t need to pay everyone for the mark.

As for the punting side, a friend says to me that people who can’t get on don’t work hard enough. If you’re that serious and hard-working about it, you’ll get around it. There aren’t as many recreationals as we know it left and, while everybody always criticises bookmakers in saying that they won’t lay without looking at the machine, nobody ever says that the same is true for punters who won’t strike a bet if it is bigger on the machine. We’ve reached a point where nearly every single bet we strike is borderline with the machine price, which is basically borderline zero margin price.

 

Let’s go into a little bit more detail on some of these things. Line tracking seems to be the new term for arbing and people at it are copping plenty of flak. Is there much of this going on and can it be done with computer programs?

Punters can do this robotically with programs like OddsMonkey which flag up arbs and automatically places the bets for you. [I ask at this point doesn’t this business stand out a mile.] The biggest industry that has grown up around it is the show arbers, playing off show not earlies. There’s a significant time lag on show and machine prices, where you might have someone backing a horse at 5/2 that is 3.4 on the machine and that business can look square.

I actually think it’s impossible to lose betting show arbs on the front two or three in market with best odds guaranteed as the bookies are betting overbroke. And that’s a scourge for the ordinary punter that people don’t really think about. Recreational punters have to lose to enable some of that money to be distributed to the winners.

 

Some people have suggested that a minimum bet or lay-to-lose guarantee could be a way to go. How would the maths of that stack up?

We have to ask ourselves if can we sustain a minimum bet guarantee without altering the experience of the ordinary punter and I don’t think we can. If minimum bet guarantees came in then best odds guaranteed would have to go and margins would have to increase. Ordinary punters have never had it so good and the fact is that most punters never reach a limit. Increasing margins might well satisfy people who aren’t the typical punter but you would have to remove concessions too. Maybe those who are better than the market would be better off but the ordinary punter won’t be.

 

You’ve mentioned overnight prices earlier. What are your thoughts on them?

They’re the single biggest tool in the bookmakers’ armoury at present as they’re getting to 10am when they typically increase limits and open shops and have prices right for two-eighths of nothing. No one is getting on to any size bar a few VIPs who are big long-term losers and in effect they adjust after every bet and keep adjusting until they get it right. The firms don’t win on overnights and even pre-10am bets and are actually happy to lose as when the limits are upped they are more confident about their prices. Remember, the vast majority still play on the show with the breakdown being roughly 70% show, 30% earlies.

 

On the subject of punters beating you are there any cardinal sins that they can avoid or that make them stand out? And if you don’t like their business, do you think there would be any point in having a yellow card-type system where they are warned about how they are operating?

Customers who consistently beat the Betfair SP are impossible to beat long-term. They are buying something for a dollar and selling it for a dollar ten. Followers who are price sensitive and just follow warm money either because it drops under on the machine or because they work in a trading room offer no long term value. Customers who abuse antiquated systems like traditional each way terms or Rule 4 are no good to you either.  On the subject of bad each-way, a lot of that is a problem with the system and the rule 4 model is broken too, completely out of date. If I had my way, I’d get rid of each-way terms and have separate win and place books. There would be a correlation between the win book and the place book but there would also be changes depending on the make-up of the race. The each-way system is too entrenched though and another thing we’d be better with is decimal pricing as 6/4 to 13/8 is too big of jump, what about 2.55 or 2.6?

I don’t mind anyone having the conversation about how they are betting. We don’t do this well as an industry and this is where the skill deficit is coming into play. You should be good enough as a trader to look at an overall basket of goods to see he’s getting the better of me overnight but not overall. So I can’t let him win the lot overnight but you can have more on the show. The problem is when you get restricted with most of the firms, BetStars included, it doesn’t matter what you want to bet on, whether it is the Gold Cup or a seller at Lingfield, which makes no sense.

Technology has contributed to this in a big way. More and more firms don’t have a call centre and make hard and fast rules about limits to be applied online. A few have an over-ask tool that allows you to request bigger bets but it’s generally not afforded to non-recreationals.

 

In the past year or so, regulation has become a much bigger deal in the UK. How do you think the industry is responding to this?

Responsible gambling has become a massive part of our industry though I do think it’s important to say that being a high staker and being a problem gambler are different things. For some people, big stakes are normal. There are plenty of important developments going on in UK at the moment including staking limits on FOBTs, the Gambling Commission and firms being held accountable for responsible gaming.

As an industry we’ve been let get away with too much for too long. I had a boss who used to say ‘never feel sorry for them [punters]’ but in this day and age that’s not acceptable.  Gambling is 24/7, and punters have access to so many opportunities to feed an addiction. I know it sounds hypocritical of me to say I’m anti-FOBTs when I get my living from people losing money but I’m not a fan of them. They prey on a demographic that shouldn’t be preyed on. There’s a counter-argument that they can go online and do it just as easily but I’m not so sure they can as you need debit cards and access to funds in a bank account.

I remember reading an article about FOBTs where a manager in a William Hill shop said ‘I’ve never seen anyone play them happily’ and that about sums it up for me. Obviously they are an incredible money-making machine with over half of Ladbrokes’ profit from them and you saw the impact of reducing the stake limit had for the GVC bid for Ladbrokes Coral. Personally, I’d much prefer to see 1,000 punters lose a tenner than one lad lose €10,000 as it’s just more sustainable. Stuart Kenny [one of the founders of Paddy Power] was an absolute visionary in this regard as he wanted the punter to go away thinking he got value for his few quid, it was something he intrinsically believed and it was him who came up with money back specials and such like.

 

Racing remains a big part of your life, Ian, and you have a number of horses in training, not least Ch’Tibello with Dan Skelton. I always thought it was a little unusual that you opted to have your horses trained in the UK rather than at home in Ireland, allowing that Skelton is excellent. What are the reasons for that?

There are two reasons. When we got into them, we were abroad and it didn’t matter while latterly, it’s too hard to win a race over here. Dan has trained about 105 winners this season for 40 different owners but with the stranglehold the pair of boys [Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott] have over here, Ch’Tibello would struggle in graded races so there is a better chance of him winning one in the UK.

The punting opportunities are better too. It’s impossible to get on in the mornings in Ireland but you have half a chance of getting on in the UK. We landed a small touch with one last January and got to back him at midday when he was still 25/1 which would never happen in Ireland.

I was at Fairyhouse for Bar-One day earlier this month and there was a great crowd and atmosphere but it was like Jebel Ali with the same colours going around race after race. Maybe I’m being negative but I can’t see us winning graded races over here; though it must be said that what Elliott has achieved is incredible and we all should have stood up and noticed when he won the Grand National way back.

 

What do you think racing is doing right at the moment and where do you think it could improve?

For one, we’ve so much more wrong with the game than the declaration of wind ops. I think racing and betting are one and the same and we need to look at changing the demographic of who is going racing. In Ireland, we’re not too bad at it but in the UK you have silly stuff where they won’t let you into the owners and trainers without a tie. I would abolish enclosures and some of the entrance prices in the UK are ludicrous.

From a betting point-of-view, integrity is still an issue. With Douvan and the Tingle Creek, Altior and Nicky Henderson it is more transparency than integrity. Racing is competing for the betting euro with sports that have 24/7 transparency or at least the perception of such, football being the main example. If that is their expectation then it’s important that we try to emulate that. The ordinary guy in the street thinks racing is crooked to start with, which he doesn’t think that about a football game, and racing needs to work against that notion. The younger trainers are much better at this but we need to reach a level of transparency where when an owner tells a trainer to stop a horse, the trainer tells him to eff off.

The bad racing during the week has integrity issues. Battle-hardened punters know how to factor that into equations and to use it in the decision-making process but if we’re trying to attract an ordinary guy to spend his leisure pound on us, it’s never going to happen. Maybe racing just doesn’t have a product that it can sell to a punter Monday to Friday. Football is the one that is targeting the betting pound more than any other with the good stuff spread out over the week, group races most days in racing parlance, where we’ll have dross Monday to Friday.

I don’t know if this is practical but perhaps we should have a more concentrated programme, less racing but better racing. Some of the issue is horses rated 45 on the flat that are simply useless; what are they even running for, they shouldn’t be able to get into races. If they were not able to get into them, they’d as soon not be bred and the industry would be better off in the long-term after a period of pain.

 

I know you’re not a fan of the bookmaking firms using trainers and jockeys to provide content through blogs, and your horses with Dan Skelton don’t run under the Ladbrokes sponsorship that his yard has. What’s your thinking here?

I don’t think from a transparency point of view that bookies should be sponsoring trainers and jockeys. For the ordinary guy in the street who don’t forget thinks racing is bent anyway, this looks terrible; how many guys told you Ruby jumped off Annie Power? Optics is the big word at the minute. Nor do I buy the content argument that they are providing material that engages people in racing; if that were so, why aren’t they doing it for Geegeez or the Sporting Life or for free? It’s for money.

The firms are doing this for marketing first and foremost, you are associating your brand with something premium which is always a plus. Bwin did this well with Juventus and Real Madrid a while back and people believe in you instantly when you associate your brand with another premium brand. I don’t take any of them seriously as I don’t believe you’re ever being told anything significant.

 

Let’s wrap up with a final question: Where do you see the industry going in the future? I listened to a podcast recently with Marco Blume of Pinnacle where he said e-sports were their sixth biggest market which I couldn’t believe. Is this the case and what else is coming down the line?

I think the e-sports stuff is a lot of spin. I don’t believe in them as a fixed-odds betting product, it’s like badminton in terms of turnover. Pinnacle might be trying to popularise it, Marco Blume has a background in that area, and to be fair the age of your typical e-sports punter is lower than that of football, 27 and 40 in our case. It makes sense trying to make a go of it in that regard but I don’t buy it. Mind you I didn’t think cash-out would work so I’ve not exactly got a strong pedigree in this area!

There are massive changes coming in football around how markets are done and presented. The whole Request-A-Bet stuff will be automated and we need to remember that football betting looks the way it does because that’s how a football coupon looked in a shop 40 years ago. We still tell punters what they want to bet on but in 6 months’ time punters will tell you what they want to bet on. They will be able to drag in what they like to bet on. The maths isn’t the most difficult aspect of this, it’s the tech that is the hard part with issues of how you present it and do it quickly.

We are all trying to convert betting into gaming where the punter can circulate his money, bet on next corner, throw-in or goal. Nobody has got this right yet but it’s coming.  The thing is when a punter has a bet on the win-draw-win in football, he is dead for 2 hours. I’m not sure how this would work with racing, perhaps with punters who miss the off or are waiting for a bet to settle or have had a faller in a race and want plough back in again. This appeals to the young demographic who want things quickly. We are a world that doesn’t read anything anymore and is so used to 140 characters, and punters are naturally the same.

The views expressed above are the personal opinions of Ian Marmion and not necessarily representative of The Stars Group.

Tony Keenan (twitter: @racingtrends) was talking to Ian Marmion (twitter: @marmobet), sports book trading director for BetStars

New to Gold: Report Angles

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Today, I'm pleased to introduce you to the latest Geegeez Gold feature, Report Angles.

As part of our commitment to extend greater flexibility and configurability to Gold users - in plain English, to let you do more of what you want to do! - we've created an aggregator for all reports. You can set it up as you wish, or not at all if that's your wish.

More details are in this video, and in the article beneath.

N.B. All angles are turned OFF by default. Read/watch on to discover how to turn them ON.


Report Angles: Overview

 

Report Angles highlight content from Gold’s existing set of reports against today’s runners as displayed on the racecards.

That is, for each report, there are now – as of December 2017 – a group of pre-set parameters which, when matched, will be flagged against a runner on the racecard.

Using the example from above, the Trainer Statistics report might have the following pre-set parameters for its Type 1 (i.e. 14 Day Form) sub-report:

  • 10+ runs
  • 30%+ wins
  • A/E 1.25+

Where a runner satisfies those criteria, it is highlighted on the racecard as such. There will be pre-sets for every report sub-type, e.g. Trainer Stats report will have four pre-sets, one each for 14 Day, 30 Day, Course 1 Year, and Course 5 Year.

Users will be able to select any or all of the pre-sets to be displayed on their racecard views. They will also be able to edit or restore to default the pre-sets. However, a user may only have one custom view of each report sub-type.

Report Angles are automatically built into the ‘My Report Angles Settings’ page. Users have the ability to activate, deactivate, amend or restore to default each Report Angle. They cannot create new Report Angles, however.

 

Report Angles: My Settings

Users can select, de-select, amend and/or reset the Report Angles configuration on the My Report Angles Settings page. However, users cannot create or delete Report Angles, though they can disable/enable them.

The page is found at https://www.geegeez.co.uk/reports/my-report-angles-settings/ and looks like this:

The Report Angles Settings page displays the report titles (i.e. TJ Combo, etc) on the left-hand side, with settings displayed for the selected report sub-types (e.g. 14 Day, 30 Day, Course 365 Day, Course 5 Year).

For each report/type combination, there are editable parameters as per that report’s individual report page. For example, below are the editable parameters for four sub-types of TJ Combo report:

N.B. Different reports have different parameters – users are advised to check each one individually, at least the first time they configure the settings.

At the bottom of the screen are three blue bars. The first, “Save Settings”, enables a user to save any changes made within the selected report.

The second, “Reset Defaults”, reverts the selected report to the ‘factory settings’. The third, “Reset All Defaults”, reverts all reports and sub-types back to their default settings.

N.B. These defaults are NOT optimal. Rather, they are presented as a balance between limited data and too much data appearing in the report. Users are encouraged to experiment with the settings to find the appropriate volume of report output.

Each report sub-type has a tick box next to its name. Selecting/de-selecting the ticks will include/exclude a sub-type from the report and racecard view.

Clicking the on/off buttons top RIGHT will select/de-select all tick boxes for a report.

Clicking the on/off buttons top LEFT will select/de-select all tick boxes for ALL reports.

 

Report Angles: The Report

Once a user has selected and/or activated report angles and parameters, all qualifying runners will appear on a report on the My Report Angles screen. The report looks like this:

 

Each row in the report table is clickable, and will open the race in question in a new window. All columns are sortable to enable users to configure the view to suit personal taste.

 

Report Angles: Racecard Inline

The racecard has been updated with a new ‘report’ icon, containing a numerical indication of the number of angles matched. Clicking the icon will reveal inline the qualifying Report Angles, as in the below example.

There is also a new icon with a ? in the top icon menu. Clicking this icon will open Report Angles in the card for all runners. Clicking again will close them.

 

Getting Started with Report Angles

By default, all Report Angles are switched off. To turn them all on, use the 'ALL On' button top left on the Report Angles Settings page. Alternatively, and preferably, take a few minutes to set the Angles up as you would have them.

The default settings, when all Report Angles are switched on, can be seen in the below table.

 

Report Angles are intended as an aid to successful betting; they are not to be used as an end in themselves. That is to say, Report Angles may highlight interesting elements about certain runners but, as with all other approaches, a more holistic consideration of the puzzle will always yield better results.

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy this new feature as much as I have been during the testing stage.

Matt

10 Things I think about the Betting Industry

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The betting industry has been getting about as much coverage as Brexit negotiations in the past month or so and at times it seems about as complex; so if you’re expecting a unified view on the subject you are in the wrong place, writes Tony Keenan. That said, I’ve tried to read most of the coverage and have thoughts on a number of areas within the subject that might be worth mentioning so I’m going to ramble on and see what comes back from readers.

 

One: The Issue

Aside from any views I have on the content of the betting industry coverage in recent weeks, it is a good thing that the area is being addressed at all. In this period, there has been discussion on the AtTheRaces Sunday Forum and with Bruce Millington on Racing UK’s Luck on Sunday along with articles on account restrictions, the work of the UK Gambling Commission, the David Evans/Ladbrokes case and so on.

This cannot be a bad thing as there are lots of punters, winning and losing, who have issues with how the industry is being run. It is difficult to make any progress without discussion and hopefully this media engagement with the industry will continue.

 

Two: Who cares about restrictions?

There is a belief out there, perhaps propagated by bookmakers, that few people have any interest in the workings of the betting industry, particularly with regard to restrictions; we are often told that the vast majority of punters get their bets out without issue and it is only a few vocal customers who have been restricted who care about the issue. I could not disagree more with this.

Maybe it’s naïve of me to think so but I’ve always believed that bookmakers, to some degree at least, are in the business of selling hope, whether it is the hope of having one’s opinion validated or the hope of winning money. Even the most unprofitable punter hopes that one day he will win and the thought that this may be impossible due to restrictions is not an appealing one.

Furthermore, stories of trading practices that may be less than ethical or at the very least skirt into grey areas are interesting for the wider, non-betting public to read about. Bookmakers and their various hues of blue, red and green are ubiquitous on our high streets with betting becoming big business and now more socially acceptable than ever; the demographic of your local betting shop has likely become more diverse in the last few years. When I speak to non-betting people about the idea of restrictions, they are invariably fascinated and surprised by the practice and to say that this is a non-story is a gross misrepresentation of the reality.

 

Three: Insiders

I have never worked inside the betting industry with the closest I came to getting a job in one of the companies when I got sacked from a cashier’s job with Sean Graham before I even started; there was confusion over the date of first day rather than anything more sinister! Thus everything I write here lacks insider knowledge and is inevitably biased towards the punter. The one thing I find irritating however is when punters suggest a change in the industry only to be told by those working inside it that their ideas could never work.

Perhaps they are correct but many of these industry insiders are less willing to put forward ideas that might help improve their product and can become quite uppity when challenged on this; it’s almost the ‘how many races have you traded’ argument! On a related point, one of the most interesting things to emerge from Bruce Millington’s appearance on Luck On Sunday was his comment – and I paraphrase – that the betting industry is not set up to write monthly cheques to former employees of the bookmaking firms. I sometimes think that these sorts of punters might be about the most dangerous for the bookies in the modern betting landscape; they know the systems and models used but more importantly they know their weaknesses and are really playing anything but a fair game with the layers.

 

Four: Winning recreational punters

Another thing that piqued my attention in the Millington interview was his comment about the ‘clued-in, recreational, price-sensitive punter’ who should be permitted to win somewhere between two and five grand in a year. I realise Millington was on the spot and likely pulling figures out of thin air but perhaps he has thought deeply about it and believes these are valid numbers and I certainly wouldn’t disagree.

They are far from outlandish in terms of profit and I strongly suspect that such a punter would give plenty back to racing in terms of things like subscriptions to TV channels and digital media, purchasing a Racing Post a few days a week or simply going racing. In short, they are exactly the sort of enthusiastic customers racing wants. I would however by very doubtful that such punters are avoiding restrictions and, speaking to other gamblers, it does seem to be the case anecdotally.

 

Five: Self-Regulation

Ireland and the UK are two different betting jurisdictions and have different levels of regulation, with the level of control in the latter becoming much stronger through the Gambling Commission who have made some major rulings on things like terms and conditions and treatment of customers who self-excluded. There is no such body in Ireland though HRI chief executive Brian Kavanagh has recently called for something similar here.

The one thing I cannot understand, in the UK but especially in Ireland, is that the major firms have not gone down the road of some form of self-regulation and are essentially leaving themselves open to the whims of government. The current political setup may be inclined towards the industry but there are more left-leaning parties who are much less in favour of racing and by extension gambling and might indeed take great pleasure in installing draconian measures on the industry. At the moment there seems to be a free-for-all but that period without regulation could come to an end at any point and bookmakers may regret not installing some of their own measures of control when that time comes.

 

Six: Irish Racing Integrity

In a recent interview with Johnny Ward in The Times, Brian Kavanagh commented that ‘it would be fairer to all’ if bookmakers would not restrict bets on Irish racing. Personally, I would love that but it is a very strange comment and one that seems to take no cognisance of the integrity issues, real or perceived, that dog Irish racing.

There has to be some give-and-take with the HRI and the bookmakers and I suspect that our horse racing rulers have much more of a take-and-take approach to the big firms, constantly appealing for betting tax increases but offering little in return. The share of betting turnover in Ireland that is actually on Irish racing is relatively small and I would question what HRI have done to grow this market.

They have promised sectional times at all tracks in January 2017 and they remain undelivered, seemingly failing to understand that richer data gives betting markets more solidity. The new running and riding regulations (applied by the Turf Club) are often challenged and overturned, and rules around drug testing remain unsatisfactory. With Irish racing, the issue is perception and, while I think our racing is much straighter than many believe, what the wider betting public believe is important and you have to try to do something to redress the balance.

 

Seven: FOBTs

We are constantly warned not to conflate the argument about FOBTs and restrictions on horse racing which is fair enough but I do find it hard to get past a visceral, deep-seated loathing of these machines; as a horse racing punter who wants to play a gambling game of skill, I find these games of chance pointless as you simply cannot win over a period of time.

FOBTs are not in Ireland and there seems to be little appetite for them here though it is worth pointing out that society in general is becoming more automated; Paddy Power shops all over the country have recently been fitted out with more betting terminals though in this case they are used for sport only which is obviously fine.

There are those who argue that there is no reason why Irish shops should not have FOBTs, taking a libertarian view that people should be allowed to spend their money in whatever way they wish provided no one is harmed. Sometimes however people need to be protected from themselves and that is what a proper society should do, paternalistic though that may seem.

 

Eight: Too many markets

As of last Thursday at 5:16pm, there were 63,524 markets available to bet on with 888Sport across 37 sports, though admittedly almost 51,000 of those were on football; the reason I choose this company was ease of calculation as they tell you how many markets are up in each category but the number of betting opportunities is hardly unusual for the big firms.

It is not unreasonable to wonder what is the point of all these markets and who do they serve? Many of them are derivative and take little effort in terms of creation; a team total in a US sport is derived from a combination of the spread and overall total while a without the favourite market in horse racing simply comes from removing the market leader from the betting. Yet even so, one has to suspect that some of the bookmakers are on a hiding to nothing with these and they could be ripe for exploitation allowing that many will have low limits and hefty overrounds; from the point of view of sheer numbers, they have to be difficult if not impossible to monitor.

One of the best podcasts I listened to recently was an interview with Marco Blume, Director of Trading at Pinnacle Sports, on the Business of Betting where he basically said he had little or no interest in endless sub-markets, pointing out that the vast majority of their business came in the big three markets of outright, handicap and total.

The Pinnacle model has proved hard to replicate and likely is impossible in horse racing where wild price moves are common but his views on the huge number of markets seem valid. No bookmaker can reasonably trade thousands of markets and it seems they are only trying to price them up because everyone else has. Herd mentality in bookmaker business seems deep-rooted.

 

Nine: Line-tracking

Line-tracking seems to be the new buzz concern for bookies; for those that are unclear on what line-tracking is, it means taking a priced with a fixed-odds firm when the selection is trading below those odds on the exchanges. Simon Clare on the Sunday Forum implied that there is an army of these methodical line trackers out there, ‘a sea of punters’, some real and some robotic, seeking to take advantage of this approach.

That may be the case but it is easy to see how an ordinary punter could be misclassified as such; in effect, we are all line-trackers as it essentially means being price-sensitive which can hardly be seen as a sin. For instance, let’s say I fancy a horse that is running later in the afternoon and I decide to wait until later to back it, holding off until liquidity enters the exchange markets or I can get to a betting shop. That plan goes out the window when a major tipster puts up the selection, someone like Andy Holding or Gary O’Brien with a big following, and I need to make a move now to back it or else I will miss the price entirely.

The selection was my own but if I think the odds are wrong then it is more likely others will too and I am being lumped into the bracket of a line-tracker which isn’t accurate, at least in the sense that these line-trackers are systematic in their approach.

 

Ten: Patterns of Play

The whole idea of betting fair is a fascinating one and it seems the Gambling Commission are interested in this area, looking to set down some rules about what is acceptable in terms of patterns of play. We all know things that are likely to be frowned upon by bookmakers from exploiting bad each way to trying to grab stale prices. But what might be seen as ok seems more difficult to define.

Simon Clare commented on AtTheRaces that punters need to be original in terms of their selections if they want to avoid restrictions, but I have already pointed out in the line-tracking section that there are problems with this sort of view. Punters may do their best to be original – that is certainly how I tend to construct most of my bets – but the issue is that the bookmakers may simply have made a mistake in terms of pricing the race and most punters are spotting the same error and wanting to back the same horse. Rather than the bookmaker being punished for poor odds-making, too often it is the punter who bears the brunt of their error, made to pay in terms of restrictions.

- Tony Keenan

Mythbusters: Five Racing Adages Under The Microscope

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True or False? Busting racing myths

True or False? Busting racing myths

This post was originally penned in Summer 2015 and, as part of a Throwback Thursday, I revisited the adages to see if the data still held as it did two and a half years ago...

Racing, like every other sport, has its clichés. It also has its conventional wisdom.

Alas, rarely do such 'accepted as true' statements get put to the test, so how is the average punter on the street to know whether he's making a good or poor investment?

Simple. Look at the data!

In this post, I'll put five racing adages to the test, starting with that hoary old chestnut...

1. "Back the outsider of three"

The first thing to say is that for all five adages, I've used all UK races since the start of 2011. That is, nigh on four and a half years worth of data. Stage set, to business...

It's rare that you'll be in a betting shop or watching racing on the TV and not hear the phrase, "back the outsider of three", just after the market third choice has prevailed in a three horse race. But what do the numbers say?

Of the 578 three horse races in UK since 2011, 80 (13.84%) were won by the outsider. Backing them blind would have lost you money. But wait. It would have lost you £7.29 for a £1 level stake, a negative ROI of just 1.26%.

Compare that with backing favourites in all races blindly, which had a negative ROI of 6.82% and you'll see that it's actually far from the worst strategy in the world.

Indeed, let's use the -6.82% ROI as our barometer. Obviously, any number with a minus sign in front of it won't turn a profit. But if we can score better than blindly backing the favourite, then we can suggest there is at least some merit in the adage. After all, most tipsters - and most punters for that matter - can't do better than the unnamed favourite over time.

Backing the outsider of three since 2011 at Betfair SP would have returned £50.80 for a £578 stake, a positive ROI of 8.79%.

Before anyone charges off to religiously back the rag in three horse races (no, I know you wouldn't, but I'll say this anyway...), note that year to year it's a pretty volatile picture: healthy profit in 2011 (+83 at SP!) and 2013, but steady losses in the other years.

Still, there are worse ways to slowly burn through a bundle of cash than this. As we'll see...

True or False? TRUE (just about)

Late 2017 update: since 14th June 2015, when this post was first published, there have been another 323 three-horse races in Britain. 54 of them (16.72%) were won by the outsider, for a starting price profit of 25.54 units, and a BSP positive return of nigh on 50 units.

Revised True or False? STILL TRUE

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2. "Never bet odds on in novice chases"

Novice chases. The most precarious of punting propositions. Or are they? The received wisdom is that "it's a mug's game" backing horses in novice chases at shy of even money. But is that true? Again, let's look at the data.

The favourite was sent off at odds-on in 414 UK (non-handicap) novice chases since the beginning of 2011, and won 258 of them (62.47%). A pound on each would have lost you £11.76 at starting price. That's an ROI of -2.84%, which again is considerably better than backing favourites blindly.

Moreover, backing odds-on in all other race types (flat and jumps) since 2011 would have lost you 5.92% of stakes, a much less appetizing situation.

Interestingly, perhaps, exchange players seem to be on to this - or there's no latitude to beat the commission - because backing novice chasers at odds-on with Betfair would have still lost money. Just 1.4% of stakes (or £5.81 on turnover of £414), but a loss nevertheless.

Again, though, this is a lot safer premise than many people believe.

True or False? FALSE (just about)

Late 2017 update: since 14th June 2015, when this post was first published, there have been another 278 odds-on novice or beginners' chasers in non-handicaps. They won 178 of their races (64.03%) but LOST 13.94 points. At BSP, the loss was 9.13 points after commission. A loss is a loss but you'll stay in the game long term, if never getting your nose far in front, adopting this particular brain-dead approach!

Revised True or False? TRUE (just about)

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3. "Back the longest traveller"

The longest traveller. A trainer sends a horse 300 miles up country (only to have to drive 300 miles back again afterwards) for a tin pot race. Surely it must be off for its life, no? Surely?!

Erm, actually, this is a bit of a disaster area for reckless punters. Backing the clear longest traveller in each race since 2011 would have lost 22.67% of stakes. Ouch!

This was so bad I actually tried to qualify it and improve the situation. But, even focusing only on those horses being sent 300 miles or more by their trainers returned an eye-watering, bank-crippling 14.65% loss on stakes.

If someone tells you they've got a system based on longest travellers - with the possible exception of a few ultra-shrewd trainers who wouldn't run their horses past the post office in the village unless they actually were "off for their lives" - run a mile. Or 300.

True or False? FALSE (EPIC FAIL!)

Late 2017 update: since 14th June 2015, when this post was first published, there have been another 2538 runners to have travelled 300+miles to the track (or from overseas) as the furthest traveller in their race. They've won 410 races (16.15%) and lost a whopping 247 points at SP. However... at Betfair SP, they WON 215 points. That was in part down to a couple of 110 BSP winners (66/1 and 50/1 at SP). This would be an extremely volatile 'method' for punting, and certainly not for the faint of heart or small of bankroll.

Revised True or False? FALSE (in spite of the BSP bump)

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4. "Follow a filly in form"

It's a popular expression, though a tad harder to quantify than the first three. What constitutes being 'in form'? At its simplest, we could say that a filly (or mare, a female of the breed at least) that won last time out is 'in form'. Why not start there?

Last time out female winners follow up 17% of the time, or about one in six, for a negative ROI of 16.61%. That compares with male winners who follow up 19% of the time, for a negative ROI of 14.6%.

Or, to put it another way, it compares unfavourably both with the un-fairer sex and with the bottom line.

What about fillies/mares who won their last two races?

This time, the girls completed the hat-trick 20.19% of the time, for an ROI of -14.09% (just -4.32% at Betfair SP); while the boys notched the treble at a rate of 21.57% for an ROI of -18.15% (-10.49% at BSP).

The girls did slightly worse in strike rate terms, but a good bit better in ROI terms. That's relative to the boys, of course, because both would have cost fortunes to blindly follow.

Incidentally, that supplementary about expecting fillies to improve/blossom in the autumn is dealt a blow by the knowledge that, in strike rate terms, September was only the seventh best performing month, and October was the eighth of the twelve calendar months.

The top five months for fillies and mares to record hat-tricks, in ROI terms at least, include the sequential May to August quartet (April was sixth best, December - a notably smaller sample size - the interloper in the Spring/Summer sequence).

So here's something with which to tread very carefully:

 - Back fillies or mares on a hat-trick between May and August

That group managed 162 wins from 759 starts (21.34%) for a £1 level stakes starting price profit of £12.82 (1.69% SP)

Taking BOG early prices where you can, or backing at Betfair SP would improve the position somewhat. Indeed, BSP returns were a profit of £108.71 (14.32% ROI), which is pretty tidy.

Again, before anyone goes piling in (not that anyone would, I'm sure), keep in mind that the three years (2008-2010) immediately preceding the sample period (2011-present) were loss-making; and also that 2015 thus far has been negative equity territory.

Anyhoo, to the question: "Back a filly in form"

True or False? FALSE (in quite a big way, though the data mutton can be dressed as profit lamb, as we've seen)

Late 2017 update: since 14th June 2015, when this post was first published, there have been another 451 hat-trick-seeking ladies between May and August. 96 won (21.29%) but it has been car crash territory in terms of the bottom line, with a negative ROI at SP of 27%. Even at BSP it's -22% ROI. Ouch.

Revised True or False? FALSE (big time, no dressing up the data this time)

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5. "The bigger the field, the bigger the certainty"

Last but not least is the ultimate contrarians' maxim, "The bigger the field, the bigger the certainty". Put another way, short priced horses in big field races are a good bet. It seems quirky, but does it hold water? As ever, the truth lies not in the sound bite, but in the murky guts of a racing database.

Framing a question for a database around this one is, again, less straightforward than some which have been covered already. But it is far from impossible.

The biggest 'certainty' in any race - in general terms - must be the horse at the top of the market, i.e. the favourite. So we'll use that as a starting point for the 'certainty' element.

With regards to big fields, let us arbitrarily choose 16 runners, the point at which a handicap pays four places to each way backers. (Not that any intrepid 'big field cert' evangelists are looking to bet the place..!)

Favourites in UK races of 16 or more runners since 2011 won 19.53% of the time for a loss at SP of 13.96% of stakes. At Betfair SP, the picture is slightly less morose at 'just' -7.04%.

But perhaps when one says 'certainty' one has only the shorter priced jollies in mind. Overcoming the temptation to arbitrarily introduce a threshold, we can instead review the data as a whole. An interesting picture emerges...

The (small) group of horses sent off at odds-on were loss-making, to the tune of about 17.5% ROI. As brutal as that sounds, there were only 44 such horses in a four and a half year period; and the wider vista offers cause for optimism.

Specifically, it seems that profitability can be eked - and I do mean eked - up to a starting price of around 9/4. In ROI terms it's minimal, at 6.46% (£16.74 for level quids) on 259 bets, though some considerable way ahead of 'all favourites' in big fields.

This piqued my interest to take a look at the handicap/non-handicap split. I can report that the big field (16+ runners) handicap shorties (9/4 or less) performed better than their non-handicap counterparts, though unsurprisingly from a smallish sample of just 65 runners.

Because of the small sample size, I looked at the longer term dataset, and found that if one had...

- Bet the favourite at 9/4 or shorter in handicaps of 16+ runners

...one would have done better than acceptably well. Looking at the above rule, and using the Betfair SP data I have from 2007 to the present, this approach would have yielded a profit of £37.33 at BSP (£29.33 at SP) on 209 bets, for an ROI of 22.63%.

NB Although 9/4 is a 'convenience cut off', the approach still operates at break even up to 10/3, so I'd be happy enough with this. (You can judge for yourself whether it works for you!)

True or False? TRUE

Late 2017 update: since 14th June 2015, when this post was first published, there have been another 35 short-priced (9/4 or lower) jollies in 16+ runner handicaps. 11 won, for a loss at SP of 3.73 points, and a negligible loss at BSP. If one loosened the odds filter to 10/3 as above, the story becomes more favourable (33 from 109, +7.43 at SP, +15.27 at BSP). Whilst one could accuse the writer of contrivance here - and you'd get little in the way of a defence! - the general point that short-priced favourites in big-field handicaps are a reasonable bet is maintained

Revised True or False? TRUE (just about)

*

Summary

This little exercise, which is hardly more than a bit of fun, has at least shone a dim beam on some of the more popular adages within the racing space.

We've seen that backing the outsider of three is no worse than harmless fun, and could yield a small profit. And that betting odds on in novice chases is unlikely to be the death knell for your ledger either. Caution is advised when backing fillies in form through the Summer (and it is simply bad practice to do this generally).

More materially, perhaps, we've learnt that backing the longest traveller is the shortest of our five ways to the poor house.

And we've unearthed the rudimentary basis of a profitable approach by betting big field handicap jollies up to around 3/1.

Inevitably, not all of the five maxims lend themselves to unequivocal investigation - after all, it is to some degree their vagueness that has sustained their popular credence over the years - so I've taken license and attempted to portray a broader array of situations which could lay claim to fitting the bill. Others will doubtless interpret some of the adages another way.

Regardless of how you interpret them, the key is to test that interpretation against a data source. It is, after all, never too late to stop losing money and/or start making a few quid from your wagering antics.

Hopefully this has put into context some of the more loosely bandied phrases that are part of the furniture of British racing punditry. The next time you hear these trite bites you'll at least have a bit of data ballast on which to rely: that's almost certainly more than the speaker has!

Dual Purpose Yearling Syndicate: Last Two Shares

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A few times a year, I syndicate a horse to run in the geegeez.co.uk colours. When I do that, I first offer it to existing syndicate members and then to the wider community of geegeez readers. The last couple of syndicates have been entirely taken up by existing members so this is the first time I've offered new 'syndicateers' the chance to join us.

Now, before I go on, it is important to say that racehorses make very poor investment vehicles as a rule. They do however make for exciting days out, interesting learning experiences, and can from time to time offer the chance to dream a big dream. So, with caveat emptor in place, there are two remaining shares (and one more on hold currently) in the following syndicate. This is how I shared it with the group:

Hi all,

FOREWARNING: THIS IS A LOOOOONG EMAIL 😉

You may or may not be aware that I purchased a yearling filly in France earlier this week [note, early last week] at the Arqana sale. Accompanied by both Anthony Honeyball and Ron Huggins (owner/breeder of Jukebox Jive), we had a shortlist of horses for potential acquisition to go into training with Anthony, and this filly was top of the pile.

THE HORSE

Very happy to have secured this little corker.

She's by Soldier Of Fortune, an excellent dual purpose stallion, out of a mare called Moscow Nights. Mum has already thrown a star, in the form of Heartbreak City, a six-year-old who won the 2016 Ebor (Europe's richest handicap) and was a close up second in the Melbourne Cup a few months later. Prior to that he'd won a competitive handicap hurdle at the Galway Festival.

In other words, Heartbreak City is almost the ultimate dual purpose horse.

And here we have his half-sister to syndicate. Same mum, different dad. Soldier Of Fortune is the dad: he gets very good flat and hurdle runners. Most recently his son, Soldier In Action, won a Class 2 handicap off top weight (and a mark of 106) at Kempton earlier this week. Also in the last month, and as if to emphasise the dual purpose nature of the stallion, a horse called Early Doors won first a maiden hurdle and then a Grade 3 hurdle.

[Update: Mercenaire, the most recent Soldier Of Fortune progeny to run, bolted up by 25 lengths in a juvenile hurdle on his UK debut on Sunday].

Our girl is, according to Anthony, a lovely filly; a beautiful mover; and has travelled to her new home without incident. She's been on the walker this morning, and will be broken and ridden away in the near future.

THE SYNDICATE                              

I would like to offer you, as an existing syndicateer (!), the opportunity to get involved with this gorgeous unnamed filly. Her pedigree can be viewed here.

Settling into her new yard well. Pretty young thing, isn't she?

The syndicate will comprise of twelve equal shares, and the plan is roughly as follows:

Now: She'll be acclimatised at Potwell Farm and broken / ridden away. She'll then get a little rest most likely to think about what's happened and to grow.

Early next year: As a two-year-old, she'll start working towards some proper graft, and will train alongside AJH's other yearling project(s).

Summer/Autumn 2018: Some time next summer, probably late summer, she'll run in a 2yo maiden. Most likely, unless she's showing loads at home, this will be to gain experience. Both of last year's 2yos managed to get three runs on the flat before having their winter rest.

April/May 2019: Early in the 2019 flat season, as a 3yo, our young lady will begin her first full racing campaign. She'll compete either in a maiden or, if awarded a handicap rating already, in a handicap. From there, she'll race as often as makes sense, before...

October/November 2019: Juvenile hurdling becomes her game. Having gained experience of racing and, hopefully, a win or two on the level, she'll tackle hurdles in public for the first time. By now, with a favourable wind, we'll have had a lot of fun - and that, to this point, may just be the start of it!

The plan is based on an established blueprint which Anthony and Ron have successfully deployed with both Black Prince and, especially, Jukebox Jive. Both have already won on the flat, even though their long-term game was always expected to be over hurdles. BP ran second on hurdles debut - performing some way above his flat level - and JJ won nicely on his debut and only hurdle start.

Whether we can replicate that, and what will follow on from there, remains to be seen of course. But that's the plan.

And, additionally, because she's a well bred filly, there will be at least some residual resale value as a broodmare down the line.

 

THE COST

She's already a good size, and has plenty of filling out to do

The hammer dropped at €26,000 to which is added a 6% sales tax, making a total of €27,560. In GBP at the current rate, that's £24,650 or thereabouts. The cost of transportation hasn't been shared with me yet, but I'm given to understand it'll be around £700 (nice game to be in!). Insurance is anticipated at around £1,200 to end of next year, training to end of this year (i.e. a month and a week or thereabouts) is roughly £2,000, making an approximate start up cost of £28,500.

Startup costs, then, per 1/12th share will be £2,400. That will cover a share in the horse, sunk costs in getting her to Dorset, insurance for year 1, and training to the end of 2017.

Thereafter, it will be £165 per share per month. My massive preference is for the 2018 fees to be paid in one go but if that's not possible there is a quarterly option - see below.

In summary, then, your investment will be:

- £2,400 buy in for a 1/12th share

- £1,980 training/running fees to end 2018

Total £4,380 if sent in one go up front. Or you can split the initial buy in, payable now, from the 2018 training fees, payable in January.

 

As mentioned, if full payment to end 2018 is a stretch, the alternative is £2,400 now, then 4 x £495 payable on January 1st, April 1st, July 1st and October 1st.

I will contact syndicate members at around this time next year to arrange for the 2019 expenses to be covered.

 

THE TERMS

Usual terms will apply, in line with existing syndicate agreements you have for other horses I've syndicated - and a specific agreement for this filly will follow shortly. The syndicate will run for at least two and a half years, unless a majority decide to sell/dissolve before then. This will be covered in more detail in the agreement.

[Note, please contact me if you'd like to view a copy of one of my syndicate agreements - the actual one for this filly will be available by the end of the week and will be closely related to the one I'll share on request]

WHAT TO DO NOW

Even before 'officially' advertising this syndicate - which I'm doing to you, existing members, first - there has been strong interest. Whether that converts into buy in, I don't know, but I am expecting it to be a popular 'project'.

The nature of this particular proposition is that it is not quite so 'point and shoot' as some I've put together, and prospective members should be aware of that. The flip side is that we will have fun across the codes and, if we can match even Black Prince's exploits to date, we'd be a consistent performer - and a winner - on the flat, and an ascendant juvenile hurdler with more to come.

With that said...

If you are interested in the Soldier Of Fortune/Moscow Nights syndicate, PLEASE REPLY TO THIS EMAIL ASAP EMAIL ME AT MA**@********CO.UK ASAP.

And, naturally, if you have any questions, likewise, hit reply and ask away.

-

I have to say that, on a personal level, I've been very taken with the new girl (as you can probably see from the picture above). Anthony has done nothing to dissuade me from that impression. She's a lovely looker, and a great mover. Really looking forward to seeing what she can do in due course.

Thanks for reading this necessarily long note, and I wish you a great weekend whilst pondering the above.

Best,

Matt

p.s. this will be the last syndicate I plan to put together for the foreseeable future. We have quite a few up and running now, and each takes it toll in terms of admin time/brain ache. Whilst I love it, I do run them at cost and I have to put bread (sourdough round here!) on the table. So, anyway, last one for a while, I think...

****

Since sending that email this time last week, I've filled eight of the twelve spots, and have solid interest in two more. So I have at least two shares remaining, and possibly as many as four.

The vibes from the yard remain very positive so, for anyone with the patience (and finance) for a project like this, it could be very exciting. Drop me a line if you're interested, and/or if you have any questions.

Matt

 

 

Jump Jockeys: How Are The Mighty Fallen?

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How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!

- Samuel, 1:25

Perhaps more so than the terrific performances at Cheltenham this past weekend, or the death of National Hunt benefactor Alan Potts, jump racing's headlines have been hogged in recent days not by horses or owners, nor even trainers; but, rather, by the riders.

First Paddy Brennan was sensationally 'jocked off' Cue Card, sweetheart of so many fans of the winter game, after a tumble too many; then Sam Twiston-Davies broke his elbow in a fall at Sandown before, this past Saturday, Ruby Walsh broke his leg in what was, remarkably, his third fall of the afternoon.

It is of course the very essence of the National Hunt jockeys' existence to face down danger between ten and twenty - and as many as 32 - times per race. In that context, falls are a natural by-product of race outcomes. But what is a reasonable rate for a rider to become separated from his or her equine partner?

Let the data speak.

 

Fall/Unseat Rates: The Five Year Macro Data

Below are the faller rates for the last five years in UK/Irish chases by a number of the top jockeys, one notably since retired. To be clear, this is for steeplechase falls and unseats (FU's) only, and the table is sorted by number of rides.

 

Jockey Rides FU's FU %
R Johnson 1552 88 5.67%
S Twiston-Davies 1484 93 6.27%
N Fehily 1003 59 5.88%
P Brennan 999 56 5.61%
D Russell 800 57 7.13%
B Geraghty 740 40 5.41%
AP McCoy 724 41 5.66%
R Walsh 651 53 8.14%
J Kennedy 258 24 9.30%

 

To add more global context to this subset of superstars, the average fall/unseat rate in the last 10,000 starters in UK and Irish chases has been 6.59%. Solely in Irish chases, the last 10,000 starters there fell or unseated at a rate of 7.84%, presumably because of the heavier turf on which they predominantly race (a subject for another, wetter, day). It may then be fair to say that anything lower than that is outperforming the average, and anything higher than that is under-performing against the average.

But not all chase rides are 'average'. The likes of Ruby Walsh and Jack Kennedy are more frequently engaged in the kind of skirmishes for victory which may demand firing a horse at the last, or an earlier fence, in a more aggressive fashion than, say, a rider popping round for fourth place.

If that is to mitigate, the disparities in the table cannot be so simply swept from view.

We can see i the table that, on a large number of rides, many of them with winning chances, Richard Johnson, Sam Twiston-Davies and Noel Fehily have all kept their fall/unseat rate below 6.5%. So too have Paddy Brennan, Barry Geraghty, and the now retired Tony McCoy.

But across the Irish Sea, look at Davy Russell, who leads the Irish jumps championship this term, and his hitherto closest pursuer, Ruby Walsh. Note also Jack Kennedy, number one jockey at Gordon Elliott's powerfully ascendant yard.

Russell's tumble rate of 7.13% is on the high side compared with Britain, but not wildly out of kilter with the pan-national average and in the green zone against his domestic peer group. The same cannot be said of Jack and Ruby. Although the former is young and arguably still learning his trade - arguably because he's had many more rides than plenty of jockeys five years his senior - the latter especially looks a surprisingly precarious pilot. Now, before the hate mail starts, obviously I recognise that Ruby Walsh is one of the great jockeys of our time and that this is but one barometer of a jockey's ability.

But, all the same, if I want to bet at a short price - and his rides are almost exclusively offered at prohibitive odds - I need to know that I have to factor a higher than average likelihood of my selection not passing the post in a chase with the rider on its back. With Jack Kennedy, he's almost 20% more likely to be dumped on the turf than the Irish average.

Let me be clear again: this is not about Ruby or Jack or anyone else. I'm far too selfish for that. No, this is about me as a punter knowing what I'm up against. About being forewarned and, therefore, forearmed.

 

Fall/Unseat Rates: The One Year Snapshot

Five years is a long time and it makes for some statistically significant (in the context of racing's generally small samples at least) inferences. But how do we compare jockeys with themselves? One way is to look at a snapshot - a subset - of the overall dataset. For punting purposes, the most current subset seems the most sensible. Below then are the last twelve months for the same jockey grouping, again sorted by number of rides.

 

Jockey Rides FU's FU %
R Johnson 301 20 6.64%
S Twiston-Davies 300 16 5.33%
D Russell 210 9 4.29%
N Fehily 206 12 5.83%
P Brennan 182 7 3.85%
R Walsh 124 13 10.48%
J Kennedy 123 12 9.76%
B Geraghty 105 9 8.57%
AP McCoy NA NA NA

 

Whilst even more care needs to be taken not to make bold claims on the basis of flimsy sample sizes, there remain elephants in the room.

First, let's look at Paddy Brennan, recently relieved of his supporting role atop the gorgeous Cue Card. His 3.85% fall/unseat rate in the past year is comfortably the lowest in the group and almost 1.5 times better than his five year average. Was he thus unlucky to lose such a coveted ride? That depends entirely on whether you're a macro sort of guy or you have the nuanced eye to make decisions based on the specifics of a handful of rides. I certainly don't consider myself qualified in the latter context and can see arguments for and against the rider switch.

The British Champion Jockey, Richard Johnson, has seen his tumble rate increase in the past twelve months, though possibly not materially. It has crept above the 10,000 runner average of 6.59% by a tiny margin: Johnson's renewed appetite to forage for every ride will have introduced a greater element of quantity over quality to his diet and the variance may perhaps be explained in such a way.

Noel Fehily has been remarkably consistent while Sam Twiston-Davies, who amazingly (to me at least, he seems to have been around for a long time) has only just turned 25, has retained his partnerships on a notably more frequent basis according to the most recent evidence. Tough luck then to break his elbow earlier this month; he actually rode in a subsequent race, attesting to the no-safety-net trapeze swing between heroism and stupidity that many in the weighing room unquestioningly fling themselves.

Meanwhile, Ireland's champion jockey-elect, Davy Russell, is 27 winners clear of his nearest challenger if one excludes the sidelined Walsh from calculations. Russell is approaching veteran status, though still in his late thirties, and has courted controversy this year in the manner with which he attempted to correct a recalcitrant mount. That episode deserves no more than a footnote in a piece the focus of which is elsewhere, and it will indeed be a shame if a man shunned by his major employer less than four years ago does not receive the praise he deserves if/when winning the jockeys' championship. Fair play to him.

To the elephant or, more precisely, the trio of elephants, in the room. Barry Geraghty first. He is one of the best jockeys I've seen and, in his time at Nicky Henderson's, was a man never to be dismissed. But, since taking the green and gold coin of Team JP, misfortune has followed him like a very bad smell. Since last July, he has broken both arms, in separate incidents; cracked a rib and collapsed a lung on another occasion; and recently (late August) fractured a shoulder blade. You have to be tough to be a jump jockey - far tougher than to look at numbers and write words about the subject - but my admiration starts to wane when riders persist in the face of mounting fragility.

It's no more my place to suggest to a rider about when to retire as it is for a rider to enquire on the number of winners I've ridden. So I won't. All I'll say is that I imagine the partners and families of jump jockeys rejoice the news of their loved one's cessation of getting legged up in a similar vein to that of the partners and families of professional boxers on hearing of gloves being hung for the final time. And I sincerely hope BJG has a long, uninterrupted and fruitful spell between now and whenever he pursues alternative employment.

Yet still we've to address the figureheads of Closutton and Cullentra, Ruby and Jack. In the last twelve months, Kennedy has come unstuck a dozen times from 123 chase starts. That's as near to ten per cent, and as near to 25% above the Irish average, as doesn't matter. Walsh has fallen or unseated once more than Kennedy, from one more ride, in the same period, a ratio above 10% and almost 33% greater than the norm.

It seems churlish to kick a man when he's down - Ruby faces a race against time to be back for the Cheltenham Festival and, like all fans of the sport, I hope he makes it - so I'll let those data speak for themselves. All I will add is that, to my eye - and keep in mind I've never ridden a winner - Ruby takes too many chances with fatigued animals late in races. Mounting (or, cynically, dismounting) evidence seems to support that.

The pressure in the Elliott and Mullins camps must be enormous, not just from the trainers, but from owners, other jockeys in the yard and, increasingly, the omnipresence of (social) media. Much of the latter is unworthy of attention, but when you're accustomed to being told how good you are, the sharper brickbats probably leave a weal.

 

Final Thoughts

There is an inherent selection bias in the tables above. Each of the jockeys therein has earned his place by being at the top of his peer group; such elevation comes only from taking chances when they're presented, and occasionally fashioning them when they may not absolutely be there.

As sports gigs go, riding 600kg animals over five foot fences (apologies for mixed metric-phors) around fifteen times per race on average is down there with the worst of 'em. It would never be for a wuss like me. Although not big on machismo either, I have a robust respect for these turf-eating gladiators as a collective.

But when the wallet comes out, they are individuals. And I want to know which individuals will support my bottom line, in the same way that these jocks want to know which horses will provide the winners to propel them up the championship table. It's every man (and woman) for themselves. Nobody is more or less selfish than the next, either in the punting or riding ranks; and nor should they be.

To that end, the frailties of otherwise tremendous jockeys with enormous (and, in the main, well deserved and hard earned) reputations are power to the contrarian punters' elbow.

Ruby has won aboard 30% of the chasers he's ridden in the last five years. That's open water clear of the next best (McCoy 22%, Daryl Jacob and Noel Fehily 20%, Sam T-D and Paddy B 19%, Richard Johnson 18%). But, from a punting perspective, his negative ROI of 18.86% at SP during that time is surpassed by absolutely nobody in his Premier League peer group. Some of that, of course, relates to his stable's form with chasers, most of it to the over-exposure of the Mullins/Walsh/Ricci PR machine; that's neither here nor there in terms of wagering.

Meanwhile, on the flip side, the unfashionable Paddy Brennan not only wins at a 19% clip, he's also secured a profit of almost 60 points at SP in the same time frame, regardless of the Cue Card fallout.

Backing horses is not a beauty contest, nor is it about fashion. On the contrary, the value lies wherever the spotlight doesn't. And, even in the halogen glare of the media beam, punting pearls are left for those with peripheral vision. Always be asking questions, take nothing on trust. The data is here. Use it. It rarely lies.

I genuinely hope Ruby gets back in time for the Festival, and I further hope he has a fantastic time of it. But I'll not be touching his chase mounts there, or pretty much anywhere else. That's unlikely to trouble him, of course. Devil take the hindmost!

Matt

Tony Keenan: Ten NOT To Follow

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Horses to follow lists are a staple of this time of year, much more so than at the equivalent period on the flat in March and April. Whatever it is about national hunt racing, people get enthused about the months ahead and no one can be derided for that. They can’t all deliver on their potential however and I wonder if a more useful approach might be to collate a list of horses to oppose.

The power of the negative is underrated in horse racing analysis and I’ve long found one of the best ways into a race is to find a favourite you dislike and work back from there, the theory being that if it is underpriced there will be value somewhere amongst the rest of the field. Having a few horses in mind that are overrated or at least likely not to match market expectations could be useful as we start into the winter.

One final point on this: my opinion on any of these horses could change after they have had a run or two. One can have views at this point of the season but becoming hidebound to them is a mistake and I am a firm adherent to the John Maynard Keynes approach: ‘when the facts change, I change my mind.’

 

American Tom

There is a school of thought that horses who jump to their right or left are best-suited to racing at tracks with that configuration but I am more inclined to view it as a physical problem of some sort. That seems to be the case with American Tom judging by comments from connections and his fencing was certainly erratic in his novice season. He returned at Naas on Saturday but having travelled best, hitting a low of 1.62 in-running, he found little and finished third to Ball D’Arc. Some will argue this was a creditable return for a horse off for 10 months but he was getting 9lbs from the winner who really wants further and he could be one to oppose in two-mile chases this winter. I can certainly see him being put in short for such events in Ireland which, outside of Douvan, look paper-thin as we saw in Sunday’s Fortria.

 

Bristol De Mai

Though he won well enough in the Charlie Hall earlier this month, there has to be doubts about the value of that form; Coneygree was out of the race early while Cue Card fell when going pretty well, leaving Bristol De Mai with only Blaklion to beat. Cheltenham does not seem to be his thing and furthermore there is a concern that Bristol De Mai’s best efforts seem to come at Haydock, a track that can produce freak performances. He does at least get to go back there soon for the Betfair Chase but a win in that event could be the high-point of his season rather than a signal of better to come.

 

Let’s Dance

Failure is rarely seen as a positive but when Let’s Dance went without a win in four runs in juvenile hurdles it was a blessing in disguise as it left her with a significant experience edge against the novices last season. That was a campaign where she was well-placed to win five races on the bounce and, while it could be argued that she won against the geldings in January before landing the Dawn Run, holes can be picked in those runs: the Leopardstown win came when half the field jumped poorly while she only beat Barra at Cheltenham. Augusta Kate – herself no star – beat her afterwards and she has a long way to go to compete with the best mares like Apple’s Jade and Limini.

 

Paloma Blue

For whatever reason, our culture has a tendency to get carried away with the achievements of those that die young with the assumption being that their potential was certain to be reached. That seems to be the case with Fayonagh who has already been crowned a second Dawn Run since her demise, and fans of the mare may be inclined to overrate the horses that finished behind her last season. Paloma Blue is an obvious one for this treatment having finished second to her at Punchestown, but that looked a weak race with only seven runners and the winner was a clear victor; the third also makes this list while Someday simply didn’t run to form. The value of Paloma Blue’s previous bumper win is questionable, allowing that Henry De Bromhead doesn’t really train his horses for such races, and his jumping on hurdles debut was ordinary. He will likely be able to win a maiden hurdle somewhere but graded class may prove beyond him.

 

Petit Mouchoir

Evidence suggests that horses that spend an extra season over hurdles are less likely to become top-class chasers even when they have been very good over small obstacles and in the main I’m looking to oppose these horses with ones that have improved for fences all winter. Petit Mouchoir certainly didn’t look like he had any issue with fences on his chase debut but that slight niggle persists and more than that he has had a small setback which is likely to keep him out until early 2018. That puts him on the back-foot with a view to races like the Arkle, for which he remains second-favourite, as he will give up match practice to horses that will have been running over the next couple of months.

 

Poli Roi

A £300,000 price-tag meant Poli Roi was always going to be one with a reputation and the starting prices in his four runs under rules thus far suggest he is well-regarded by someone at least. The evidence of those runs has been less compelling though; he looked quirky in winning first time before being put in his place in the Punchestown Champion Bumper, while his two hurdle runs have been marked by temperament, flashing his tail on the way to victory last time. In general, I don’t think opposing ungenuine horses is the betting angle it once was – the markets have wised up to it and trainers seem better at working around it – but there are still cases when it can create value.

 

Sub Lieutenant

It seems reasonable to ask what Sub Lieutenant is at the moment, be it two-and-a-half or three-miler. Regardless of trip, he has started 2017/18 out-of-form which isn’t encouraging given he was particularly good in the early part of the previous season; furthermore, he seems to have gone back from first to second run which is a negative for any horse. He put up some good efforts last year, notably when runner-up in the Ryanair, but a deeper dive into his form suggests he may not be up to winning another Grade 1 or 2. He is two from fourteen in such races, the first win coming in a race Milsean threw away, the second in an event confined to second-season chasers. Unfortunately for him, these are just the sorts of races he has to compete in with a mark of 157 and he could have a season of frustration ahead of him that may culminate with reverting to staying handicap chases.

 

Thistlecrack

A late starter to chasing raises alarm-bells straightaway, even for one as lightly-raced and talented as Thistlecrack, and then there is his tendon injury from last season. Thistlecrack also lost a little lustre in his Cotswold Chase defeat in January as prior to that he seemed one with unlimited potential, not a horse that could be beaten by Many Clouds, granted that one had ideal conditions. That put a lid on how far he can go and facing a host of impressive novices from last season along with the likes of Sizing John and Native River, Thistlecrack looks a weak favourite for the Gold Cup. Perhaps he will again prove the exception to the rule but I wouldn’t like to be betting on it.

 

Tombstone

Following a pair of impressive bumper wins in 2015, Tombstone hasn’t really built on his early promise and the temperament that first surfaced in the 2016 Deloitte (didn’t go through with his effort when coming to challenge Bleu Et Rouge) now seems to be a feature of his make-up. He did win a Red Mills Hurdle last season but that was against a ‘bouncy’ Jezki and he failed to back it up with short-priced defeats at Cheltenham and Fairyhouse. Chasing has gone ok for him thus far but there was again a less than strong finishing effort on debut last month before being gifted a race at Down Royal last time. Put simply, he’s a horse whose reputation outstrips his achievements and he appears less than willing to boot.

 

Total Recall

Already favourite for the old Hennessy (now Ladbrokes) at Newbury, Total Recall might be worth taking on there and not only because of Willie Mullins’s record in UK handicap chases; he is 2 from 113 in such races since 2003. Total Recall was very good in winning the Munster National but that race fell apart quite early with a number of the field failing to complete and the seemingly-back-on-track second, Alpha Des Obeaux, ran just ok next time. I am also sceptical about how much further Mullins can improve this horse; he went up 18lbs for Limerick, and Sandra Hughes, allowing that her yard was out-of-form last season, is a competent trainer, better than some who previously handled the other improvers for the move to Closutton. Perhaps Total Recall has already reached his level for his new yard.

 

As always, these are only my opinions. Feel free to agree or disagree – with your wallet or in the comments below; and if you have any ‘to not follow’ suggestions of your own, do share them below with a comment.

- TK

The Ethics of Pacemaking

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Is racing a team sport? That’s the question that lies at the heart of any discussion on the rights and wrongs of pacemaking, writes Tony Keenan. The instinctive answer is no. Take a hypothetical horse race: ten runners each with a different trainer, owner and jockey, each wanting to win at the expense of the others. Tactics play their part in this imaginary race but team tactics shouldn’t as there are no teams as such, only individual concerns.

Obviously this simplistic argument is complicated by the presence of multiple horses trained and/or owned by the same person or group of people. In some of these cases, particularly in Group 1 races, we see jockeys using their horses as part of the team and expend their mounts to facilitate a stablemate, often one with a bigger profile or shorter price. Some would argue this is simply the nature of team sport; in any team, different players play different roles and not everyone can score the winning goal with some needing to contribute to the build-up in the hope there will be enough reflected glory to go around.

This would be fine in racing apart from one obvious problem: it is essentially forbidden by the rules. Consider the Turf Club’s Rule 212 (a)

every horse which runs in a race shall be run on its merits and its subsection (i) the rider of every horse shall take all reasonable and permissible measures throughout the race to ensure that his horse is given a full opportunity to win or of obtaining the best possible place.

Horses that are ridden to cater for another runner in the field are bending if not breaking these rules which is not the same as to say that they cannot win. Indeed, horses that are ridden with something other their own winning chance in mind will often come home in front but that doesn’t mean that the intent (or lack thereof) wasn’t there. Proving that intent is tricky if not impossible but all this does highlight a strange blind-spot for the sport; we talk about how a certain ownership cohort may attempt to scheme out a race beforehand and perhaps even praise them afterwards for a well-executed plan. I’ve done it myself but it is difficult to get away from the view that such an approach contravenes the rules.

Advocates of pacemaking will point to its chief benefit: a pacemaker ensures a fair and even pace where the best horse will win more often than not. This is a hollow sentiment and there are many examples of this not being the case. Take Churchill’s 2,000 Guineas in May, where his stablemate Lancaster Bomber set a steady gallop that would suit a horse who showed plenty of speed at two and work against the likes of Barney Roy and Al Wukair who wanted a stamina test at the trip. Regardless of your views on the relative merits of those three horses and their subsequent achievements, the Timeform sectional database suggests that the second and third were better on the day due to how fast they finished. Perhaps Churchill would have pulled out more – his style of running suggests as much – but I prefer to put my faith in the physics rather than the perception of idling.

At the other end of the pace spectrum is the overly-strong gallop and the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot is a reasonable if not perfect example. Harry Angel was forced to go a little faster than ideal in front with Intelligence Cross pressuring him (the sectionals suggest Intelligence Cross raced very inefficiently) which set things up for the closing Caravaggio who wanted a well-run race. That Intelligence Cross was spoiling Harry Angel and getting him racing a little keenly is another issue and the whole idea of manufacturing trouble and pacemakers dropping back to create lanes for stablemates coming through the pack is another grey area worth exploring.

A huge feature of jockey skill is in predicting how a race will be run; riders must be aware of how to ride the race as well as their horse and not be hidebound to the same tactics each day. The likes of Frankie Dettori have been roundly praised for setting his own pace in races where nothing else wants to go on but some of this skill is taken out of the equation when a percentage of the jockeys have a good idea about how the race will be run. This confers a massive advantage such as in the 2016 Epsom Derby when Ryan Moore on US Army Ranger was aware that Port Douglas was going to set fierce fractions and he could sit out the back and come late. This helped produce a clear career-best effort for his mount where Pat Smullen on the winner, Harzand, could only guess at what the pace might be.

Knowing the plan, and the plan working out, are of course two different things and often the internal chaos of a race will kick in and blow any predetermined approach apart; perhaps the intended frontrunner fluffs the start or maybe a really free-going sort tanks itself to the lead. We shouldn’t judge the issue on exceptional cases however and it is hard to argue that over time, broadly knowing how a race will be run is a huge edge for some riders and connections.

I realise all of this sounds horribly anti-Coolmore and Ballydoyle but that is not the intention; they are merely playing within the rules as currently applied and it is hard to fault them for that. Clearly the prime exponents of constructing a suitable pace (this might be a better way of describing it than ‘pacemaking’), they are not to be blamed as much as the authorities. As I wrote a few weeks back, the influence that Coolmore exert in Irish group races is growing all the time with their percentage of runners on the rise in recent seasons so we can expect to see even more of this in the near-future. There was even a Leopardstown maiden back in July where the pace was seemingly set to advantage their Coat Of Arms though he was ultimately unable to deliver!

As for solutions to this, I don’t really have any though less lionising of such team tactics might be a good place to start. No more than proving a non-trier, proving an attempt to choreograph a race is difficult for all that it may be obvious to onlookers. That is assuming a will to even go down that legislative route which seems unlikely in an Irish context; the Coolmore lobby in Ireland is powerful, prepotent even, and they are the ones that benefit most from the status quo. And even if trainers were asked to answer a case, they could argue – rightly – that their horse is simply a natural front-runner where the jockey got the fractions wrong or that a change in tactics was in order to spark an out of form animal. Unsatisfactory, that is for sure.

- TK

The Value of Scarcity in Race Reading

/in /by

Scarcity. An insufficiency or shortness of supply.

It's what makes stuff valuable: gold, bitcoin (depending on who you listen to), etc.

But it can also be manufactured to trick people into making bad investment decisions: fool's gold, bitcoin (depending on who you listen to), etc.

Returning to matters closer to home, how does it manifest in racing, and how can we use it to our advantage?

Scarcity in racing form terms equates to a trait or performance metric consistent in contenders but less prevalent in the race runner population as a whole. Put another way, the stuff which separates the winners from the also rans.

 

When trends are your friends

The most obvious use of this sort of scarcity metric is in big race trends. Most 'big races', be they major big field handicaps or top class Group races, have a scarcity about them as a matter of course: after all, there are only so many heritage handicaps, and the Pattern is only so big (though expanding inexplicably from year to year).

To compete in such a race a horse must either be within x pounds of the top-rated runner in the field (Class 2 handicaps), or possess either proven or implied class (Group races). Such animals are scarce and generally self-select - if a horse is good enough for a certain race, it will generally run in said race - but that doesn't help us punters.

We need a way to whittle the field once it is known, i.e. after the self-selection process. Trends are a popular means of doing this and, despite being bashed somewhat by employers of other methods, they can be a fine means of shortlisting.

The problem comes when data is misused. For example, knowing that nine of the last ten winners were chestnut in colour doesn't help if a) 95% of runners were that colour, and b) there is no logic to such an inference anyway.

However, knowing that nine of the last ten winners had been rested between 30 and 75 days, where only 65% of the runners matched that criterion is likely material. Better yet if such horses made the frame 78% of the time, or beat 60% of rivals - in other words, if they outperform bigger samples than just 'winners'.

We might deduce that horses entering such a race fresh are more likely to give their running than those who raced more recently or were rested too long.

With a trend like that, there is a logical scarcity. Some people like to use bigger populations of horses from which to infer meaning, for example using handicap chases over three and quarter miles or more as a starting point for Grand National trends analysis. I can see the general utility in this, but don't agree that it's a good approach for a handicap as unique in terms of distance, field size, number of obstacles and class as the National.

Another danger with trends - aside from 'unearthing' flawed patterns - is in throwing the winning baby out with the also ran bathwater. Again, this is a by-product of lazy rigidity. It can still happen of course, just as the ratings junkie can overlook the big-priced fourth top figure in favour of something with a sexier profile and a commensurately shorter price, or the form book guru can misinterpret the strength of a key formline.

As punters we have decisions to make. The vast majority of winning punters, and most losing ones as well, make many more poor - or at least ultimately incorrect - decisions than they back winners. Such is the nature of the game. But we're not in it for winners, are we? We're in it for profit. And the craic, natch.

Getting back to lazy rigidity and trends, if we unearth four or five solid looking angles which each filter out 15% or 25% of runners on a given characteristic, we can expect to be left with a short shortlist. Often zero, in fact. But the game is not to chisel away at our stone block until we have no sculpture, only chippings; rather, it is to produce the outline of a smart bet before digging into a bit of form or overlaying ratings or using some other method to cross-refer, sanity check and refine our early work.

There's no sense so uncommon as common sense, and it is that which we must apply to both the trends discovery phase and the shortlisting phase. Sometimes you'll be left with a long 'shortlist'. So what? That means you either need to take a punt at a price after further investigation, or pass the race. That, passing the race, is allowed, by the way 😉

 

Sensible everyday trends

There are plenty of schools of thought about what constitutes a solid basis for a 'trend'. I've intimated mine in reference to the National above and, for me, it's the bridge to bread and butter racing too.

The first thing I look for is what might be the most extreme element of a race. With the Nash, it's any or all of the distance, field size, number of fences and class/weight carried. I have to concede to filing that race under 'national spectacle' rather than 'punting vehicle' these days, however, and perhaps that is how it should be (except for the mug misconceptions visited on everyday horseracing as a consequence of that solitary exposure to the sport in most people's living rooms).

In more mundane - ostensibly at least: I'd rather back the winner of a Wednesday afternoon handicap than a faller at the first in the National! - events, there remain plenty of opportunities to spot material scarcity.

 

The winner of a Wednesday afternoon handicap...

Take this race from Beverley yesterday, for example, which conveniently enough popped up just as I was having a break and wanting a tiny interest dabble to recharge the flagging fingertips before round seven of my day's keyboard pugilism.

I checked the computer clock. It was 3.59pm. I had literally one minute to review the race, make a decision, and wager accordingly. Obviously stakes were kept to a minimum, but in that minute I could see it was a Class 5 five furlong soft ground handicap at Beverley. That immediately set me thinking about low draws and soft ground form.

Those, for me, are the two most important factors under such conditions. On quicker ground I'd replace going form with a speed rating over the minimum trip, but I'd still want a low draw.

Two horses, One Boy and Flash City, had plenty of soft ground placed form - at least 60% each on at least six soft ground runs - and they were drawn two and three of twelve. The clock had still not clicked over to 4.00pm by the time I'd staked a massive four quid on each. A moment later they were off. I was entertained through my tea break by the sight of the pair of them fighting out the finish.

They returned 16/1 and 16/1. My eight pound coins manifested into four twenty pounds notes, as near as damn it after the exchange had taxed it, which was all right for about 3o seconds analysis. I might have bet more if I'd taken longer to cogitate, but probably not: the wager was merely to revive the sagging synapses. [Click the images below to see my 20 second thought process visualised by Gold]

 

 

What's the point?

What's the point here? The point is this: look for those elements in a race which are both material and scarce.

In this case, there was a fixed scarcity, low draws, and a variable scarcity, soft ground lovers. There will always be low drawn horses in double-digit Beverley sprints and, all other things being equal, they will generally have an advantage up the hill and around that deceptively angular dogleg.

However, on another occasion, the ground may not be testing, or there may be an abundance of low drawn soft ground lovers, or the soft ground lovers may be drawn away from the low draws. None of those situations would have been as attractive as this setup. I'd have still wasted eight quid on the race, but I'd have been venturing far deeper into guesswork territory.

This is the way my brain looks at a race now. It is second nature, which is how I can assimilate the required intel in, literally, a few seconds. I also have tools which pinpoint what I'm looking for. So do you!

 

Example Scarcity Scenarios

Of course, it takes time to build up a picture of the requirements of a given scenario. So, in case you need a leg up, here are a few things I'm always on the lookout for. In each case, it is important to think about what is the least common, yet relevant, factor in the race.

Class 4 handicap hurdle on heavy ground: There are lots of handicap hurdles, and lots of Class 4 handicap hurdles. But there are not so many heavy ground races. The further away from middling going a track is, the more interested in proven ability to handle such terrain I am. Heavy and firm are polar opposite turf states and they tend to appeal to specialists. Better still, very often such horses will look moderate under most other conditions. Their unsexy form figures will add currency to their trading price, in the early go at least.

Instant Expert gives me pretty much all I need to know for a route in to such races.

Class 2 3m4f chase: Stamina and class are needed, but mostly stamina. I'd rather be with a Class 3 animal I know stays three and a half miles than a Class 2 beast stepping up from three miles flat, especially if the track is testing. The first thing I'm interested in is which horses have won beyond 3m2f and, ideally, between 3m4f and 3m6f.

Again, Instant Expert is my friend.

Class 2 3m4f chase, five runners: In small fields over longer distances, I'm on the lookout for a horse which might get a soft lead. A habitual front runner against hold up horses may steal four or five lengths with a quarter mile to go. If the leader is not outclassed, it will take a rare smart stayer to make up that sort of ground late in that sort of race. Almost all staying chasers are grinders; granting an easy lead to a horse in a staying chase and expecting to pass it late on would not be a good proposal for your mortgage advisor.

A two second glance at the pace map will reveal how things are projected to play out; check Instant Expert and the ratings to ensure the horse has the class and the contextual ability to contend.

Seven furlong heritage handicap, 22 runners: Big field, specialist trip. In big fields, I want to know if there's a track bias or a pace bias, or both (and are they aligned). I then want a horse drawn on what I believe to be the correct part of the track, that is proven in big fields; and I want them to have seven furlong form. If the going is soft or slower, or good to firm, I want evidence of effectiveness on that, too.

Draw tab first here, sorted by place for the bigger sample size that offers; then pace tab sorted by draw position to map out where the field looks likely to race; then Instant Expert (place view) Field Size column to see which horses have run into the frame consistently in big fields - and fit on other form-based credentials.

And so on.

 

Don't force it, and be careful...

It's important to remember that there isn't always an exploitable 'scarcity' element to a race. Indeed, there generally won't be such an angle. But on any given day they'll be lurking like truffles in the mud waiting to be snouted out by keen punters.

If you can't find anything material and scarce about the runners in the context of the race, then pass and move on. Or use a different approach to the puzzle.

Also note that this approach works best - perhaps exclusively - when all runners have exposed levels of form. That is, when all runners have had at least a couple of attempts at most of today's race factors.

Caution is advised when looking at horses doing things for the first or second time, especially if their human taskmasters have 'previous' in a given context. Horses can, and very often do, step forward markedly on their first or second run in a handicap; it is rather less common to see a horse improve ten pounds on its twelfth or fifteenth start in weight-for-ability races.

 

Summary

This post has attempted to offer a morsel of food for thought regarding an approach to the search for value in a horse race. We're looking for horses whose overall recent profile may not be terribly compelling but which are noteworthy against a material race factor where many/most rivals are not.

Demand a price about a horse in this context. If the market has already factored in significant improvement, move on.

Work out what your key differentiators - material elements - are; they're probably different from mine.

Have fun with it. This is just another of the myriad routes into picking a horse in a race. It can be done in very short order, which is part of the attraction for a busy person like me and, most likely, you. As well as the nags flagged at Beverley above, I used the same approach to snaffle those recent big-race Saturday winners (25/1 Mattmu, 14/1 Nakeeta) as well as last week's 8/1 runner up, Vibrant Chords. And each time I invested no more than five minutes into the process.

Now, sure, I fired two darts at those targets; and sure, over another three week period they all run rank. That's not the point at all. The point is the process - as Tony Keenan mentioned earlier this week in this excellent post, "Trust the process".

Don't expect instant success; don't use just one approach: different types of puzzle demand different tools from the box. Do enjoy mucking about with it. Don't bet the farm. Do look for some meat on the odds bone.

Hone your handicapping skills, and enjoy the trip. After all, if it's not fun we may as well get a job, right?

Matt

Appendix

For whatever it's worth, some of my 'material factors' - the ones which spring to mind while penning this - are listed below. Don't take them on trust; do your own digging, but hopefully there is enough herein to help you turn the first few shovels of soil.

Course Form: Ascot, Bath, Cartmel, Cheltenham, Epsom, Fakenham, Hexham, Kelso, Stratford, Towcester, Worcester

Going: Heavy, Firm

Distance: 5.5f, 7f, 1m1f, 2m2f, 3m4f+

Field size: 6 or fewer, 16+

Class: 1, 2, 3

Draw: Numerous, check Draw tool

Front runners: Catterick, Chester, Chelmsford, Newmarket, Pontefract, Yarmouth

 

Four Traits of Effective Punters

/in /by

Literary events in the gambling world are infrequent to say the least, writes Tony Keenan. Unless twice-yearly horses to follow annuals are your thing there’s little to get excited about in books on the subject but the launch of Harry Findlay’s autobiography ‘Gambling for Life’ earlier this month was an exception. Few who like a bet will have failed to pick up a copy and I’ve been reading with a strange mix of fascination and fear at the tales of Findlay’s life.

Some of the events described might draw out the swash-buckling punter in us all but in truth most of it is far removed from the world of the typical gambler. It’s much more about Findlay’s extraordinary character than a how-to manual (thank god for that!) but as is the case when I read any such material it sets me reflecting about gambling in general. What are the things that make gamblers tick? Are there traits that are common across those who succeed in the punting world? Here is my best guess about the four aspects of character that might be most important though excuse me if the paragraph titles sound like they come from an ill thought-out self-help book.

 

  1. Consistency

‘Trust the process’ is a phrase beloved in American sport and has been most recently used by the Philadelphia 76ers executive as their basketball team was mired in bad results for seasons as they accumulated draft picks to rebuild the side. The process became such a tagline that one of their stars Joel Embiid took it on as a nickname but it is ultimately an approach that worked as the 76ers are now on an upward curve for the first time in years.

Punters would do well to nurture a similar attitude and concentrate on process rather than results. This is easier said than done, especially when on a losing run, but as someone who writes a weekly tipping column on a busy website it is one of the only ways to get back on an upward curve. If you have a method that works over time, you need to apply it consistently regardless of short-term outcomes. Ironically, betting profits tend not to come in dribs and drabs but in large globules and their spaced-out nature can be challenging to deal with.

But sticking to consistent methods of form study, staking, time taken studying a race meeting and such like is important with ‘rinse and repeat’ the phrase to remember. Real life can obviously impinge on this if there are bins to be put out or a crying baby to be soothed or simply real work to be done [God forbid! – Ed.] but the punter that can keep things pretty level tends to prove more effective than those that cannot.

 

  1. Creativity

Imagination would hardly be high on the list of things one might think as important for a punter but I defer to the great Andy Beyer in his book ‘Beyer on Speed’ about the topic of creativity: ‘handicapping is an art, a test of man’s creative intelligence, not merely a puzzle to be solved by applying the right formula.’ In recent years I have come to believe that betting is at least as much art as science and that feel and intuition are vital tools to getting an edge; the unfortunate thing for novice punters is that these things only come with time.

We live in the big data age where seemingly every aspect of life can be boiled down into a number or a chart and betting is no different. High-end punters are using figures to get ahead as we have seen in articles about Tony Bloom and his quants crunching data at Starlizard. One cannot but admire their rigour and many good bets will come from such a grind but against that a more subjective approach will always provide an edge for the very fact that it is personal to each punter.

Maybe you have seen something in a replay that has been missed by everyone else, a hood that was removed half a beat too late or a subtle bit of shuffling back that has not been commented on anywhere. Perhaps you’ve read an insightful trainer comment on a low-key website that has provided a new angle into a horse. Sometimes a horse or a bet has all the figures and the model may say it will win but there is something more intangible that plays against it winning; when you have the imagination to spot this, you are on to something.

 

  1. Openness to Change

It is a truth universally acknowledged in betting that edges dissipate and eventually disappear whether it is through growing bookmaker awareness or sheer weight of market support. Punters need to be on the look out for the next edge and likely guard it closely to prolong its longevity. I cannot understand why some are dismissive about newer approaches to racing like sectional times when as a gambler this is exactly the type of angle you want to be developing; perhaps it will all turn out to be a nonsense (though I doubt it) and clearly no method of tackling a race is going to work in every case but doesn’t it at least make sense to explore the possibilities?

This brings us on to the question of what might be the next big edge in racing analysis and in truth it is likely being practiced quietly by a few sharp operators at this very time. I wonder if it might be something to do ground loss and gains around turns and the impact that it has on races. The use of Trakus for racing in Dubai has revealed the importance of how far a horse travelled in a race and the effect it had in the finish but we in Ireland and Britain find this type of thing harder to grasp as it is so difficult to quantify.

Another thing at play might be that the lost ground angle works against our natural thinking biases. I suspect the eye is drawn to the horse tanking along the rail that is struggling to get a run rather than the one that has been trapped out wide conceding ground all the way; at the very least we have been conditioned to view the former in a more positive light than the latter by the racing media. But that horse has not only drawn all the attention and thus will be a shorter price than it might merit next time but it has also had the benefit of going the shortest way and having the all-important cover that can be key to getting a horse to settle.

 

  1. Ruthlessness

I’ll begin this final section with a disclaimer; I am probably nowhere near ruthless enough myself as a gambler though that is probably a good thing in life in general! But a ruthless streak can be important for gambling success as we have seen in a number of high-profile cases where punters have exploited bookmaker weakness through spotting loopholes in their risk management systems and hammering them for all they were worth.

This necessitates burning bridges with bookmakers – you might catch them out once but not a second time – but the truly ruthless punter doesn’t care about this; he has other ways of getting on. The whole getting on process is another area where we can see this ruthlessness at play. The ruthless punter may use the accounts of others for a period of time – these things always have a shelf-life – but these people are kicked to the curb when their usefulness is exhausted. Some would argue this is simply the gambling food chain, and there is probably merit in that view, but while cutting ties with bookmakers is one thing, doing the same to friends whose accounts you might have burned is quite another, especially if they are fond of a bet themselves.

Your stance on this issue might say something about your whole attitude to gambling and indeed your broader personality. Some see gambling as being all about going for the one big touch, ‘the face-spitter’ as Steve Palmer might call it, but the problem with reaching for that single epic punting moment is that it cannot be achieved without first putting in the grind to build up your skills. I’ve always been more about the grind, not least because I enjoy it; let’s face it, studying a good race meeting is more stimulating than sitting down to a night in front of ‘The X-Factor’!

Perhaps this brand of ruthlessness is born of the fact that gambling at its heart is a selfish endeavour; it is your money that you are wagering and ultimately the responsibility stops with you. My own experience tells me otherwise however. I find gambling is much more satisfying when done in concert with a few close betting partners where you can share successes; perhaps you don’t maximise profits completely but there are more important things in life. I might be alone in this but I would rather win less and enjoy the experience more.

- TK

Pace Maps: Predicting the Future Just Got Easier…

/in , /by

The whole point of betting on horses - betting on anything - is being able to accurately predict what will happen in the future. The more 'yesterday' information we have, the better able we are to forecast 'tomorrow'.

In Britain, horse racing punters were traditionally in the dark: for years, there was nothing more informative (ahem) than the little alphanumeric sextet of recent finishing positions to the left of a horse's name. 'Professionals' bought the Sporting Life and, more recently, Racing Post. This gave them a huge leg up on other newspaper readers, but was still seriously deficient in terms of projecting what might actually happen in a race.

The advent of the internet has, slowly it must be said, changed things; finally, punters are able to access a raft of insightful data which genuinely can give them the edge over the bookmakers. This edge is greatest in the early markets, where many of the horse race odds lines are algorithmically constructed: Deep Blue versus Kasparov this is not. The software creating the early markets is not exactly sophisticated, which means we don't need to be chess grandmasters to find the ricks.

Looking at past form cycles and profiles - that is, when a horse comes into form and under what conditions - is a blind spot in the algos, which focus too heavily on recent form. The starting price markets are much more efficient of course, but nobody bets SP, do they? Do they?!!

One of the last major vestiges of unpublished form, in Britain and Ireland at least, is pace. Pace can mean different things: it can be precise, by virtue of sectional times; or it can be more general, defining a horse's run style. In most of the established racing betting nations - Hong Kong, Japan, US - sectional times are ubiquitous. Commentators are able to quantify the speed of the horses in-running by a split time stopwatch in the corner of the screen.

Here, we have no such aides - the usual "who's going to pay for it?" arguments - but what we do have, and more so than in many of the aforementioned racing jurisdictions, are detailed in-running comments. These allow a bettor to work through past performances and develop a picture in the mind's eye of each horse's run style. It's laborious, for sure, and I know for a fact that most jockeys riding in Britain gather their understanding of how the races they're riding in will unfurl in this manner. Until now...

Geegeez Gold has had pace information, in the form of a data table, for quite some time. And, yesterday, we moved things up a notch by converting the numbers into a picture: a pace map. Pictures are much easier for us humans to understand than words and numbers. Consequently, we can get the gist of something - like, for example, how a race will be run - in just a second or two when the data is presented in pictorial format.

So, welcome to Geegeez Gold's new Pace Graphic view. It's not Deep Blue, and nor was it imagined by the genius of Kasparov (it was me, actually), but it does instantly visualise how a race might be run based on the last four UK/Ire runs of the horses in it. And that means its users have a significant edge on other punters, either in time or awareness terms or, in most cases, both.

It lives in the existing PACE tab, and looks like this:

In this race, Whos De Baby looked like he'd get a clear lead. That's exactly what happened, allowing him to finish 2nd at 12/1

In this race, Whos De Baby looked like he'd get a clear lead. That's exactly what happened, allowing him to finish 2nd at 12/1

 

In this example from yesterday, Whos De Baby was predicted to be 'Probable Lone Speed', meaning he was expected to be able to set his own pace and try to make all. He very nearly did, finishing a good second at odds of 12/1.

Below is a video where I show you the what and how of the new Pace Graphic. If you're familiar with pace and how to use it in horseracing there may be little new therein. But if you're still trying to get to grips with the importance of pace, and which scenarios to look out for, you really should watch it.

 

 

There is more information in the User Guide, which can be downloaded from your My Geegeez page here; and there is an 'introduction to pace' video here.

Geegeez Gold continues to be committed to provided the best information for punters in the most consumable, readily understandable format, so you know more than your competition (other punters, not bookmakers) in less time.

If you're not yet a Gold subscriber, you can join us here. That page includes a link where readers who have never tried Gold before can get their first 30 days for just a pound. Thereafter, Gold is £30 per month. If you're serious about getting ahead with your horse racing betting, I don't know how else you can have this sort of a chance for less than a pound a day. Granted, I am a tiny bit biased... 😉

Good luck, and thanks for reading/watching.
Matt

An End To Blinkered Thinking?

/in /by

The relationship between racehorses and equipment - especially headgear - is often misunderstood. That can be mainly credited to two factors. Firstly, some equipment, such as different tack (sheepskin or cross nosebands, for example), is not required to be declared. And secondly, the general public have nothing more than a notation in the racecard relating to the wearing of other equipment.

Some publications do make a point of highlighting that a horse is, for instance, blinkered first time. But is the initial fitting of blinkers a positive? If not, what about subsequent runs?

The Tongue Tie: A Precursor to the Blinkers Study

I did some research a while back on the fitting of tongue ties and, specifically, whether a first time tongue tie was advantageous. The findings - reproduced below - were surprising, to me at least.

 

 

The first application of a tongue tie, shown here in the top row, A) 0, has the lowest win strike rate of all. It also has the lowest place strike rate, and the highest negative ROI.

What was really interesting was the linear progression in performance thereafter. The second application of tongue tie - B) 1 - was better than the first, but not as good as the third; the third was better than the second but not as good as the fourth; and so on.

These observations were made on what, in racing terms, is a vast sample size of 115,000 runners, and it is clear that, in general, it takes time for a horse to learn to breathe with its tongue tied down. There is also a point - somewhere between the 10th and 25th application - beyond which the tongue tie's effectiveness wanes.

**

"Wait, I can't see much! What's that behind me?!"

So why put blinkers on a horse anyway? I was re-reading Nick Mordin's brilliant Betting For A Living for the nth time recently, and stumbled upon his version of the origination of racehorse blinkers. It goes thus:

Reproduced from Nick Mordin's Betting For A Living

Reproduced from Nick Mordin's Betting For A Living

 

More recently, US turf writer, Marcus Hersh penned this 'qualitative' article, quoting many top American trainers as well as John Gosden, who began his training career in California.

Both Mordin and Hersh make the point that blinkers replicate the 'fight or flight' (in this case, 'flight' being the hoped for response) instinct in a domesticated herd animal.

Before a horse sports blinkers, it is almost always assumed not to need them and is given a chance to run unencumbered by headgear. For many, though, this is a temporary hiatus before some sort of garb is reached for, generally in search of hitherto undiscovered improvement.

Variations on the blinker theme exist in the form of eye shields, visors, and cheek pieces, as well as actual differences in the 'cup' on a pair of blinkers. The research below focuses solely on blinkers in all their forms (British racing does not require trainers to declare, for example, half cup blinkers, or full cup blinkers), and uses 'no headgear' as a control.

'No headgear' means the horse did not wear blinkers, or an eye shield, or a visor, or cheek pieces, or indeed anything. By extension, then, the study does not include all runners: those sporting equipment other than blinkers, or in combination with blinkers are excluded from this research.

I have included short form comparisons with equivalent data from Irish racing.

UK Blinkers vs No Headgear, 2014 to 2016

The first dataset I looked at was 'all UK racing' for the three year period 2014 to 2016.

During that period, the average win strike rate for a blinkered horse was 10.43% compared with an average for horses wearing no headgear of 11.76%. It should surprise nobody that horses wearing blinkers typically under-performed in strike rate terms compared to horses without headgear of any sort.

But I wanted to dig a little deeper. My experience with the tongue tie dataset had led me to wonder whether there were any similar patterns for blinkered horses: did familiarity with the equipment improve performance?

As you can see from the table below, there was an improvement in the win strike rate for blinkered horses through their early runs in blinkers.

 

 

Horses having their first run in blinkers - i.e. with zero previous blinkered runs (Prev Blkrd Runs) - won just 9.53% of the time, compared to 11.76% for horses not wearing headgear.

But, on their second run in blinkers (i.e. one previous blinkered run), that improved to 10.96% winners. Whilst still lagging some way behind the control this represented a significant step forward, and can reasonably be put down to the benefit of experience.

Now here's the interesting thing: horses having their third start with blinkers won at a rate of 12.74%, markedly better than runners without headgear. Moreover, their place strike rate was higher and their ROI was much closer to zero than other group. The second best ROI group was 'first time blinkers'.

For some reason, the sixth run in blinkers was also very close to the 'no headgear' group. That was odd and my first reaction was that it is happenstance.

 

Blinkers vs No Headgear, 2012 to 2013

That initial look piqued my interest for a deeper dive, so I went back another couple of years to see if the fairly strong patterns were replicated on a separate sample.

Here, the control - i.e. no headgear - group won at a rate of 11.15%. Again the blinkered first time subset performed poorly, scoring just 9.56% of the time albeit for a very respectable -5.6% ROI at starting price.

Second time blinkers showed an improvement on the initial effort in win and place strike rate terms, and third time blinkers was another step forward. Indeed, as with the first dataset, third time blinkered outgunned the 'no headgear' group by a statistically significant margin: 11.83% vs 11.15% is an improvement of more than 6%.

Note as well that both fifth and sixth time blinkered also fared better than the control sample, especially sixth time... again. Weird.

 

 

There seemed to be quite strong similarities between the two UK datasets, so I extended my analysis to Irish racing for the same period. The results were again similar, though this time no blinkered sub-group beat the control:

 

The group that came closest to matching the control was - you guessed it - the third time blinkered set. Quite why the 'no headgear' set had the edge this time, I'm not sure, though I suspect it may be something to do with the might of the Mullins and O'Brien yards which dominate Irish racing and rarely use blinkers (just 300 blinkered runs collectively versus 5122 'no headgear' runs, or 5.5%).

 

Blinkers vs No Headgear, Handicaps (All Codes), 2012-2016

Having looked at the five year supersets for all races, I then honed in on handicaps. Below is the UK story for number of blinkered runs in handicaps under all codes (i.e. flat, all weather and National Hunt).

Here again, perhaps unsurprisingly given the related contingency nature of the subset, that third run in blinkers shows a marked improvement over 'no headgear'. This time it is 12.29% vs 11.18%, a 10% advantage; and both place strike rate and ROI are notably better than those without facial accoutrements.

The best performing group in ROI terms was 'first time blinkers', again.

And again we see that odd sixth time in blinkers group outperforming the rest. Weeeirrd...

 

 

The Irish comparison was interesting. When looking at all races above, I surmised that a possible reason for the 'third time in blinkers' group performing less well than the 'no headgear' group was the preeminence of the Mullins and O'Brien stables. If there was any truth to my conjecture, we might expect to see the handicapping third time blinkers group fare better: after all, most of those super power batallions race in open company (80% in the survey period vs 20% handicaps).

Sure enough, we do see the third time blinkered Irish handicappers outperform the 'no headgear' handicappers, and by a sizeable margin: the same 10% as the UK handicappers.

 

Blinkers vs No Headgear, Handicaps (Flat Turf & All Weather), 2012-2016

Finally, I wanted to split out flat (turf and all weather) handicaps from National Hunt handicaps. You'll be familiar with the view by now...

 

 

The same themes emerge yet again: third time in blinkers significantly outpoint UK flat handicappers without headgear - by 9.34% this time (11.94% vs 10.92%). The best ROI performance comes from those blinkered first time once more. And those sixth time blinkered UK 'cappers almost match the 'no headgear' mob. Quirky...

 

Bringing in the Irish scene, we see more of the same:

 

Third time blinkers had a nigh on 10% strike rate, compared with 8.74% for those wearing no headgear. That 13.84% uplift is the largest of all the disparities in my research, but I can't logically apportion it to anything other than variance. Nevertheless, the core principle is alive and kicking: third time lucky for many in blinkers.

 

Blinkers vs No Headgear, Handicaps (National Hunt), 2012-2016

The last subset under scrutiny was National Hunt handicaps. And it was the group for which blinkers seemed to be the most consistently advantageous, at least when compared to not wearing headgear of any description.

Here we see that, after that initial blinkered start - perennially an under-performing run in strike rate terms, regardless of dataset - those wearing 'the blinds' outran those unfurnished for almost all of their next five runs (excepting fifth time blinkered - go figure).

Top of the pile, on place strike rate at least, is the third run in blinkers brigade. They were actually marginally usurped in win strike terms by the sixth run crew. Again, I have no idea why that might be.

From an ROI perspective blinkered first timers went closest to breaking even, as they have done throughout my analysis.

 

 

The Irish National Hunt handicappers perspective has a familiar look to it:

 

Third, and especially sixth, time blinkered horses were in front of those without headgear. Again.

 

Conclusions: Winners? Or Profit?

This was a fascinating, and to some degree, surprising study. When I set out, I expected to see some improvement from run to run as per the tongue tie research I'd previously performed. What I didn't really expect was such a strong correlation in the data, regardless of race type, time frame or racing jurisdiction.

That slicing and dicing of the dataset adds a layer of credibility which is quite rare in horse racing research. Normally, samples are too small or conclusions too obvious. But here we can clearly see something which I've not seen expressed anywhere before:

Horses wearing blinkers for the third time, on average, win significantly more often than horses wearing no headgear.

Horses wearing blinkers for the third time, on average, win significantly more often than horses wearing no headgear.

Whilst that is worth knowing, and can be the starting point for making a bet, or at least marking up the chance of a horse with a borderline value case, it is not profitable in or of itself.

Indeed, it is interesting that, while first time blinkered horses perform comparatively very poorly in strike rate terms, their starting price return on investment is closer to zero than those without headgear across almost all samples above. That implies they are sent off at bigger odds than ought to be the case.

Remarkably, backing all UK blinkered first time horses from 2012 to 2016 would have yielded a positive ROI of 10.66% at Betfair SP.

Remarkably, backing all UK blinkered first time horses from 2012 to 2016 would have yielded a positive ROI of 10.66% at Betfair SP.

That's 675 points on 6338 bets. Granted, the results are skewed by Morning Post's 100/1 win in 2013, which returned 470 on Betfair!

Looking only at handicaps - Morning Post ran in a conditions race - still gives an ROI at BSP of 9.28%. That's a profit of 440 points from 4743 bets where no winner returned bigger than 75 on the exchange.

Irish handicaps also returned a profit at BSP, though it was as a result of three triple-digit payoffs.

At the end of the day, then, it comes down to the age old punters' dilemma: do you want winners, or profit? First time blinkers will give you less winners than any other group in the sample. But... they are your best chance of turning a profit.

Given the size of these datasets and that there are brain dead angles contained within, the scope to develop profitable micro-systems is vast.

 

What Next?

This research is merely the tip of the iceberg. I haven't looked at trainers who fare especially well (try Gary Moore and Tim Easterby first time blinkered in handicaps); or compared with last time out headgear (blinkers off to blinkers on, switch from another headgear type); or looked at how exposed horses were prior to the fitting of blinkers; or looked at the donning of blinkers in conjunction with other equipment; or indeed looked at the general effect of other types of headgear.

In other words, there are many routes to explore from here. Each may be a profit-sucking cul de sac or an expansive value boulevard. Go forth, and let this be an end to your blinkered thinking... or perhaps just the beginning!

To help your exploration, we've now added numerical suffixes to horses wearing equipment, as follows:

Geegeez racecards now have a count on the number of times equipment combinations have been deployed on a horse

Geegeez racecards now have a count on the number of times equipment combinations have been deployed on a horse

In this example, we can see that Piazon is wearing the combination of hood, tongue tie and cheekpieces for the first time (h,t,cp1). Meanwhile Artscape and Taajub (on his 77th career start!) are wearing cheekpieces and blinkers respectively for the first time, Coastal Cyclone has a second run in blinkers, while Mad Endeavour has run at least five times in blinkers.

We know from the above research that first time blinkers have a low strike rate but a profitable bottom line, such is their 'marmite' impact. And we know that 'bl3' may be something to look out for from a win strike rate perspective, notwithstanding that value judgements will have to be made about the animals deploying such kit.

To assist with such judgements, clicking the 'TODAY'S HEADGEAR' check box on the Full Form tab will shine a light. Here's Mad Endeavour's record with blinkers:

Select TODAY'S HEADGEAR to see a horse's record with the same equipment

Select TODAY'S HEADGEAR to see a horse's record with the same equipment

Matt

FOOTNOTE: I was reminded that there is an inherent 'sampling bias' in the progressive number of blinkered runs. That is, a horse which has a positive experience in blinkers is more likely to retain them for a subsequent run/runs; conversely, a horse with a negative experience is more likely not to run in them again.

Whilst that is undoubtedly true, it does nothing to invalidate the findings which are, as stated, intended as a) food for thought and b) a starting point for the curious among you to undertake further research. Moreover, the only element of 'directly profitable takeaway' concerns first time blinkers, for which there is no such sampling bias.

Horse's racing careers are necessarily bound by sampling biases in that their trainers and owners will want to replicate successful outcomes and avoid repeating failed ones.

The Ten Worst Group 1 Winners in Recent Memory*

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(*since 2003)

You could come up with a metric to figure out the worst Group 1 winners of recent times, writes Tony Keenan. Performance ratings on the day would be a good starting point while subsequent achievements matter too, as would those of the horses around and behind them. You could look at the nature of the race, knowing full well that certain Group 1s – those confined to fillies or over staying trips, say – are less competitive than others. But none of this is as much fun as trawling through the records of the 638 Group 1 winners since 2003 in Britain and Ireland and figuring out who the hell was that horse that won the Middle Park in 2009 (Awzaan, in case you didn’t know) and looking at what became of them.

2003 is taken as the starting point because that is as far back as the excellent HorseRaceBase database goes and it neatly coincides with the time I started following racing properly. This is an utterly subjective list and the idea behind it is not to offend; it needs pointing out that every bad Group 1 winner is s triumph for someone, be it trainer, jockey or breeder, the by-product of a certain set of circumstances on the day. And that’s basically what I’m doing: looking for horses that were patently inferior to the usual level required to win a Group 1 but who for whatever reason were able to maximise their ability in a narrow window of the mere minutes it takes to run a race.

Honourable Mentions: Rajeem – 2006 Falmouth (a Clive Brittain 50/1 special, need I say more!); Vintage Tipple – 2003 Irish Oaks (one for the sentimentalists but worth remembering that she and the filly she beat in the Oaks finished the season racing in a backend Curragh Listed contest); Camelot – 2013 Racing Post Trophy, 2014 2,000 Guineas, Derby and Irish Derby (surely one of the worst four-time Group 1 winners ever, beat Zip Top, French Fifteen, Main Sequence and Born To Sea in his Group 1 wins yet nearly went down as a great), Encke – 2014 St Leger (the one that stopped Camelot’s Triple Crown bid but later banned for positive drug test), Parish Hall – 2011 Dewhurst (immortalised for trying to give his nearest rival a love-bite on his penultimate start in 2015).

 

  1. Jwala – 2013 Nunthorpe

Starting price isn’t the best guide to finding bad Group 1 winners with the biggest-priced winner in this period proving the point; that horse was 2010 Nunthorpe winner Sole Power at 100/1 who went on to triumph in five more top-level contests. He was third to the 40/1 shot Jwala this day with Shea Shea in second, the softened ground suiting neither, while the Robert Cowell-trained winner also benefited from an excellent ride with Steve Drowne making more or less all. Her previous best was a win in a Listed race, also at York, but this was a shock in a race that has produced a few over the years, the short distance and big field often bringing in some randomness. To Jwala’s credit she did back up her win with a good fourth in the Abbaye next time but that was one of the lesser runnings of the French race.

 

  1. My Dream Boat – 2016 Prince of Wales’s Stakes

It is truth universally acknowledged in European racing that bad horses don’t win Group 1s over ten furlongs; races over this trip have long been the most competitive in the calendar. There are some lesser Group 1 over the distance, notably the Tattersalls Gold Cup at the Curragh and some of the early season French races, but by and large you need to be good to win one. My Dream Boat isn’t very good looking at his overall form and managed to find a particularly bad renewal of the Prince of Wales’s Stakes last year, a race that tends to be among the best of Royal Ascot. Soft ground meant a field of just six took part with A Shin Hikari looking nothing like the beast that had blown the Prix D’Ispahan apart by 10 lengths on his previous start. Found was in her phase of finishing second every time she ran while the rest of the field was made up of the doggish Western Hymn, a regressive The Grey Gatsby and all-weather horse Tryster. My Dream Boat loved the ground, Found didn’t love the battle and the rest is history.

 

  1. La Collina – 2011 Phoenix Stakes/2013 Matron Stakes

Including a dual Group 1 winner is probably a bit churlish – can something be a fluke if it happens twice – but La Collina was just three from sixteen overall in her career and is one of those horses that seemed blessed with luck. Kevin Prendergast has won Group 1s with some strange horses, Termagant in the same colours for instance, many of whom never produce the same level of form again. La Collina was never better than when beating subsequent National Stakes and Irish 2,000 Guineas winner, Power, in the Phoenix Stakes, allowing that one was a sitting duck with how the race unfolded. Her Matron Stakes win got within a few pounds of that form but she was rated only 106 going into the race, very much at the low end of the spectrum of official ratings for older horse Group 1s, and the filly she beat was rated just 105.

 

  1. Reel Buddy – 2003 Sussex Stakes

Connections of Reel Buddy didn’t think much of him in 2003, running him twice within three days over the Lincoln meeting at Doncaster where he was beaten a combined 46 lengths, and his best win prior to the Sussex was a Group 3. This was a race that set up well for him even before post time, Dubai Destination redirected for France while Kalaman and Where Or When came out that morning. The race itself was a mess pace-wise but Pat Eddery gave his quirky mount a fine ride and never used the stick. Goodwood is a track that gets a bad name in terms of luck-in-running but bad winners of the Sussex are rare with the Nassau at the same meeting more likely to produce a shock.

 

  1. Frozen Fire – 2008 Irish Derby

Seamie Heffernan has made a career out of winning races he shouldn’t have and Frozen Fire was one of the early ones, landing an ordinary renewal of the Irish Derby where he came wide and avoided traffic that led to some of the placings being reversed. There were some decent horses in the field: Casual Conquest won a Group 1 afterwards while Tartan Bearer was second in a King George, but this was very much the high point of Frozen Fire’s career arc. The only other race he won was a Gowran Park maiden while he went on to show little with Mike De Kock. Returned 16/1 on the day, these big-priced O’Brien Group 1 winners rarely go on, with Homecoming Queen, Was and Qualify also failing to win again afterwards.

 

  1. G Force – 2014 Haydock Sprint Cup

The Sprint Cup is the weakest of the UK’s Group 1 sprints and by some distance; in fact, the prospective Champion Sprinter will often miss the race for a later target. That has left the way clear for recent winners like Goodricke, Regal Parade and Markab to come from handicaps and while that’s clearly not a bad thing in itself, you probably don’t want to be heading back for handicaps afterwards. That’s exactly what has happened to G Force, excellent for peak David O’Meara in 2014, rumours circulating of his taking over the mantle at Ballydoyle in fact. G Force was found to be sub-fertile when sent to stud and is 13 starts without a win since the Sprint Cup. He was last seen at the Curragh on Saturday where he finished last in the Scurry Stakes, a handicap.

 

  1. Madame Chiang – 2014 Fillies and Mares Stakes

British Champions Day is a brilliant idea and there have been some brilliant winners at the meeting, notably King Frankel and all his princes like Cirrus Des Aigles, Excelebration and Farhh. With any flat meeting run in October there is always the chance of really deep ground and freak results and so it proved in the second running of the Fillies and Mares as a Group 1 in 2014. The leaders went off far too hard and there was a pace collapse – the finishing speed for the winner was a crazy 94.4% - with the most talented filly in the field, Chiquita, going bananas [geddit?!] in the finish and earning the immortal in-running comment ‘threw it away’. The mud-loving Madame Chiang was there to pick up the pieces having been dropped out completely.

 

  1. Pether’s Moon – 2015 Coronation Cup

Trainers and owners might be willing to chance their best three-year-olds at Epsom, the prestige of the Oaks and Derby outweighing the obvious risk of the track, but with the notable exception of Aidan O’Brien and some French handlers many seem less keen on running their older horses in races like the Coronation Cup. Such wariness reached its peak in the 2014 Coronation Cup where just four went to post and the market was dominated by Dolniya and Flintshire; this was the pre-US Flintshire however. It was more a race Dolniya lost than anything else, emptying in the finish having traded at 1/50 in running, and Pether’s Moon came through to win, his previous best effort having come in the Bosphorus Cup at Veliefendi. Incidentally, he was the Hannons’ first Group 1 winner over further than a mile since Assessor in the 1992 Prix Royal-Oak.

 

  1. Palace Episode – 2005 Racing Post Trophy

Doncaster stages two of the weakest Group 1s of the season in the St. Leger and the Racing Post Trophy and it would challenge even the best racing historian to list off the last 20 winners of each race. The ground was heavy in October 20o5 which helped Palace Episode’s case and hindered that of Dylan Thomas who was to prove much the best horse in the field but who didn’t operate on soft. Palace Episode was quirky, flashing his tail in the finish, and won just once in the rest of his career, in a Saratoga claimer. His career at stud proved little better.

 

  1. Pedro The Great – 2012 Phoenix

There have been some eminently forgettable winners of the Phoenix Stakes like Sudirman, Alfred Nobel and Dick Whittington, but none more than so the unfortunately named Pedro The Great. His immediate victims on the day were the ungenuine pair Leitir Mor and Lottie Dod, the former 2/32 in his career though he did at least act as a pacemaker for Dawn Approach, the latter 1/14 lifetime and rated 89 when last seen. Pedro The Great’s task was eased when his stablemate Cristoforo Colombo slipped up while the other fancied runner Probably found little. Soft ground and Irish Group 1s can throw up some weird results.

 

As I've said, this is a subjective list and no offence is intended. If you disagree, or feel another has a legitimate claim to top ten 'bragging' rights, leave a comment below.

- Tony Keenan

The Irish at Royal Ascot 2017

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Aidan O'Brien spearheads the Irish challenge at Royal Ascot

Aidan O'Brien spearheads the Irish challenge at Royal Ascot

Irish indifference, be it from the general public or the mainstream sporting media, is given when it comes to Royal Ascot, writes Tony Keenan. Whereas the Royal meeting is a central cog in the social and sporting calendar in the UK, commanding column inches describing the who’s who of attendees and being the only meeting of the year where every race is on terrestrial TV, the attention it gets in Ireland is minimal; Galway remains the highpoint of the racing summer.

Perhaps this is due to the coverage given to other sports. The US Open has just finished, we’re in the middle of a Lions Tour and both the football and hurling championships have proved surprisingly competitive. Others will say that for all Aidan O’Brien’s achievements at the meeting and in flat racing generally, his record-breaking has become blasé; brilliance is diminished when it is expected. But most of all it is not Cheltenham despite being a fixture that is obviously more important in a global racing sense than any jumps event, the horses that run making their mark in the history of the sport through their own actions across the five days and in breeding sheds later.

None of this will stop flat racing people in Ireland going hell for leather at the meeting. Irish runners at Royal Ascot have been gradually rising since 2010 and it’s a surprise there aren’t even more Irish horses entered. Not only do our horses consistently overachieve here – a general rule is that betting Irish runners at the fixture comes with a positive expected value – but for owners it must be a fantastic experience, unique among racetracks around the world. As seen below, it is a long time since there were only 24 Irish runners and one winner back in 2003.

 

Irish Runners at Royal Ascot by Year
Year Winners Runners Strikerate Level-Stakes Actual/Expected
2010 4 46 8.7% -10.00 0.81
2011 6 35 17.1% -6.45 1.04
2012 8 47 17.0% +41.55 1.19
2013 8 62 12.9% +11.83 1.15
2014 8 63 12.7% -14.09 1.14
2015 8 50 16.0% +0.03 1.01
2016 10 69 14.5% +30.15 1.10

 

Apart from the flashy winner totals, Irish participation at the meeting has been consistently increasing; from 2010 to 2016 the percentage of Irish runners at Royal Ascot has gone: 9.6%, 7.4%, 9.3%, 11.9%, 12.9%, 11.3%, and 14.6%. 15% of all runners might even be in play this year as the record for Irish-trained winners at the meeting was set last year after four years of plateauing at eight winners, and William Hill rate Irish trainers to have 10 or more winners nmo more than a 13/8 shot.

The week before last the Racing Post headlined with ‘Green Army’ in an article about how Ireland’s jumps trainers like Jessica Harrington and Willie Mullins would also be sending multiple runners to add depth to the panel. As with this past Cheltenham, the record total for Irish winners at the meeting again seems possible with short-priced ‘bankers’ like Churchill, Order Of St George, Caravaggio and Winter helpful in that regard.

 

Aidan O’Brien

The recent story of Irish runners at Ascot necessarily begins with Aidan O’Brien. Consider his record here since 2010 [and unless otherwise mentioned all numbers in this article refer to the meetings since 2010].

 

Trainer Winners Runners Strikerate Level-Stakes Actual/Expected
Aidan O’Brien 27 153 17.7% +50.69 1.03

 

In the period referenced, O’Brien is well clear of the next best, which is John Gosden on 17 winners, with Michael Stoute third on 14 winners. No other trainer has reached double figures. With O’Brien not having had fewer than two winners at any Royal Ascot meeting this decade, he is understandably no bigger than 2/7 to be top trainer in 2017.

When breaking down his runners in search of a betting angle, there seems to be a lot more noise than signal. His record with short-priced horses is decent – of the 22 horses sent off 2/1 or shorter, 11 won for a level-stakes profit of 1.69 points and an actual over expected of 1.03 – but we are not talking Willie Mullins at Cheltenham levels.

23 of his 27 winners were the first string or only runner in the race, ridden by the main jockey at the time, be it Johnny Murtagh, Joseph O’Brien or Ryan Moore; the exceptions were Ishvana (2012 Jersey), War Command (2013 Coventry), Brave Anna (2016 Albany) and Sword Fighter (2016 Queen’s Vase). Letting O’Brien do some of the work for you makes sense.

It was a little surprising to note how few fillies he ran relative to colts and a very small number of geldings.

 

Gender Winners Runners Strikerate Level-Stakes Actual/Expected
Male 21 122 17.2% +21.81 0.95
Female 6 31 19,4% +28.88 1.41

 

A niche angle here – though one that could just be a fluke – is looking for fillies and mares than ran against the males; there were just four qualifiers here with two winners (Ishvana and Maybe) and two seconds (Found and Ballydoyle). I suspect this was the plan with the likes of Minding, Seventh Heaven and Alice Springs at the meeting but all three appear to be on the sidelines just now though Clemmie and/or September are possibles for the Chesham.

The other potential approach here was looking at his horses in the lower-profile races rather than the Group 1s and 2s. There are a couple of things that could be going on here. Firstly, the Ballydoyle horses look overbet in the very best races as O’Brien is a recognised Group 1 trainer; he was not far away from the record of top-level wins in a single year for much of last season. Furthermore, he seems inclined to have more runners in those better races to increase the chance of a winner despite those races being more competitive.

 

Race Type Winners Runners Strikerate Level-Stakes Actual/Expected
Group 1/2 15 94 16.0% -6.79 0.86
Group 3/Listed 11 46 23.9% +59,48 1.47

 

Distance/Age

In a similar article last year, I covered the records of all Irish horses at Royal Ascot by age and distance and it is worth reprising them now as they again proved profitable last year [again, table is since 2010].

 

Age Winners Runners Strikerate Level-Stakes Actual/Expected
2yo 10 77 13.0% +0.61 0.87
3yo 18 151 11.9% +1.91 0.93
4yo+ 24 144 16.7% +50.50 1.37

 

The juveniles and three-year-olds are doing fine but it’s the older horses that are excelling and it is not as if the winners were impossible to find; 18 of the 24 were returned 10/1 or shorter. This is supported by the records of Irish horses in races of different distances with the stayers coming out particularly well; these races are generally for the older horses.

 

Distance Winners Runners Strikerate Level-Stakes Actual/Expected
5-6f 13 98 13.3% +35.38 1.08
7-8f 15 136 11.0% -17.66 0.97
10-12f 9 61 14.8% -13.15 0.86
16f+ 15 77 19.5% +48.45 1.42

 

Irish sprinters return a decent number of winners but that is more to do with two-year-olds than horses running in the King’s Stand and Diamond Jubilee by now; there was a brief golden age of Irish sprinting a few seasons back with Eddie Lynam’s 'Power' horses, and Gordon Lord Byron, but outside of Caravaggio there are no top-class Irish sprinters and indeed Gordon Lord Byron remains the second-highest rated sprinter trained in Ireland.

The stayers are a different story and last year the Irish horses swept the board in races over two miles and further; Jennies Jewel won the Ascot Stakes, Order Of St George the Gold Cup, and Sword Fighter the Queen’s Vase before Commissioned took the last race of the meeting, the Queen Alexandra Stakes. Aidan O’Brien has played a major role in this dominance with seven winners in staying races but he has been aided by a number of national hunt trainers like Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Charles Byrnes and Jarlath Fahey. That at least might get the normally indifferent jumps boys to tune in this week!

- Tony Keenan

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