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Multiple bets are sometimes viewed as the preserve of the desperate, with wise heads pointing out that there is nothing lucky about a Lucky 15, writes Tony Keenan. But, on occasion, punters can multiply their value rather than boost the bookmaker’s edge. Related contingency bets are one such example.
By and large, these bets are not allowed by bookmakers: in this Sunday’s Super Bowl, for instance, one cannot back the Denver Broncos to win and Peyton Manning to be MVP in a double at their current quoted odds, as the performance of the team’s most important player, the quarterback, is intrinsically linked to the outcome of the game. So instead of multiplied odds, a punter has to take a watered down price on both events happening, similar to that offered on a double for a team to win Euro 2016 and that side’s main striker to be the tournament top scorer as they are also linked.
Yet at Cheltenham next month, you can do just that. By backing two or more representatives of the same form line to win separate races you can multiply the strength of your opinion on a race being a hot piece of form and there are many examples of this happening at recent Festivals. Take the two and a half mile Grade 2 novice hurdle run on Festival Trials Day at Cheltenham in 2013 where At Fishers Cross narrowly beat The New One, the latter in front too soon, with Grade 1 winners like Coneygree and Whisper in behind. Two months later, the pair won the Albert Bartlett and Neptune respectively at the Festival and those watching back the Trials Day run could have, rightly as it turned out, assumed that one horse would be suited by going up in trip while the other would enjoy competing at the same distance on better ground where his speed would be seen to better effect.
An even better example occurred last year when the Grade 2 novice hurdle run at Leopardstown on the Irish Champion Hurdle undercard produced three Cheltenham winners; the second Martello Tower won ‘the run for the spuds’ (Albert Bartlett); the third, Killultagh Vic, won the Martin Pipe (benefitting from some lenient handicapping); and the fourth, Windsor Park, won the Neptune.
Perming those horses in multiple bets, even allowing that the Leopardstown winner Outlander would surely have been included, would have produced a bonanza, the trio returning 14/1, 7/1 and 9/2 (659/1 treble) with bigger prices available in the weeks beforehand.
Both examples were novice races which isn’t the greatest surprise. Connections of the beaten horse(s) can want to avoid the winner next time, and at the Festival they have the option to do so with races over further and shorter, as well as the handicap route and now even a mares’ alternative. There aren’t as many options for those competing in open company who may have to face off with the same opponent again, however.
Furthermore, value is created by a bias against beaten horses in novice races in particular. Punters want to be with last time out winners and especially sexy, unbeaten animals in novice events despite the fact that horses that were beaten last time may have run better in defeat, the idea here being that a horse that was failed to win last time won’t be winning any race at the Festival.
You don’t just need to focus on a single form line either as you can get a good idea of the strength of a crop of horses from a series of races. In 2012/13, the Irish novice chasers over middle distances and staying trips looked a decent group and Lord Windermere and Lyreen Legend fought out the finish of the RSA that spring after Boston Bob fell at the last; needless to say, I backed Texas Jack in the JLT that year, a horse I believed was the best of the lot, and he made no impact in the finish! A year later in 2014, the Irish hunter chasers proved a deep crop and provided the first three in the Foxhunters and were five lengths clear of the fourth; perming the four Irish horses that weren’t complete no hopers (those priced 40/1 or shorter) would have produced a tricast of £1812.28.
This type of thinking doesn’t apply to multiple bets alone as forecasts and tricasts can be used to produce the same related contingency end. Punters who fancied Sire De Grugy to win the 2014 Champion Chase, but wanted more than his SP of 11/4, may have cottoned onto the fact that it was Somersby in the Tingle Creek that gave him his closest race that season and it was the same horse that chased him home at Cheltenham at 14/1, the forecast paying £40.57, which was generous in light of that one’s tendency to run well without winning. While not a related contingency as such, you could also have backed both Sire De Grugy to win and Somersby without the favourite. Those ‘without’ markets, once the preserve of Irish on-course layers only, are something we might all need to be wise to at this year’s Festival with Willie Mullins rolling into the meeting with a number of short-priced favourites.
Finding the strong form lines, what American writer Steve Davidowitz calls a ‘key race’, is the difficult part but there are some sensible places to start. Form that is working out is an obvious point, though perhaps too obvious, and times, sectional and overall, might be of more use or at least be more hidden to the wider betting public. It boils down to good race-reading and sometimes the logical spots are best; meetings like Trials Day at Cheltenham or the Hennessy card at Leopardstown this weekend make sense as does the Betfair Hurdle meeting at Newbury.
As for this year’s possibilities, the Yanworth (Neptune) and Shantou Village (Albert Bartlett) double rather jumps out after Saturday; there are reasons for believing the second is better than the form with his run having come off a break and the ground against him. The sense that a horse can shape better than the form in defeat is a big angle and it could be for a number of reasons be it fitness, distance or ground, the last-named perhaps of most significance given that many of the trials will have taken place on ground vastly different to that encountered in March.
The Ivanovich Gorbatov maiden hurdle at Leopardstown at Christmas looks strong form and Let’s Dance, the second who seemingly went into the race with a massive reputation, could be worth looking at in forecasts with the JP McManus favourite in the Triumph; while those further down the field like Lagostovegas and Tocororo could pitch up in the Fred Winter. Long Dog and Tombstone on their run on the same card is an interesting combo with that pair likely to take in different Festival targets. In light of Vroum Vroum Mag dismantling the English mares at Ascot recently, with the likeable but limited Jennies Jewel chasing her home, looking at Irish mares to perm with Annie Power in the David Nicholson could be interesting and the market hasn’t really taken cognisance of this with the shortest priced Irish entry in the race outside the Ricci pair being 20/1.
One form line I am looking to follow at the meeting is the Clarence House Chase from Ascot. I think we saw the best version of Un De Sceaux thus far and Traffic Fluide was unlucky not to finish closer, not brilliant at the third last, conceding first run to a degree and barely getting a hard time to get within a short head of Sire De Grugy. The presence of the fourth Vibrato Valtat gives substance to the belief that Sire De Grugy ran his race as they’d been mixing it all season and suggests that Traffic Fluide, with improvement to come, may already be better than not only his stablemate but also Sprinter Sacre as that pair are closely matched. Another factor is the time argument – both Sire De Grugy and Sprinter Sacre have been underwhelming on the clock this season – and I want to be with Traffic Fluide in exotic bets at the Festival. The concern however is that he might run in the Game Spirit beforehand, win easily and thus become the biggest danger to Un De Sceaux in the market so it could be worth seeking out some ‘without’ prices at this point (as recommended in this Champion Chase preview).
- Tony Keenan
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ivanovitchgorbatov-e1454349284817.jpg319790TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2016-02-01 17:55:262016-02-01 20:42:37Related Contingencies at the Cheltenham Festival
Ask any Cheltenham member what the course’s best day’s racing outside of the Festival is, and you’re likely to find the Saturday of November’s Open Meeting nominated by far the most often, writes Rory Delargy.
While that’s probably true in terms of excitement and atmosphere, it’s a dubious claim in terms of the number of subsequent Festival winners who run there. The Open Meeting as a whole tends to get horses launched high up the ante-post leader boards, but the old golf adage is drive for show and putt for dough: those who peak too far from the track’s showpiece fixture have a poor overall strike rate in March.
On the other hand, those who have their last prep run on late January’s Trials Day tend to fare much better, which may be no surprise given the timing. It often comes up in discussion that horses who have run in the calendar year have a much better record than those coming back from longer layoffs, usually because the latter group have had a less than smooth preparation that has stopped them getting an appropriate prep race.
In recent years, Willie Mullins has been bucking this trend (in lots of ways), and the Master of Closutton seems to give his novices a specific number of runs before establishing their place in the pecking order. It’s rarely a negative for one from this yard to have less experience than seems ideal, or to return from a lengthier break than would be expected. He’s a law unto himself, and should be treated as such.
Cheltenham Festival Runners in Grade 1 Races by Days Since Last Run Range (last ten years to £10 level stakes)
DSLR
RUNS
WINS
PLACES
WIN A/E
P&L @ BSP
43-56
332
35
48
1.23
£340.70
57-90
264
23
44
1.05
£83.10
29-42
363
27
58
1.00
-£384.70
91-150
116
3
15
0.34
-£991.30
As you can see from the above, there’s a considerable advantage to having had a prep run in January, although that is clearly affected by the vagaries of the racing calendar. The programme book provides the best opportunities for horses to have a prep run within two months of the big meeting, and those who either haven’t been ready to run, or have had to get a late outing in to ensure fitness/qualification, tend to struggle. This isn’t meant to be mind-blowing, of course, it’s merely common sense.
There are two other obvious factors which punters can use to their advantage in March. Strike rates tail off badly as SP increases beyond 20/1 (bookmakers give little away and most 33/1 shots should be ten times that price), and that is also the case with age, with it being very difficult to win with horses who are regressive and/or fully exposed. The caveat here is with outstanding champions, who remain vulnerable as they get older, but can still outclass their opponents in certain circumstances.
Finally, a Trials Day prep run is about fine tuning, not getting back to square one, so those who run poorly/fail to complete should be ignored. Using horses who completed and were beaten twenty lengths or less seems a fair measure.
That leaves us with a list of horses aged eight or younger, who prepped for Cheltenham on Trials Day by finishing within 20 lengths of the winner, and are likely to go off no bigger than 20/1 on the day. Given those filters, here is the performances of such horses in the last ten seasons.
Trials Day Runners at Cheltenham Festival (given above parameters – profit to £10 level stake)
CODE
RUNS
WINS
PLACES
WIN A/E
P&L @ BSP
HURDLES
48
11
13
1.65
£472.90
FENCES
27
4
5
1.33
£105.50
There is a notion that very soft ground on Trials Day should mean that contrasting conditions in March should render results invalid. That’s illogical, though, as several of those who qualify above would have been running on unsuitable ground in January, and could therefore show improved form come March.
Horses don’t run here primarily because the ground is suitable, but because the timing and the track are suitable, and that should be borne in mind. In 2015, Cole Harden, Irish Cavalier, The Druids Nephew and Peace And Co all improved on the form they showed on Trials Day when winning at the Festival on what was generally quicker ground. That’s an important consideration to look for, and is the reason why we shouldn’t just be following winners in such circumstances. The New One and Sprinter Sacre similarly showed markedly better form at the Festival when racing away from testing ground.
Finally, we shouldn’t just focus on the winners at the Festival, but also on the horses who were placed, as this is a measure of how robust the logic is. Winners and placed horses should be roughly in line, and a big differential between the two should be a warning sign as to how reliable the win percentage is.
By the same token, a poor win record allied to a bigger than usual place record should mean you look more kindly on those individual figures. Once again, this is not intended to be a system as such, but a general guide to which horses we should expect to be competitive at the Festival given their appearance this weekend. It may prove beneficial to concentrate on those who are unimpressive without being well beaten, and have a marked preference for better ground, as that remains the conditions most likely to be faced in seven weeks’ time.
Rory Delargy
00helynsarhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pnghelynsar2016-01-28 15:12:412016-01-28 15:12:58Trials Day as a Source of Festival Winners
Last month, Tony Keenan offered a view on fallers in Irish chases in his excellent article here. In it, he showed which courses had the highest percentage of fallers, and which horsemen had had the most 'misfortune' in this regard.
That made for fascinating reading for Irish tracks, so it was a logical next step to conduct a similar exercise for UK tracks. For the purposes of consistency, I've used the exact same parameters as Tony did, though obviously overlayed against British courses, trainers and jockeys.
As a starting point, let's remind ourselves of the year-by-year faller rate in Ireland and UK, presented in a slightly different format from the Irish piece.
There has been a marked drop in the percentage of chase fallers in the sample period. A shrinkage in the average number of runners contesting chases is likely to be a significant factor here: less runners equates to a generally slower pace and to less crowding at fences.
In Britain, various measures have been taken to address ostensible welfare issues, most notably the redesigning of Aintree's Grand National fences.
And, looking at the data on a course by course basis, one can see that Aintree's fences have indeed taken a heavier toll than any other track in Britain (and Ireland for that matter). Not by a fine margin either. Aintree's chase fall/unseat percentage, covering both the Mildmay ('normal' chase fences) and Grand National courses, is above 20%.
The highest in Ireland is 'just' 15.2%, and the next highest in UK - Fakenham - is 12.85%.
Put another way, Aintree has a more than 60% higher faller/unseat rate in chases than any other UK track.
If that is the overview of the theatres, what of the actors? The performance of trainer and jockey are often related, a point which should be kept in mind when perusing the following. Trainers first...
The first thing to note is that none of last season's top 25 trainers has a higher fall/unseat rate than 10% during the seasons 2009/10 to 2014/15. While the range within this relative peer group extends from 5.27% to 9.55%, it may be worth comparing the top end with their Irish counterparts. There, 13 trainers had a 10%+ fall/unseat rate, with the 'most unfortunate' trainer almost matching Aintree's 20% attrition.
The likes of Brendan Powell, Colin Tizzard, Tom George, Charlie Mann, recently retired Richard Lee, Peter Bowen, Jonjo O'Neill, and Venetia Williams deserve praise for the consistency of their jumpers' jumping; which is not to pass any negative judgement on the rest of the top 25, all of whom fall into the realms of relative acceptability when set against the most logical 'control', Ireland.
Finally, turning attention to jockeys, and again looking at the five season performance of last season's top 25 riders, we see a similar story of relatively acceptable fall/unseat rates.
As with trainers, the range is from roughly 5% (precisely 4.46%) to roughly 10% (precisely 10.05%). And as with trainers, the jockey figures compare favourably with their peer group across the Irish Sea; though this time the disparity is less marked.
While twelve of the 25 UK jockeys have a fall/unseat rate lower than Mark Walsh (6.4%), Ireland's most 'sticky' rider, Richie McLernon's UK sample high of 10.05% has just four Irish riders parting company at a more frequent rate, and none higher than 11.6%.
****
So much for the data, but what do they all mean?
Firstly, it is right to acknowledge that this two-dimensional glance at a three-dimensional puzzle is severely restricted by data limitations. There is no comparison with the wider riding/training communities, and no review of whether/how the figures have improved/regressed through the period, by course, trainer or jockey.
Despite those limitations, some inferences can be drawn.
For whatever reasons - likely a combination of field size, stiffness of fences, state of going, and yes, perhaps even horsemanship (whisper it) - fall and unseat rates in Britain are more palatable to the casual observer than the lateral snapshot from Ireland. Certainly they are lower.
The flagship racecourse - Cheltenham - has a commendable 9.55% fall/unseat rate over the course of the dozen seasons in the sample, a period where the average number of chase runners was 11.82. Given that the average chase field size in all UK chases during that time was just 8.08, all concerned deserve plenty of praise.
Of course, Britain has a louder and better (or, probably more correctly, more) accommodated animal welfare lobby. Looking at data from Aintree lends credence to the calls of many outside the sport (and, in fairness, some within) to act.
One, possibly coincidental, observation is the number of sharp tracks with higher faller rates. Fakenham, Windsor (no longer jumping), Catterick and Taunton all share the top (bottom?) five slots and all are nippy little tracks where the fences might be jumped at greater speed than other more galloping venues.
In terms of the UK horsemen and women, all within the sample can be content with their faller rates, with a solitary rider breaching the 10% threshold, and even then by a negligible 0.05%. James Reveley, from a fine racing heritage and a man who spends a lot of time riding in France (which may or may not be relevant), has the lowest fall rate of all at just 4.46% during the period.
And perma-champ, AP McCoy, was bested by just six riders on this count, his fall/unseat rate being an excellent 5.69% across over 1650 chase mounts during the five season period. That bare figure is better than all of the top 25 riders from Ireland, though again, caution is taken not to under-estimate the macro differences between the two jumping jurisdictions.
At the other end of this microcosmic spectrum, it may be more than coincidence that five of the seven 'fallingmost' jockeys in the list ride on the northern circuit. I have no obvious or logical suggestion as to why this might be, so it may not be more than coincidence!
In the finish, the charts are probably more interesting than actionable; and the conclusions almost certainly more conjecture than empirical fact. But it was a fun little exercise and perhaps there is some fiery utility amidst the number smoke and mirrors.
What catches your eye in the data? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/newgrandnationalfences.jpg465640Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2016-01-06 20:23:012017-05-16 08:08:20Why Horses Fall (Part 2)
Last Friday saw us reach the end of the fourth full calendar year for Stat of the Day, which was Geegeez' first real venture into daily tipping.
We know that we acquired lots of new subscribers over the year thanks to previous years' successes, so a brief overview of SotD is as follows...
Whilst form and other variable parameters come in to play when normally making a bet, SotD's first port of call is find runners who fit a stat ( or usually a number of stats) suggesting they will go well.
We aim to have the selection online by the time most people rise for breakfast, where possible and it's usually done well before midnight the night before the meeting.
We try to find runners priced around the 3/1 to 6/1 mark at BOG prices and look for some value in the odds achieved. A large proportion of our selections run at much shorter odds than we advise and constantly beating SP is a key in making long-term profits. Basically, our profit figures aren't massaged by some freakishly long priced winners, nor is our strike rate bolstered by a string of odds-on jollies.
What we do have is a consistent approach that aims to highlight one value selection per day and although this "one-a-day" stats-based approach to bet selection suffers all the obligatory peaks and troughs associated with betting on horses, we have managed to make a profit yet again this year.
Without blowing the collective trumpets of both myself and Matt, we're very proud of the figures accrued to date and we can safely say there aren't many (if any!) better services around. In fact, most paid-for services would kill for our figures.
Where possible, I'd like SotD to cover your monthly subscriptions to Gold, making the rest of the site free to use as you see fit and in 2015, a level stake of £3.32 was all that was needed to cover a £24 per month worst case scenario.
Number of bets/selections/pts wagered: 287 (a large number of non-runners this year) Winning Bets: 81 Strike Rate: 28.22%
Yearly Profit: 86.8pts Profit on Stakes Invested: 30.2%
This is no flash in the pan freak year, as the abovce figures take the last two years results to 165/592 (27.87% SR) for 175.18pts profit at an ROI of 29.59%, showing remarkable consistency over a sustained perod of time.
These are quite phenomenal figures, if we say so ourselves and we'll be doing our level best to maintain our success in 2016.
Thanks for sticking with us/SotD,
Chris & Matt
***Stat of the Day is just one component of the excellent package available to all Geegeez Gold Members, so why not take your free trial now?
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/stat_of_the_day_white_letters-e1460311997762.jpg319830Chris Worrallhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngChris Worrall2016-01-05 12:07:462020-05-02 06:51:54Stat of the Day: The 2015 Review
Data won’t tell you everything about why horses fall, writes Tony Keenan. There are too many intangible factors at play, variables that can’t be number-crunched. Race flow plays a big part; horses can be drawn into mistakes by how the race unfolds, be it the pace it is being run at or simply by being distracted by another runner jumping alongside it.
Physical issues can affect jumping; an underlying injury can be found out in the heat of battle while the effort of in-race exertion can cause a fresh problem. That’s not to mention mental issues: some horses seem unable to concentrate on jumping consistently or lack the self-preservation instinct to get from one side of a fence to the other.
But numbers can still tell us plenty, not least because of a large sample size of chases and fallers/unseats each season. Unless otherwise stated, I have looked at all Irish chases since the start of the 2003/04 season until the end of the 2014/15 campaign (in hurdle races, jumping just isn’t as important with fewer and smaller obstacles).
In that period, there were 4,932 chases with 57,626 runners; 6,107 horses fell or unseated, a faller rate of 10.6% with an average of 1.24 falls/unseats per race. When I refer to ‘faller rate’ I mean the combined number of falls and unseats.
Irish and UK Chase Faller Rate by Season
Season
UK
Ireland
2014/15
7.7%
9.9%
2013/14
7.1%
9.3%
2012/13
7.1%
8.7%
2011/12
8.3%
9.6%
2010/11
8.1%
10.5%
2009/10
9.3%
11.3%
2008/09
8.7%
11.9%
2007/08
9.1%
11.1%
2006/07
8.8%
10.3%
2005/06
9.6%
10.5%
2004/05
9.4%
11.7%
2003/04
10.4%
11.8%
The first thing that stands out is general downward trend of faller rate in the UK and Ireland over the period covered; there are some blips along the way as the table above shows but the broad picture is clear. On the whole, fences in the UK appear to be easier which isn’t the greatest surprise; the animal rights lobby, regardless of what you may think of them, are certainly stronger there than in Ireland.
The Grand National fences are the most high-profile example of this but another interesting case, albeit with a small sample size, was made by Matt Tombs in his recent book ‘How to Bet and Win at the Festival’. Tombs points out that while there were 22 fallers at the 2014 Cheltenham Festival there were just eight in the most recent iteration, a marked decline. Irish faller rates are dropping too, though they remain higher than the UK which may help Irish horses on their raids as they are more tried and tested jumpers.
Irish Chase Faller Rate by Track since 2003/4
Track
Faller Rate
Sligo
6.0%
Naas
6.5%
Roscommon
6.6%
Tramore
7.5%
Killarney
7.7%
Ballinrobe
8.0%
Wexford
8.2%
Kilbeggan
9.1%
Navan
10.2%
Galway
10.3%
Fairyhouse
10.9%
Punchestown
11.0%
Tipperary
11.0%
Limerick
11.2%
Leopardstown
11.3%
Gowran Park
11.4%
Downpatrick
12.0%
Clonmel
12.0%
Thurles
12.0%
Cork
12.6%
Listowel
12.7%
Down Royal
15.2%
Faller rates at the various Irish chase tracks produced surprising results, not least the bizarre mix of tracks that comprised the bottom five. Down Royal is a big galloping track with one of the widest circumferences in the country and a few tricky downhill fences that are met at speed, Listowel is flat and tight but they tend to stick close to the rail over fences and racing room is at a premium, Cork is flat and galloping, both Thurles and Clonmel have downhill fences but beyond that have few similarities.
Perhaps the most encouraging finding is where the main winter jumping tracks fall in the table. The big four of Leopardstown (eighth), Punchestown (eleventh), Fairyhouse (twelfth) and Navan (fourteenth) bunch around the middle which is a good sign as they host the majority of our graded races. These tracks should be fair, a test without being an ordeal, and the numbers suggest this is the case.
Down Royal is the outlier here. Not only is their chase track top in terms of faller rate, it is also 2.5% higher than any other track in the country and there is no bigger discrepancy between one track and the next anywhere else in the survey as there is between the highest and second highest. The fences at the Ulster course have long seemed ultra-stiff and it’s probably not the place to run an iffy jumper or even to start one off over fences.
Irish Chase Faller Rate by Trainer since 2009/10
Trainer
Faller Rate
R. Tyner
5.5%
C. Roche
6.9%
C. Swan
7.9%
H. De Bromhead
7.9%
N. Meade
8.0%
F. Flood
8.2%
D. Hughes
8.4%
E. Bolger
8.7%
G. Elliott
8.9%
E. O’Grady
9.0%
P. Nolan
9.4%
A. Moore
9.4%
M. Morris
9.5%
M. Hourigan
9.8%
J. Mangan
9.9%
J. Harrington
10.4%
O. McKiernan
10.5%
T. Martin
10.6%
P. Rothwell
10.9%
J. Lambe
11.0%
W. Mullins
11.4%
C. McBratney
11.6%
C. Byrnes
12.0%
L. Burke
12.6%
J. Hanlon
12.7%
J. Walsh
15.8%
J. Ryan
16.7%
C. Murphy
18.1%
There is a host of contributing factors to why a trainer may have a high or low faller rate. The type of horses they typically handle plays a huge part; if they tend to get national hunt types, their faller rates should be lower as such sorts are more physically able to jumps fences while forcing flat types to do the same is a somewhat Sisyphean task. Good schooling facilities have to help too as would access to good jockeys, both for homework and on the track.
This table takes into account the top twenty-five trainers in terms of chase runners since 2009/10. Colm Murphy comes out worst on these numbers and he’s been cursed by some of the worst jumpers around in recent times. Zaarito (five falls/unseats), Big Zeb (four) and lately Empire Of Dirt (four) have all tried his patience though whether this is randomness or something to do with the trainer is impossible to say. The numbers suggest that Willie Mullins horses aren’t the best jumpers and the visuals back this up; a few of his stable stars have had their issues over fences but it hasn’t necessarily stopped them winning.
There isn’t a huge correlation between those with low faller rates and high return in terms of winning chases. I looked at trainers’ success rate in various types of races last month and the bottom five here – Tyner, Roche, Swan, De Bromhead and Meade – have a mixed record. De Bromhead (18.0% over fences since 2010) does very well, Tyner (12.0%) and Meade (11.7%) do ok while Roche (9.3%) is below average.
Irish Chase Faller Rate by Jockey since 2009/10
Jockey
Faller Rate
M. Walsh
6.4%
B. Geraghty
6.8%
N. Madden
7.1%
T. Doyle
7.2%
P. Carberry
7.3%
A. Lynch
7.3%
P. Townend
7.5%
B. O’Connell
7.8%
A. McNamara
7.8%
A. Crowe
8.1%
R. Power
8.2%
P. Enright
8.3%
R. Walsh
8.4%
D. Condon
8.7%
D. Russell
8.8%
J. Cullen
9.1%
B. Cooper
9.6%
D. Casey
9.6%
M. Ferris
10.0%
A. Heskin
10.5%
S. Flanagan
10.8%
M. Darcy
11.2%
P. Mangan
11.6%
The sample size for fallers with jockeys is bigger than for trainers and their faller rates have nothing like as wide a spread. Like the trainers’ table above it takes into account the top twenty-five jockeys in terms of chase rides since 2009/10. The two JP McManus-retained riders come out very well, particularly the much-improved Mark Walsh who tops the table.
I certainly won’t get into jockey bashing here when you consider that one fifth of the riders listed above aren’t riding any longer; David Casey, John Cullen, Davy Condon, Andrew McNamara and Tom Doyle have all retired recently. One thing that emerges is the overall level of competency across the board; even the worst faller rate is only 1.3% higher than the national average since 2003/04.
Breeders' Cup XXXII, hosted for the first time by Keeneland racecourse, in Lexington, Kentucky, was billed as a homecoming for the franchise. As the birthplace of so many champions - Kentucky can boast to have bred 78% of all US-bred Breeders' Cup winners, and 64% of all winners since inception - this was a venue as fitting as any to host the end of season 'World Thoroughbred Championships'.
Romance and appropriateness aside, questions had been murmured regarding Keeneland's ability to accommodate such a vast jamboree. After all, this is no Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby annually welcomes 170,000 racegoers and revellers; nor is it Santa Anita, host six times since 2008 and nine in all, thus possessing a bombproof blueprint for staging the event.
Moreover, the last time the Cup was hosted outside of those two venues, at Monmouth Park in 2007, it was something of a disaster with rain and logistics making that year memorable for all the wrong reasons. It is surely more than coincidence that it took another eight years for a new venue to be chanced.
The main risks were perceived as the weather - as Bayern was winning the 2014 Classic in sunny Santa Anita, snow was falling in Keeneland - and those pesky logistics: could a track unaccustomed to 50,000+ crowds cope with such a phalanx of fans? As time soon told, there was little about which to fret.
*
One of the great things about racing, and about Breeders' Cup week in particular, is that horses are largely trained under public scrutiny on the track. What makes Cup week so special is that global equine superstars congregate in a single place, allowing aficionados unprecedented access to their horsey heroes.
So it was that this week, as well as the likes of Golden Horn and Gleneagles, familiar friends of European track dwellers, the best of the rest also strut their thang for all to see. Best of the best is a chap called American Pharoah, a home bred born and raised in the state of Kentucky - where else?
American Pharoah completes his final workout
Winner of the Triple Crown in America, the first horse since Affirmed in 1978 (and only the fourth since 1948), this fine fellow has enjoyed a special year, and was already assured Hall of Fame status courtesy of that terrific treble in the early part of the season.
A few moments before AP graced the training track, his main rival, a five-year-old mare called Beholder, also cantered a couple of circuits. Sadly, her interrupted preparation - she spiked a temperature during transit from California - caught up with her and she was withdrawn from the field.
If there were a few initial clouds of doubt regarding the venue for 2015 Breeders' Cup, there were no such reservations about the quality of the participants. The brain fails when trying to recall a deeper entry, as the winners of the Derby, Arc (Golden Horn both), 1000 Guineas (Legatissimo), and English, Irish (Gleneagles both) and French 2000 Guineas (Make Believe) all flew in to represent the European Classic generation.
A robust older, and younger, Euro contingent supplemented the established stars, and they in turn joined the biggest names on the US scene this year: Liam's Map, Private Zone, Runhappy, among many others.
The stage was thus set for what is a slightly lop-sided two day extravaganza, with four races on Friday little more than an amuse bouche ahead of Saturday's vast a la carte selection [personal preference would be for one further race - the Turf Sprint perhaps - to move to Friday making a slightly less unbalanced 5-8 split].
Friday Races
Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf
First up, the Juvenile Turf, and the word in McCarthy's, Lexington's obligatory Irish home from home, was that Hit It A Bomb could not get beaten. Strange then, in the face of such confidence, that he was sent off at 7.2/1 against 9/2 in the early running here in Blighty. The reasons for his market uneasiness were threefold: inexperience off just two lifetime starts, lack of Group race form, and a "parking lot" draw.
As it transpired, Hit It A Bomb had three things in his favour: a rapid early pace which strung the field out; Ryan Moore riding a perfect race (again); and his own incredible talent enabling him to surge to the lead in the last few yards having spotted a dozen rivals distance turning in.
1-0 to Europe and, with so many top-notch turfers still to come, hope swelled for a strong European weekend.
**
Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile
Little Euro interest in race two, the 'Dirty Mile', as the shortest priced favourite of the entire weekend, four-year-old Liam's Map, was 'expected'. And for good reason. Liam's Map had charted a course to five wins in a very light seven race career, including by a wide margin and with a career best Beyer speed figure in Grade 1 company on his most recent start.
Generally a need the lead type, the question here was that if he was taken on early how would he react? Missing the break was an unfortunate beginning, and then when forced to check numerous times on heels behind the pace-pushing pair of Mr. Z and Bradester it looked as though the shallow odds were in deep water.
Shuffled back to a boxed in seventh, albeit only two lengths off the lead, rounding the far turn, Todd Pletcher's grey colt showed all his class when the gap finally came, ceding first run but not first past the post to a game and clear second best, Lea.
In the circumstances, this was an effort that could be marked up and marked up again. Sadly, that will be for academic purposes only, as Liam's Map now travels the ten miles from Keeneland to Lane's End Farm's breeding sheds to begin his new career.
**
Juvenile Fillies Turf
The second of the two juvenile turf heats, this time for the girls, and with Alice Springs, Nemoralia and Illuminate in the field, Team GB/Ire looked promising. In the event, the raiding party again failed to deliver as it has done in all bar two of the eight renewals. It may be no coincidence that the two victories came in the two 'Lasix off in juvenile races' years (Lasix being an almost ubiquitously applied elixir in American racing to restrict horses' bleeding) of 2012 and 2013.
That was supposed to lead to a wider ban on the drug at Breeders' Cup but, instead - and perhaps partially as a result of Europe sweeping the board in the juvie turf events at those two Santa Anita meetings, the US horsemen revolted and the Breeders' Cup Committee reneged.
Still, before we get too morally pugnacious, it should be noted that most of the European team - including both of its winners - were deploying raceday medication. So was main Euro hope, Alice Springs, here. She ran a great race in second, possibly squeezed a little in the straight, behind by Canadian-based Mark Casse's maiden Breeders' Cup winner, Catch A Glimpse, and in front of Jeremy Noseda's all-too-late runner, Nemoralia. It was to be a great weekend for Casse.
**
Breeders' Cup Distaff
With Beholder's defection to the Classic, and latterly her defection from the meeting, the Distaff looked wide open and lacking in star quality. Five year old Wedding Toast was favoured, but she ran a lacklustre race having used plenty of petrol trying to secure her preferred front rank berth.
In the end it was a dirt double for Todd Pletcher, as he welcomed Stopchargingmaria into the winners' circle. She'd run a flat fourth last time out and had failed to better a 95 Beyer in 15 career starts. In beating Stellar Wind, a progressive three-year-old but one which had also failed to surpass 95 Beyer, this looked a moderate renewal. Indeed, every previous winner since 2005 had recorded at least 100 on that speed scale.
For the record, here's the tape.
**
A crowd of 45,000 watched the Friday action and, as one of them, I felt the track handled the numbers well. Queues for wagering, drinks, food and toilets were all shorter than at big UK race days, and there was the usual relaxed Breeders' Cup crowd vibe throughout. The sun even poured a beautiful sunset over Keeneland on Friday evening as a portent of what was to follow during its next arc.
The sun sets on Day One of Keeneland's Breeders' Cup
**
Saturday Races
Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies
A bigger crowd of just north of 50,000 were in attendance on Saturday, though many of them were yet to arrive as the young ladies prepared for the first of nine Cup races on Saturday, a nonet culminating with American Pharoah's bid for pole position in the pantheon of American racehorses.
Songbird, a winner of three, including two consecutive Grade 1's in dominant fashion, shipped east from California. Her form was in a league of its own, her speed figures were in a league of their own, she looked set to have her own way on the front again, and she traded commensurately short at 3/5.
As the gates opened, she catapulted to the front and never saw a rival, easing off to a near six length verdict over the pick of the East Coast entries, impeccably bred Rachel's Valentina (by Bernardini out of Rachel Alexandra). Songbird is the best winner of this I can remember. So, while Beholder (2012) went on to great things including beating the boys up this year before injury intervened ahead of the Classic, this filly could take on the lads much earlier, perhaps even having a tilt at the Kentucky Derby.
Her time here compared favourably with the Juvenile winner though, as we'll see, that one didn't have quite such a straightforward trip.
This is one to enjoy, as have all her races been, three of them Grade 1, which she's now won by a combined 22 lengths, for an average 5 1/2 length winning margin. She's a fleet-footed filly. Fact.
**
Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint
Next up, the Turf Sprint. Run for the eighth time, but the first time at the intermediate distance of five and a half furlongs, that proved to be the key to unlocking a big-priced winner. Mongolian Saturday was his name, and his beautifully swathed connections were a treat for thousands of appreciative spectators, many obliged in their search for selfies.
The perfect Mongolian Saturday... in Kentucky
Running free of Lasix, the son of Any Given Saturday was to kick off a noteworthy 'clean' Sprint double, the only runners in their respective races not on the 'juice'.
He'd been a tremendous servant to connections all season running some competitive speed figures and finishing in the frame in his previous ten races.
But back to that aforementioned distance key. Mongolian Saturday had won his only five and a half furlong turf race; and second placed Lady Shipman had won four of five turf starts at the trip. They were two of only four in the field with a strong record at the precise range which, in races decided by fine margins, may have tilted the scales in their favour.
Specifically in relation to the winner, he's run a sensational race, having been drawn on the wide outside, been gunned to contest a 22 second flat opening quarter, and hung tough in the straight to win by the proverbial fag paper. This was Florent Geroux's second Cup win of the weekend and his third in all after Work All Week's Sprint triumph last year. He's a name to note.
Mongolian Saturday was a 15.9/1 chance on the tote board, having been 25/1 here.
Here's the race: heart-breaking if you backed Lady Shipman, heart-warming if you were a North American racing fan based in Ulaanbataar!
**
Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Sprint
Now eight years old, the Filly and Mare Sprint has still to welcome its first three-year-old winner, but that didn't stop Cavorting being sent off the warm 3.4/1 favourite. She ran pretty well in truth, eventually finishing fourth having been held up from her outside draw, but she was no match for Wavell Avenue.
That one, giving Chad Brown his first dirt winner at the Breeders' Cup and his sixth Cup win overall, reversed the form with La Verdad from Belmont's Gallant Bloom Handicap. If this race had been the same distance as that one - six and a half furlongs - the result would have been the same. But this was seven furlongs, and the visual impression of Belmont was confirmed at Keeneland, as La Verdad's stamina gave best to Wavell Avenue's late run.
La Verdad and Wavell Avenue ran the same races for 6.5f
Taris looked the unlucky filly, caught on heels for much of the home straight, and Simon Callaghan's Coolmore four-year-old can be marked up on this effort. This viewer thought Taris's jockey, Gary Stevens, was a tad lily-livered about making something happen and probably should have been at least second if he'd switched to the three path about a furlong and a half out. Uncharitably, Stevens blamed La Verdad for checking his run up the rail, but he was looking for a miracle gap and it was a poor ride, plain and simple.
Anyway, don't take my work for it. Judge for yourself...
**
Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf
Run for the first time over nine and a half furlongs, the shortest distance in the race's 17 year history, Europe had a very strong hand. Legatissimo has carried all before her on our side of the pond this year, winning the 1000 Guineas, the Nassau and the Matron Stakes, and running close seconds in the Oaks and Pretty Polly, all Group 1's.
Here she was sent off the 9/10 jolly, with a trio of further solid European Group 1 performers in Miss France, Secret Gesture and Queen's Jewel in support. The worry for Legatissimo, long season aside, is that she tends to take a while to hit her stride, something inconducive with the inside turf oval at Keeneland.
Concerns proved well founded, as Moore's firm rousting took a furlong to elicit the desired response, during which time Stephanie's Kitten had kicked in her more instant turbo and burned through a dream split between the fading trailblazers to put the race to bed.
This was a second Breeders' Cup success for six-year-old Stephanie's Kitten, who won the Juvenile Fillies Turf back in 2011; and she'd also run a game second in this race last year. Her 2015 victory took place just six miles from where young Stephanie was born and raised as a kitten, and it is to there that she will now be retired to the paddocks. This was a seventh BC triumph for Chad Brown, hard on the heels of his sixth in the previous race.
Queen's Jewel, with Lasix aiding her constitution for the first time, was hampered in the initial furlongs and ran home best of all in third. But it would be ambitious to suggest the early impediment was the difference between victory and defeat. It was not.
Irad Ortiz, Jr., architect of Secret Gesture's "taking down" in the Beverley D. had a dream trip through a packing field here to prove the scourge of Europe once again. He's surely used up two of his nine Kitten's lives in recent weeks.
**
Breeders' Cup Sprint
This looked a great race in prospect, and it was the fairy story of the weekend, though with a Roald Dahl (or Edgar Allan Poe if you prefer) ending. Trainer Maria Borell had been successfully tilting at windmills all season with her gorgeous three-year-old Super Saver colt, Runhappy. This young chap, and his young trainer, are very hard not to love. Both go about their business with passion and talent, and both wear their hearts on their sleeve.
Here, Runhappy was up against a much more battle-hardened foe in the shape of Private Zone, a six-year-old veteran of 30 races, against Runhappy's six prior outings. Private Zone had been invincible this season at seven furlongs, but was dropping back an eighth here, against a progressive long-striding six furlong specialist.
The fractions were ridiculous, Private Zone dashing out from stall 13 to share the lead through the first quarter in 22.05, and the half mile in 44.31. What a huge race he ran in defeat eventually yielding to Runhappy late in the last furlong in a finishing time of 68.58 seconds. That's an average seconds per furlong of 11.43. Whoosh! Track record.
Runhappy had a wide trip in the three path around the turn so he too can be marked up on what is already a phenomenal run. Moreover, this was the first time he'd sat off the lead, rating in third. It caused him little or no inconvenience as he bounded up the home stretch to win going away. He'll get seven easily, and may stretch out to a mile if that rating style can be harnessed.
There was to be the ultimate sting in the tail, however, as Borell learned the morning after "the best day of my life" that she would no longer be training the horse. This staggering bombshell was delivered as it emerged that there was a conflict of opinion between the trainer and the owner's racing manager about Runhappy shipping west to continue his racing career.
For a young trainer who has done nothing wrong - and a heck of a lot right, regardless of the raw ability of her horse - that must be so hard to take. Horse racing is a cruel sport at the best of times, but decisions like this beggar belief, and I trust the owner, a mattress salesman, continues to sleep soundly at night. I'm confident I wouldn't be able to.
Here's the unbridled majesty of Runhappy gunning down a gladiator...
**
Breeders' Cup Mile
The Mile has been about France and America since Ridgewood Pearl last claimed the prize for Britain or Ireland in 1995. That was 20 years and 50 runners ago, and that sequence extended to 52 runners here.
In truth, before the race it looked like one for the French, who had a fearsome line up of G1 scorers in Make Believe, Impassable, Esoterique and Karakontie. But, for whatever reason, they all misfired and misfired badly, running no better than fifth between them.
The winner, Tepin, had been clear pick of the domestic squad coming in to the Mile, having blitzed a massive seven length Grade 1 victory over course and distance (soft turf) four weeks earlier. She proved that career best to be no fluke, stalking obvious pace angle, Obviously (!), before finding herself five clear with a sixteenth to go.
As is often the case in the Mile, regardless of the host track, there was scrimmaging on the inside rail, the Gallics clambering all over each other. Mondialiste, held up as usual, saw daylight too late but flew home for a clear second for Danny Tudhope and trainer David O'Meara. Clearly my Friday night pep talk with the cuprous conjuror had worked its magic!
Tepin, 4.9/1 at the off but available at 14's just a few days ago in Britain, had the perfect position off a steady pace, and gave her trainer, Mark Casse, his second win of the meeting, and jockey Julien Leparoux his sixth Breeders' Cup win overall.
Here's the race again:
**
Breeders' Cup Juvenile
The antepenultimate Cup race of 2015, the Juvenile, looked a touch sub-standard on paper, and so it proved. Nyquist, one of only two unbeaten colts in the race, and one of only two unbeaten on dirt, had a tough post in 13 to overcome.
Things looked insurmountable as jockey Mario Gutierrez was forced six wide around the first turn. But that was down to three wide into the second turn, and Nyquist's stamina kicked in to forge the pairing into a three length lead in the straight. By the line, he was all out to hold another wide-drawn wide-tripper, Swipe, but hold him he did to reward backers at odds of 4.7/1.
The pair pulled more than two lengths clear of their field and, though it was probably a moderate field, this duo can be rated slightly higher than the finishing time for their efforts.
In what looks a wide open Durrrby year in 2016, both deserve their places near the head of the market, albeit at prices (20/1 Nyquist, 33/1 Swipe) that reflect the openness of the heat. Brody's Cause also had a shocker of a run, finishing caked in filth for a staying on third, and his 33/1 quote is moderately attractive too, this first loss on dirt perhaps down to inexperience as much as anything.
Songbird is the 16/1 favourite with British books, and there are surely worse 16/1 shots than her, notwithstanding that she may not take in the Kentucky Derby, and that it is very, very hard to win that race with her run style (only War Emblem, 2002, has led gate to wire since 1988).
A lot will change between now and the 'run for the roses' in the first weekend in May but, for now at least, this may be the best trial there has been so far.
**
Breeders' Cup Turf
The last of the six grass races is the immaculately-named Turf, a mile and a half contest. It has been an awful race for favourites down the years with highly-touted 'obvious' Europeans routinely beaten. Against that backdrop, Golden Horn - winner of the Arc and Derby this season, as well as the Coral-Eclipse and Irish Champion Stakes - attempted to buck the trend.
In opposition was a solitary further Euro, Found, a filly who has a propensity for close up defeat and who ran an unlucky five lengths ninth in the Arc in her only try at the distance. It was her general malady of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory rather than that Arc run which put this scribe off the 'wrong' Euro in a race I traditionally call wrong, and from which I am now considering self-exclusion.
Suffice it to say that, in the face of an ordinary enough challenge from Team USA and the presence of an only remotely interesting South American challenger, Ordak Dan, I wagered heftily on Golden Horn at what turned out to be a too good to be true local quote of 4/5. Way to return significant profits from whence they came!
In the race itself, Goldie Hawn looked to have few problems with his trip, likewise Found. Indeed, likewise all, so the result has to be seen as fair if not necessarily representative. After all, whilst Found over Golden Horn is credible, that the pair were no more than a length or so in front of Big Blue Kitten and, more notably, Slumber, implies one or both of the shippers ran some way below their best.
Maybe it was their long seasons, maybe the travel, more likely a combination of both. But the differential between Derby/Arc-winning form has to be more than a length superior to the pick of the local crowd, doesn't it? What is worth taking away is that both third and fourth were trained by Chad Brown, comfortably the best American trainer of Breeders' Cup turf runners, and a man to keep well onside going forwards.
For those who didn't back Golden Horn - especially if you did take some of the incredibly-generous-and-not too-good-to-be-true 6.4/1 on Found (exacta paid a whopping 20/1) - here is the re-run.
**
Breeders' Cup Classic
Despite a dozen races having been confined to the record, those Breeders' Cup propagandists had it bang on the money: "The Best Is Yet To Come".
The best was yet to come. Not the best race, you understand. That was probably Runhappy's cold-blooded assassination of the ageing warrior, Private Zone. But the best racehorse. A fellow by the name of American Pharoah.
The 'Pharoah' was a champion coming into the race, having won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes - the Triple Crown. He was the first since 1978 to achieve this mythical feat and he did it at a time when American racing was pleading for a shot in the arm of his ilk.
Since the Belmont in early June, AP had raced twice: first he confirmed superiority over his age group in the Haskell, but then... he... was... beaten. Gasp.
Just as tactics got the better of Golden Horn in mid-season, so the Pharoah was tactically mastered in the Travers. Not by a single horse, but rather a 'double teaming' whereby Frosted - a rival here - buttered him up on the speed before Keen Ice - another rival here - ran by in the lane. Not. In. The. Script.
But if gamblers love a golden child, they love a story of loss and redemption more. In truth, there was little to redeem, AP losing nothing in defeat due to his valiant efforts in the face of tough breaks. He was akin to a Tour de France champion being mastered by team tactics on an Alpine stage, but with General Classement victory assured.
Here, his task was simplified considerably by the late defection of Beholder. The clear main danger had not been herself since travelling to Kentucky, and she succumbed to the almost inevitable in scratching. Her absence made Pharoah's task easier than merely having one less horse to beat.
No, Beholder was a key facet of the tactical shape of the race, having been expected to ride on the shoulder of AP from half a mile and more out. In her, and also the bulky hard-to-keep-sound Smooth Roller's absence, there looked to be no pace contention for Bob Baffert's world beater, whose metier is to turn the screw from the front. To use the cycling analogy once more, AP is happiest when in solo time trial mode.
Here, off a steady first quarter mile, he led all the way, gradually increasing his cadence as his rivals wilted in behind, eventually running away from them by six and a half lengths in a time of 2:00:07. Two minutes and seven hundredths of a second. But for some supreme saddle posturing by jockey Victor Espinoza in the shadow of the post, American Pharoah would surely have ducked under the two minute barrier.
Still, as you can see, it was a GREAT photo opportunity, very well taken, and an image which looks sure to endure for generations to come.
Victor with a grin for the ages... (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
The race itself was without other incident, and it was without the need for other incident too, this being a glorious equine monologue, the final procession of a Pharoah: the American Pharoah.
The crowd had come to watch him strut his stuff and, in the face of no adversity, he did just that. His welcome was rapturous and, over the course of the season, wholly deserved.
Once the dust had settled, I snuck away from the madding throng to wave cheerio to, as NBC's fantastic race caller put it, "the horse of a lifetime", as he was led away from a race track for the final time.
**
Keeneland 2015 was one of the great Breeders' Cups. Perhaps the greatest of all Breeders' Cups. Certainly the best of the thirteen Breeders' Cups since 2001 that I've been lucky enough to attend.
Fears about the ability of Keeneland, and Lexington in general, to cope with the legion of racegoers were unfounded. The track and the town handled the influx comfortably. The weather was cool - sure, it's November, right? - and, for the most part over Cup weekend, dry. On another weekend it could have rained, and on another one still it might have snowed. But racing isn't always in sunshine, and not all horses train under nature's lights, so I say fair enough.
More importantly, for the Breeders' Cup itself, it basked in its own sunshine by bringing the American Pharoah out for one last glorious hoorah. From a selfish perspective, I hope this signals the start of a new confidence in pushing the boundaries of Breeders' Cup locations.
Keeneland, in Lexington, in Kentucky, is more than just a spiritual home for US racing. It is the epicentre of the breeding business, itself the lifeblood of the sport. After a Breeders' Cup where eleven of thirteen winners - 85% - were bred in the state of Kentucky, this truly was a homecoming for the ages.
Matt
p.s. the Breeders' Cup Compendium, which can be downloaded here, made a clear profit of over 21 points on stakes of just 16 points. It flagged winners at 25/1, 14/1 and 12/1 as well as a number of others at shorter prices; and it made for a very fun evening for subscribers 🙂
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/americanpharoahvictorespinoza.jpg6801020Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2015-11-03 14:38:052016-09-20 08:54:48Breeders’ Cup 2015: A Homecoming for the Ages
A few weeks back, I wrote a piece on racing and the data revolution, an article that to my mind had little or nothing to do with bookmaker restrictions. The response to the blog surprised me as it provoked a rash of comments about bookies restricting punters so I’ve decided to return to that issue as a separate matter now.
There are those that tell us that the subject of restrictions concerns only a small minority of punters and by extension people. I disagree. There is an aspect of social justice at play here and companies behaving unethically will always interest the mainstream, regardless of whether they are bettors or not. Bookmakers have become ubiquitous in modern life; odds are everywhere and having a bet is becoming more socially acceptable where once it was not. If nothing else, that is a credit to the PR teams of the major firms.
However, we do have to ask: what are we allowing into our lives? Bookies sell the chance of making a profit, but are the promises of winning hollow? There seems to be a rising tide of questioning if not open opposition to bookmakers in the media of late, from the Final Furlong Podcast to Kevin Blake of ATR and perhaps most notably Aaron Rogan of The London Times (paywall) which suggests the debate is about to be opened up.
Reasonable discussion on this topic is difficult. It is a complex area but more than that both sides are deeply entrenched, the Republicans and the Democrats in the United States cordial in comparison. I can bookie bash with the best of them and have done in the past but it’s pointless: I don’t think anyone wants to read about the clichés of bean-counting accountants or the cancer of FOBTs. Bookmakers do have a side to tell too in this partisan debate and while it is hard for them to present a unified voice – different firms have vastly different attitudes to risk – it is at least worth acknowledging their perspective.
Bookmaker black ops are a fascinating part of this issue. From the punter’s side of the divide, there is so much we don’t know about the dark arts used to monitor and restrict customers so some of this is necessarily vague. The firms rightly use methods to prevent fraud like slow counting but there is bound to be a huge grey area between using the technology available for limiting crime and using it to trap winning punters. This can be achieved relatively easily online as Matt pointed out in an excellent recent piece on IESnare (recommended reading if you haven’t already done so) while systems like OpenBet can monitor and limit stakes.
It is in the shops that things really get interesting though as security cameras, facial recognition and handwriting analysis are all open to use and misuse. None of this is to suggest that punters are squeaky clean; they are anything but. From ghost accounts to commission agents to arbing to bad each-way races, bettors have used them all but one is conditioned to take the side of the single underdog against large corporate powers. I do believe that there is the exposé of all exposés to come on dodgy practices in the bookmaking industry if a journalist can get an insider to go on the record; everything from the baiting of losing customers, to money laundering, to underage betting could be hiding under the rock.
There is an argument to be made about the ethics of laying a bet and whether or not a bookmaker should feel a moral imperative to allow a decent stake. At least, I think there is, but other punters tell me that you can’t apply emotion and feeling to business. Bookmakers, like any company, can argue their primary loyalty has to be with shareholders and providing as much profit as possible. Researching this in an Irish context, I found that the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement here states that ‘[company] directors must exercise their power in good faith and in the interests of the company as a whole.’
This is suitably vague but those in charge of the big bookmaking firms have applied it to mean they should maximise profit now over the long-term health of betting on racing. And we can be in no doubt that restrictions do impact racing; people become disillusioned with them and, in turn, the sport. This might point to there being no such thing as ethical capitalism and perhaps laying limits need to be legislated for as part of license application. The bus company that applies for privatised routes may have to satisfy legislative requirements to continue to run some unprofitable services along with the more valuable parts of the pie so why not the same for bookies?
Bookmakers do have a solid argument for restrictions though. Racing is one of the sports where wild fluctuations in odds can take place; we have all seen instances of a debutante being backed from 20/1 to 7/2 from a yard not known for prepping runners first time out. This doesn’t really apply when punters are playing both sides of an NFL over/under total and a massive swing is two and a half points either way. A lot of this comes back to data and integrity, and Irish racing are world leaders in neither, sadly.
I can sympathise with the bookmaker that finds themselves with a one or two horse market on an Irish race, as is often the case, and they are left with a totally lop-sided book; this is far from bookmaking in the traditional sense. A cynic could of course argue that poor initial pricing of the race was the problem and bookmakers deserve to be punished at least to some degree; their odds compilers, if indeed they have any, have missed something that punters have spotted. So often, modern bookmaking firms are much better at risk management than odds compiling.
A further problem bookmakers run into when left with a big bet or multiple running up is that they have no real avenue to have the bet away; hedging accounts provide some respite but someone is always left carrying the can whereas the Betfair market close to the off may see the price having totally collapsed. A further problem that may develop here, albeit infrequently, is that the big loser in the book is disqualified and the bookmaker is caught on the hook for paying double result; punters may have no sympathy for the big firms in this regard but what of the smaller independent? Double result has a lot to answer for as it is part of the wider bonus culture that has eroded margins and played a part in increasing restrictions, the genie seemingly having escaped from the bottle here.
So is there a way forward? I’m probably not qualified to answer that, but there are certainly some small things that could be done to improve things and it’s basically a list of bookmakers eradicating ‘punter irritants’. For instance, the quoting of massive bets in the media grinds on any winning punter, and that they are unsubstantiated even more so; they are just an unnecessary annoyance.
So too is having a bet knocked back and the price remaining the same: take the bet (or some of it) and move the odds. Technology has been a vital tool in the bookies’ war against the winning punter but there has to be a place for more human common sense; it is intensely frustrating when a punter looks for a bet of €30 and is knocked to €28.57. I know it’s a computer algorithm at work but wouldn’t it just be simpler to allow the full bet and reduce the level of punter ire?
An area that bookmakers need to consider is the restricting of recreational, and by that I largely mean non-winning, punters. The feeling abroad is that too many of these punters are being caught in the limits net and while they may hit on the odd gem or springer in the market, their overall pattern is a losing one. Surely these are just the sort of gamblers – let’s call them the 80% to 95% group in terms of return on stakes – worth having on the books.
One firm that does deserve a little praise is Coral. They drew more than their share of criticism in my initial article on racing data but their new position on laying horses in good class races to lose up to £2,000 after 11am in shops can only be a good one. That allows for a reasonable bet at a time when prices have settled down and I hope that they get the benefit of being first movers on this rather than having their heads blown off, as an extension of the guarantee to other bookmakers – and, dare I say it, online betting – would be excellent.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/emptybookie.jpg635942TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2015-09-24 14:55:562015-09-24 14:55:56Bookies: Rights and Wrongs
Online bookmakers are installing software on your computer to spy on you. This is not some melodramatic statement designed to get readers to click through, but rather a statement of unequivocal fact based on my own experience, and that of hundreds of others. The extent of this behaviour is likely to be widespread, and there is a very good chance it includes you.
Here's how I learned about this...
The first thing I knew about it was when listening to an enlightening podcast on the bookmaking industry - which can be heard here. In it, Neil Channing, a pro gambler, made reference to a bit of software called IE Snare, which bookmakers have been using to track user behaviour. At the time - a couple of weeks ago - my ears pricked up, but by the end of that excellent audio it had drifted somewhere into the cobwebbed recesses of my increasingly recall-challenged cranium...
...until today. While writing an innocent piece about Gleneagles' racecourse absences, I went to check on a 'special' price that I recalled Coral's head of racing had mentioned on twitter. Clicking across to that site to see if the horse was indeed still 11/10 not to race again in 2015, the bolt from the blue (branded site) happened.
I use Google Chrome and Windows 10, and this combination of browser and operating system alerted me, upon landing at coral.co.uk, that something had been downloaded to my machine. I was not even logged into their site. Rather, I'd simply landed on its home page as a casual website visitor. Thus, I had no contract with them, and had not agreed to any terms, conditions or privacy policies.
The file was simply called 'download'. Right clicking on it, and navigating to the folder into which it had deposited itself, I saw it was called mpsnare.iesnare.com
A bit of googling revealed some very interesting and, in my opinion, disturbing insights. I'd like to share them with you.
-
What is iesnare?
iesnare is spyware provided by a firm called iovation.com, big players in the world of online fraud management. Here's what the company says about itself:
iovation protects online businesses and their end users against fraud and abuse through a combination of advanced device identification, shared device reputation and real-time risk evaluation.
iovation actively target the online gaming industry and have a stand at the biggest trade show, ICE.
iesnare, when installed on a computer, monitors that machine's behaviour, including:
- pages visited
- your computer's installation data
- information from your registry
- browser and operating system information
and a lot more besides.
Once it is on your machine, it feeds back data - lots of data, about lots of things - to iovation's central hub, and continues to monitor your machine's - and therefore your - activity in real time for the duration of its existence on the device.
=
Why should I be worried about iesnare?
OK, so there's this bit of code running on my (and probably your) machine, and it's gathering information. Why should I (and probably you) be worried?
This 'cookieless fingerprinting' as it's known, is storing your data to a central repository housed at iovation. The data they store can be bought by just about anyone.
The chart below taken from this paper by students at the University of California reveals that the vast majority of those buying such information are doing so for the purposes of malware or spam.
This is how fingerprinting information is used
So, in a nutshell, if you have this code on your machine, bookmakers can see what you're up to. Whether you're using oddschecker. Whether you're arb'ing. Which other bookmakers you use.
But that's a mere triviality compared to the wider world that can potentially access your data, and use it for nefarious ends.
The research paper concludes,
The purpose of our research was to demonstrate that when considering device identification through fingerprinting, user-privacy is currently on the losing side.
In plain English, this type of software considers a user's privacy to be of secondary/no importance when compared against the interests of the company deploying it.
-
What permission do bookies have to deploy iesnare?
This is where it gets tricky. My first thought was that this must be illegal. After all, I've not given my permission to be pried on in this way, have I?
Well, not explicitly, no. But when I checked the bookmaker's privacy policy, I was alarmed at what I read.
Here are the clauses, click to view full size, that I found most vague:
Redefining 'vague' terms...
Coral reserve the right to "collect certain data" which will be used "to meet certain business requirements". What in the name of anything specific or palpable does that actually mean?
It seems to me that it is essentially carte blanche for bookmakers to plunder and pillage any information they can beg, steal or borrow about their site visitors.
And it is not just Coral. All four of the bookmakers I checked have a similarly vague 'all encompassing' clause or clauses which, ostensibly at least, gives them a mandate to behave in this fashion.
Obviously, when this code is deployed outside of a login, the strong likelihood is that it is illegal, regardless of the possibility of an existing cookie on my machine triggering that behaviour. But I'm not a lawyer...
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How can I tell if iesnare is on my machine?
If you want to know if this code is on your device, here's how. It's pretty simple:
Go to the file search function on your computer/device
Type in 'mpsnare' in the search box, and hit 'search'
If iesnare has been used on your machine you'll find one or more of the following folders:
#mpsnare.iesnare.com
#ci-mpsnare.iovation.com
mpsnare.iesnare.com
ci-mpsnare.iovation.com
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How do I get rid of iesnare?
Getting rid of iesnare may be as simple as deleting the folders you find. However, staying rid of it is a slightly more complicated operation. But, if you value your privacy and still want to bet with the best priced firm, it is worth the effort.
These instructions were originally published here, and I make no claim to be a tech whizz or otherwise able to troubleshoot the implementation of them, or anything awry which might crop up as a consequence of following them. They have worked fine for me, with no adverse consequences so far. Caveat emptor!
[NB The process is not nearly as complicated as it is long, so don't be put off by the block quoted text below]
To check if iesnare is on your computer...You can find it by opening up a command prompt
(start -> all programs->accessories->command prompt) then typing..... dir mp*.com /s
If it's there you will see the date it was installed on your computer!
If it's there and you want to block it this is how...
Click the Start button, click notepad or enter notepad in the bar at the bottom
Right-click on the Notepad item which appears at the top of the list
Choose "Run as administrator"
In "untitled - notepad" go to file and click open, then under "files of type" click all files
Enter "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc" in file name and click open
Right click on "hosts" file (make sure it only says hosts, not hosts.bak or hosts.txt), select properties and uncheck read-only box at bottom beside attributes, then click "Apply" then OK.
Now double-click "hosts" again
Add the following lines in the next line below where it says "127.0.0.1 localhost"
Save the text file back to its existing location, then close notepad
Now, open the command prompt (start -> all programs->accessories->command prompt)
and check that it is working by...
Type in the word "ping" followed by any of the entries
(without the numbers)..e.g ping mpsnare.iesnare.com
Press enter
You're looking to see similar to this:
Pinging mpsnare.iesnare.com [127.0.0.1] with 32 bytes of data:
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Reply from 127.0.0.1: bytes=32 time<1ms TTL=128
Ping statistics for 127.0.0.1:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds: Minimum = 0ms, Maximum = 0ms, Average = 0ms
Note all zeros at bottom and 127.0.0.1 addresses at top
anything different to this is wrong!
I've done this on both vista and xp, both work.
Now, whenever IESnare attempts to phone home, your networking system will give it the wrong address (127.0.0.1 is always the address of your own computer), and its messages won't get through. You can check this has worked by trying to go to www.iesnare.com, or any of the above addresses, in your web browser: you shouldn't be able to get there and it should say it is unable to connect!
I followed these instructions, and can say they worked fine on Windows 10 as well. I'd imagine they'll work on any Windows device. Sadly, I can't vouch for a similar process on Apple kit. If any techies reading are able to share the equivalent, please do leave a comment below to that effect. And thanks in advance.
Some closing thoughts on iesnare, and a request for help from you
Given the nature of the bookmaking industry, and its need to operate within the laws of the land, it is likely that this spyware is just on the right side of legal.
That said, EU Privacy laws have been tightened, and I am unconvinced that this is in line with the stringent diktats set out more recently there, especially given that I wasn't logged into the site at the point the code was downloaded to my machine.
Either way, it is far adrift of what might be considered ethical practice, in my humble opinion at least. I have nothing to hide from bookmakers, but that doesn't mean I'm happy for my computer and its contents to be strip searched by them. That they are so vague about how this happens is not only unethical but, in my opinion again, immoral.
Large aggressive corporates bleating about fraud and arbers, and implicating a (presumed) majority of their small-time retail customers in their paranoia, when they won't stand a bet to anyone who looks even remotely like winning a couple of quid in the long term, is pretty hard to take.
I'm actually getting a bit bored unearthing the sharp practices of an industry that could be so much better simply by resorting to first principles - going back to laying a fair bet based on the skill and judgement of both parties.
But activity like this needs to be more front and centre in the betting public's collective consciousness, and I have no truck with supporting that end in some small way.
A plea for help:
If you decide to have a look at your own machine, I'd be grateful if you could feed back into a small straw poll by commenting below this post as to whether such a file exists/existed on your device when you searched. Thanks in advance.
Matt
p.s. PLEASE NOTE: A number of comments below are from readers who say they've deleted the files. This is only a temporary solution as the code will get re-installed on your machine. If you want to prevent it permanently, you need to follow the instructions above.
p.p.s. I am trying to find instructions to check on different configurations - Android, Chromebook, etc. Will update here if/when I find these. If you have any suggestions, please do post a reply below. Many thanks. Together, we'll tighten security around our personal data just that little bit. (It really is a new frontier right now, sadly).
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/iesnare.gif396450Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2015-09-07 16:30:372016-02-20 12:05:47iesnare: How Bookmakers are Spying on You from Your Own Computer
James Knight, head of racing at Coral, last week put out three tweets that pretty much summed up where our sport is at in its relationship with data and analytics, writes Tony Keenan.
Horse Racing should be the best betting sport out there. Currently it isn't, so stuff needs to be done both by racing & betting industries
...and it is what Racing is at the top level sometimes. — James Knight (@jamesaknight) August 17, 2015
I’m biased of course but couldn’t agree more with the sentiment that racing is the best of betting sports; it has a complexity that few, if any, other sports can match and this is one of its most appealing factors. This complexity lends itself to the creation of data from the nuts and bolts like ground, distance and form to deeper factors like breeding, times and run styles; the list really is endless. But racing, despite some progress lately, doesn’t exploit this extensive data to its full potential.
Much of this is cultural and I mean that not only within racing itself but with a broader Irish, British and European approach to engaging with sport. On this side of the Atlantic, statistics and numbers are not ingrained into the psyche of the sports fan as they are in America. This is changing, however. Take the company Football Radar for example – you can watch a clip introducing their methods here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2ee1GoQdeI) – and you see what can be done with the analysis of soccer.
The Americans do it on a whole different level of course with data-heavy websites like Football Outsiders and Baseball Prospectus, though if you want to read a more palatable version of the numbers then Grantland is the place to go where writers like Bill Barnwell, Jonah Keri and Zach Lowe synthesise the vast array of statistics into cogent and well-written arguments. It’s all very mainstream in the States but it boils down to one thing; these numbers help explain why things happen and how sport works so this is something we should want for racing. And lest we forget, they have extensive betting utility too!
It’s important to differentiate between old and new data. By old data I mean the fundamentals that make up racing from age to weight carried to trainers. These basic details have been around forever but that’s not to say you can’t garner new insights from them; the book and film ‘Moneyball’, a prime example of sports analytics reaching the masses, shows this as Billy Beane/Brad Pitt exploits the perception that batting average was more valuable than on-base percentage in baseball.
We’re getting better at interpreting these old numbers in racing too and we now have access to the tools to do so; databases like Horse Race Base, and of course Geegeez mean we can put our own filters on the data and find betting angles that were hitherto hard to calculate. We’ve learned that some numbers are better than others and by better I mean have more predictive value; pure strikerate is a fair indicator of success or otherwise but figures like impact value, actual over expected and percentage of rivals beaten give a truer insight.
But it’s the new data that really interests me. Again, the Americans have led the way. Football Outsiders, the doyens of NFL analysis, use volunteers to chart the minutiae of each play and you can now see data on all the moving pieces of on-field actions, including the once-anonymous offensive lineman and cornerbacks, not just the skill positions like quarterback and wide receiver. Baseball is arguably even more advanced where each major league stadium has installed a PITCHf/x system which charts the trajectory and speed of every pitch thrown in the game. I have even read articles lately where they now have the technology to tell how much spin each pitch has and these are balls moving at upwards of 90 miles per hour.
Racing too has many areas where new data can be introduced, and chief among them has to be sectional timing. I have to admit to being a devotee of sectionals and an admirer of Simon Rowlands and his team at Timeform who have done so much in terms of education with the subject and in building a database of times for racing in the UK. I do some sectional timing of my own and they certainly have betting application with pace being so important in the outcome of a race.
Establishing sectional times at every track in Britain and Ireland would obviously be expensive but I would be surprised if it doesn’t come around eventually; in the interim racecourses need to get on board with people doing their own times and play ball in terms of getting the race distances right and advising of any changes as well as making furlong markers visible. The same applies to TV stations who can provide on-screen clocks and suitable camera angles that aid taking sectionals. Taking these figures can be a little laborious, especially when camera angles make things difficult, and I look forward to a day when the data is provided and I only have to interpret it.
An extension of sectional times is the use of GPS in tracking the exact movement of horses within a race as each animal carries a chip to relay back information about its race position. We have only really seen this used in Dubai (where there is obviously an unlimited pot of money to spend on racing) and at the Breeders’ Cup, with the American company Trakus charting the specific breakdown of how each race went, but the numbers are fascinating. Not only does this provide us with the times for each horse but it also reveals the cost in distance of racing wide, an-0ften underrated aspect of race analysis over here. Simple physics suggests that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line but we have no way of quantifying the cost of racing away from the rail in Ireland and Britain.
Horse weights are used extensively in Hong Kong, a jurisdiction that many believe is the ideal in terms of racing run for the betting public. Whereas installing sectional timing and/or GPS tracking systems at every track in Britain and Ireland would be costly, the weighing of horses would not. The scales are relatively inexpensive, costing between €3-5,000 each, and it’s not as if horses aren’t used to them with many trainers using them at home. Knight mentioned integrity in his tweets and the weighing of horses would be massive tool in the policing of the sport as the best way to stop a horse is not to give it a ride where it can’t win but rather to leave it half-fit for the race.
The obvious plus to the latter option for the dishonest trainer is that there is no way of proving it with the current system. Were the weighing of horses to become widespread, this would lead into a sort of big data around the published numbers; we could compare animals not just against themselves but also against others and over the years could get a sense of optimum racing weights and what sort of figures suggests a horse is not fit or even too fit and ready to go off the boil.
As I mentioned earlier, there are some aspects of American sports where charters note down the data on each and every play, working within a common framework that standardises the numbers; Football Outsiders do this and the volunteers get access to the information while others have to pay for it. This could certainly apply to racing though perhaps in different areas on the flat and over jumps. On the level, charters could look at the keenness of horses within races. As things stand, we can read in-running lines that say a horse ‘raced keenly’ but there are degrees with this and perhaps a one-two-three scale would be better, with one being not perfectly settled, two taking a right grip, and three pulling the jockey’s arms out thus giving itself no chance.
When this data is compiled, it could be placed alongside other information and provide insights. We would know which trainers’ horses are more keen than others (and which can win being keen and which can’t) and what jockeys are best are settling their mounts. We could find that certain tracks or races run at slower paces produce more keenness or even that how horses race is random. Backers of Golden Horn on his next start would certainly be keen to know this after his hard-pulling effort in the Juddmonte International; what are the chances he does the same next time?
This could also apply over obstacles with a horse’s jumping ability graded one-two-three at each hurdle or fence. Again, we would find out which trainer’s horses jump best and whether bad jumping is repeated from one start to the next; we all have our own ideas on this but it would be better to put a number on it. It could also answer some difficult questions like was Zaarito, who fell three times in 2010 with races at his mercy, one of the unluckiest chasers in recent memory or simply a terrible jumper?
With all this data, there will be things that people get completely wrong, numbers that we use that really have little value. But these blind alleys don’t matter in the big picture as mistakes help push racing analytics on. Big data is here to stay in sport and as fans who have become accustomed to seeing it in other sports, many of us want it in racing too. Let’s hope we don’t get left behind: there is no reason why we should with the amount of technical angles we could exploit.
- Tony Keenan
You can connect with Tony on twitter at @RacingTrends
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/data.jpg472602TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2015-08-25 21:01:322015-08-25 21:06:45Racing and Data Analytics
Bookmakers, like punters, are far from infallible. They have more rigid rules for their business operations, for sure. But, occasionally, things drop between the cracks, or are simply misinterpreted. These occasions costs punters money, frustrate them, and damage the pivotal trust relationship between punter and bookmaker.
The good news is that if you think your bet has been mis-settled (and it is almost always this which leads to dispute), there is an independent mediation body. IBAS, the Independent Betting Adjudication Service, has been in existence since 1998 and covers a wide range of disputes, from gaming machines to greyhound stadia to lotteries to online betting.
After an adult lifetime - 25 years and counting - spent betting, I'd never previously had recourse to question the settlement of a wager, which is testament to how solid the trust relationship between punter and bookie generally is. Solid, but not impermeable, as I was recently reminded.
As regular readers will know, I write long-form previews of the big race meetings, and Epsom's Derby day card was one such. In the opening race, I really fancied a horse called Stravagante. I'd backed him the day before at 3/1, a price I considered huge, for a stake of £400.
Now, the first thing to say is that - again, as regular readers will know - I'm not a big time punter. That stake represented my biggest wager of the year so far. To be honest, that's irrelevant to this piece, except that it led to a situation which was sufficiently financially piquing to impel some action.
Here's why: I struck the bet with tote sport in their 'day of race' market. That market means some punters are eligible for Best Odds Guaranteed, a concession still available to me with this layer. This is important, because a) I made the bets - 2 x £200 - at 11:22am and 11:23am the day before racing; and, b) I placed them in 'day of race' markets, as per the digital slips below:
Bet 1
Bet 2
Note the "Day of Race" comments on the market part.
Here are (or, were, as I expect them to be changed now) tote sport's published rules on this:
Tote sport's Best Odds Guaranteed terms
You don't need to read them, because I can tell you that there is no stipulation excluding a bet placed early in a 'day of race' market from the BOG concession.
Why is that relevant anyway?
Stravagante, the horse I considered a huge price at 3/1, absolutely hosed up (Racing Post comment was "strong run to lead over 1f out, drifting left but ran on strongly final furlong, readily") at 7/2. He won by over three lengths.
I could scarcely believe the price, having expected the horse to be sent off around 7/4 or 2/1 favourite, and was pleased with what would be an extra £200 profit on the bet.
Sadly, tote sport disagreed and, despite my calls to their customer support team, were unwavering (and dismissive) in their contention that the bet had been correctly settled.
For the first time in 25 years, I contacted IBAS. Extremely professionally run so far as I can tell, I was perfectly happy to abide by whatever decision they arrived at, and had confided as much to friends.
Having submitted my case on 9th June, I received acknowledgement a few days later; and then due process began. That involved IBAS contacting the bookmaker in question and asking for their response to the dispute claim.
Yesterday, I received a letter - copied below in full - with the outcome of my case. [You can click the images to open full screen]
IBAS Cover Letter
IBAS Settlement #1
IBAS Settlement #2
The final statement, "The Panel have, therefore, adjudicated for the customer", means the outcome was in my - the punter's - favour. I'll be honest: I wasn't at all surprised and, far from being chuffed about the money, I was actually delighted that a bookmaker could be brought to account for what I considered a very straightforward 'cut and dried' case.
Quite simply, there was NOTHING in tote sport's terms and conditions on which to base their decision. And forcing me to seek independent ratification of that was, in my view, tantamount to an expectation that I'd not do anything and they'd 'get away with it'.
It perhaps goes without saying that I'm still waiting to get paid out by tote sport, though in fairness to them they will probably only have received their response from IBAS yesterday as well.
**
This is not a story about my experience as much as it is an encouragement to anyone who feels hard done to that challenge can be made about a perceived bet mis-settlement. Obviously, there needs to be a base for the claim, and that will more often than not lie in the bookmakers' terms and conditions. Or, as in this case, not in the bookmaker's terms and conditions.
IBAS can only adjudicate if you're able to put a credible case together and, often enough, that's a fairly simple matter for the aggrieved to do.
00Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2015-07-24 10:03:562015-07-24 10:26:35How to Settle a Dispute with a Bookmaker
Bookmakers, and one firm in particular, appear to be systematically conning punters through a marketing strategy originally designed with polar opposite intentions.
My own exposure to this started out as a perception, after a series of bets struck early succumbed to swingeing Rule 4 deductions. And, off the back of a frustrating triple whammy price cut in a single race, I decided to dig a little deeper.
Background
The apparent con relates to early prices offered by most big name bookmakers. These odds are generally made more attractive to smaller staking punters and those who like to bet the night before (perhaps due to time constraints or work commitments), by the provision of a Best Odds Guarantee, or BOG.
This 'BOG' concession means that punters will receive the better of the price they take and the returned starting price. So far, so good. But if a horse is withdrawn from the race between the time the bet is struck and the time the race goes off, a 'Rule 4 deduction' is applied.
Rule 4 (R4) deductions are calculated based on the odds of the non-runner at the time of withdrawal, and involve a deduction from the bettor's stake. The R4 table is shown below:
1/9 or shorter = 90p in the £
2/11 to 2/17 = 85p in the £
1/4 to 1/5 = 80p in the £
3/10 to 2/7 = 75p in the £
2/5 to 1/3 = 70p in the £
8/15 to 4/9 = 65p in the £
4/5 to 4/6 = 55p in the £
20/21 to 5/6 = 50p in the £
Evens to 6/5 = 45p in the £
5/4 to 6/4 = 40p in the £
13/8 to 7/4 = 35p in the £
15/8 to 9/4 = 30p in the £
5/2 to 3/1 = 25p in the £ 10/3 to 4/1 = 20p in the £
9/2 to 11/2 = 15p in the £
6/1 to 9/1 = 10p in the £
10/1 to 14/1 = 5p in the £
Over 14/1 = No Deductions
A good example of how to calculate Rule 4 on your bet can be found here.
The Rule 4 deduction chart is fixed, and seems entirely fair. After all, if for instance the withdrawn horse is only a 4/1 shot, it must have had reasonable claims in the race; so the chance of my selection is materially enhanced by his absence.
But a key clause in the Rule 4 documentation is this:
Where a bet has been placed and a price taken on the day of the race and there is subsequently an official notification that a horse has been withdrawn or has been declared ‘not to have started’, the liability of a layer against any horse remaining in the race, win or place, will be reduced in accordance with the following scale depending on the odds current against the withdrawn horse at the time of such official notification: [scale as per above table]
To labour the key phrase, the bookie liability shall be reduced against the scale based on the odds of the withdrawn horse "at the time of such official notification".
The Problem
If there is no problem with the Rule 4 system, then where exactly does the issue lie? Take a look at the image below [click on the image to open fill size in a new tab], which shows the odds movements of three horses from the same race on odds comparison site, oddschecker:
Systematic shortening of known non-runners is a scam
At the intersection of each vertical and horizontal red box, there are two items - a number in blue, and the letters 'SUSP'. The blue number represents the revised odds of the horse in question, which have shortened (pink equates to lengthening odds revisions). SUSP means betting has been suspended on that horse.
Now note the times to the left of each horizontal red box.
The proximity of the blue numbers - i.e. shortening odds - to the suspension of betting is interesting. Actually, it's downright concerning.
In the first two cases, the difference between the shortening odds and that horse being suspended in the betting was five minutes. In the last case, it was a single minute.
In all three cases, the time the horse was shortened was later than the time the horse was declared a non-runner on the official BHA website.
In other words, it was possible to know beyond doubt that the horses shown above were not running before shortening their odds.
Why is this important? Because if a horse is 14/1 or shorter and becomes a non-runner, bets placed on every other horse in the race prior to this horse's market suspension will incur a R4 deduction.
It remains possible that the triple example above was merely coincidental. Suspicion grows, though, as it becomes clear that two of the three non-runners were shortened into the next R4 deduction bracket.
In other words, it could be inferred that prices were deliberately managed to mean a multiple deduction on any bet left standing on any other horse in that race.
A Closer Look
Now of course a single race - no matter how frustrating in 'bookie tax' terms - hardly constitutes a body of evidence. Nor either does the anecdotal evidence that was its precursor.
And, in fairness, what follows is less than a categorical damnation; but it does further illustrate the issue and focus a beam on one particular operator who could be said to take greater advantage of this perceived con trick than most. (Note, this operator is NOT the only one perpetrating the practice).
The bookmaker in question is PaddyPower, and the following data relate to that firm's prices as represented by oddschecker.com.
I looked at all of the non-runners from Monday 13th July up until 4pm GMT (or 4.01pm as it turned out), and noted the following:
- Official time of withdrawal of each horse (NR Time)
- The penultimate betting show for each horse (Show -1)
- The time on oddschecker of the penultimate betting show (S-1 Time)
- The R4 associated with the penultimate betting show (Assoc R4-1)
- The final betting show prior to withdrawal (Last show)
- The time on oddschecker of the final betting show (LS Time)
- The R4 associated with the final betting show (Assoc R4)
- The difference in R4 deductions between the last two betting shows (R4 diff)
- The time the horse was suspended by Pad Pow for betting purposes (Susp Time)
- The difference between time of suspension and last show time (Susp-LS Time)
- The difference between time of official withdrawal and last show time (LS-NR Time)
In the below table, I've used the following presentation formats to highlight a couple of things:
Grey Italics - No change in the horse's odds all day Green bold - Favourable R4 movement between last two shows Red bold - Unfavourable R4 movement between last two shows
Here are the data in race time order:
Power manipulating R4?
Although the above is not that easy to read, a few things become apparent. First, there is a lot more red than green, meaning that - on this day at least - punters came off much worse 'nett' when comparing positive and negative R4 deductions. Specifically, there were eight R4 deduction extensions in the final shows, and three R4 deduction reductions (if you catch my drift).
Second, note the comparison between the official withdrawal times and last show times (right hand column). In all but one case, the last show was after the horse was officially withdrawn. And, therefore, in direct contravention of the stipulations of Tattersalls Rule 4 (C).
Mr Power's published rules with regards to Rule 4 can be seen here, and are in line with Tattersalls Rule 4 (C). Thus there is a disconnect between Power's stated rules, and the company's application of them.
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Here's another interesting thing: let's sort the data by the size of the last show Rule 4 (Assoc R4)...
Wholesale manipulation of fancied non-runners? Or a crazy coincidence?
Notice how that raft of red has gravitated towards the top of the table?
This means that, in the admittedly small sample of non-runners, those highest in their respective markets were most susceptible to what I'll cautiously suggest could be interpreted as manipulation.
Fridge Kid, the sole green entry at the top of the list, was the only horse in the table (excluding the grey italicized entries, whose prices did not move all day) that did not change within at most five minutes of the suspension time.
Now, it's important that I caveat this: it is possible that this is a 'feature' of the way Padd.y's data feed talks to oddschecker. Possible, but unlikely, in my opinion.
Conclusions
There are reasons why it is dangerous to be categorical about what the data appear to suggest, starting with the fact that I don't know enough about how oddschecker receives and processes data from the PaddyPower feed.
I do however know something about how this data is consumed by geegeez's own odds comparison engine, and it is reasonable to assume similar processing happens on oddschecker.
Also, there is insufficient data in the sample to conclude anything stronger than a tendency towards 'aggressive book management', as opposed to a less equivocal and more absolute contention.
Unfortunately, the information aggregation process is time consuming and not something I'm able to commit to longer term. However, I will 'spot check' this from time to time over the coming weeks, as I believe it is more than mere coincidence.
However, despite all the caveats and the limited dataset, it is clear that P.P. are consistently revising their prices after the official notification, and using the revised price as a basis for Rule 4 deductions from pre-existing wagers.
I contacted PaddyPower's twitter team, hoping to get a comment from the trading room on the matter but, as yet, have not had a reply.
In lieu of a response, it seems sensible to tread carefully when taking an early price with PaddyPower. Personally, where another bookmaker is offering the same price, and the same BOG concession, they will be my chosen layer.
Ultimately, if this is indeed deliberate - as appears likely - the notion of giving with one hand, via the availability of early prices, and the Best Odds Guaranteed concession; only to take with the other, by manipulating the odds of known non-runners, is a fiercely sharp practice. And bookmakers who deploy it have no place in punters' considerations. You hear me, Padddy?
Welcome to Horse Racing Betting 101: The Best of geegeez.co.uk
I've written almost two million words here at geegeez.co.uk, and in amongst that vast swarm of verbosity buzzes the occasional outbreak of punting good sense.
If you'd like to read some of the best of them, you can do so by clicking the image below.
Download: Horse Racing Betting 101
Inside, you'll discover:
- My 10 Steps to Better Betting
- 5 Racing Myths Under the Microscope
- Why Contrast is King when Seeking Value
- Why "Any Fool Can Back 30% Winners"
- How to Find Value in Markets
- How to Understand and Exploit the Handicap System for Profit
- The Full Lowdown on Handicap Ratings in UK Horse Racing
- 10 Ways (8 Free) That GeegeezGold Can Help Your Betting
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/race-book_2-3_v2_flat_NOCASH.jpg33002549Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2015-07-08 16:59:382015-07-08 17:13:56Horse Racing Betting 101: Best of Geegeez
There are as many ways to choose a bet in a horse race as there are punters looking for a winner. And, while on any given day in any given race, any selection methodology can have a moment in the sun (or the icy tundra), over the long term some strategies inevitably play out better than others.
In this post, we'll consider the pitfalls of five of the more common 'racecard short cuts' to wager selection; and I'll highlight what I believe to be some more meaningful information which could be presented to punters as readily as the anachronisms that clutter the cards just now.
1. Last time out winner
Any horse racing bettor with more than a few weeks of exposure to the game may find themselves instinctively drawn to the short alphanumeric string to the left of a horse's name on the racecard. It is, in many ways, the ultimate lazy man's route to the bet window. But how do last day winners perform?
Looking, as we will for each of this quintet of snapshots, at the calendar years from 2012, and covering all codes in both Britain and Ireland, we can see that horses who won their most recent start went on to win again 7,898 times from 42,389 runs.
That works out at a pretty healthy 18.63% strike rate...
...but this most over-used of data snippets would have lost 7,061 points at SP, a negative return on investment (ROI) of 16.66%. That's exactly one pound in every six you invest... lost.
It will take a while to exhaust a betting bank this way, but exhaust it one inexorably will.
2. Beaten favourite
Still common on the racecard, the 'BF' symbol permeates many national newspapers and most on-course and online cards. The theory is that a horse considered good enough to have been market leader last time must have under-performed to have been defeated and, therefore, could be expected to bounce back today. So much for the theory...
Since 2012, there were 30,037 runners that were beaten as favourite (including joint- and co-favourites) last time. That group scored 5,297 times at an acceptable 17.63% clip; though for an unacceptable loss of 5,174 points.
In ROI terms, beaten favourites returned 17.23% less than was invested and performed slightly worse than last time out winners.
3. Course and distance winner
Denoted by the letters 'CD' on the card, this symbol tells the reader that a horse has won over today's distance at today's course (not to be confused with C D, the space reflecting that the win(s) over today's course was/were not also over the distance at today's course).
It helps punters to know that conditions are in the horse's favour, to the extent of the suitability of the piste and range at least. But...
A one point level staked 'investment' in every horse running in Britain and Ireland since 2012 with at least one prior course and distance victory would have meant an outlay of 38,018 points.
There were 5,015 horses able to reprise their CD win, a strike rate of 13.19% (just better than one in eight); and cumulatively they returned 30,253 points. That's a loss of 7,765 which is a whopping 20.43% negative ROI, and a rapid route to the potless fraternity.
4. Headgear
This one is less straightforward to compute, on the basis that headgear is a generic term for a number of accessories. They comprise blinkers, cheek pieces, visor, eye shield, tongue strap, and hood. Moreover, these accoutrements can be worn in combination as well as one at a time.
The below table, taken - like all the data in this post - from horseracebase, is instructive:
Effect of headgear on performance
We can see that the best win strike rates were for horses who either wore no headgear, or only wore a hood. In fact, I can reveal that the non-headgear gang had the best win rate, at 10.875%, compared with the hood squad at 10.846%.
However, it is far more material to consider returns on investment than strike rates, and here is where the hood rises above most of its fellow headgear options. A negative ROI of 21.86% is nasty, but not nearly as nasty as the excruciating 36.22% losses inflicted by use of the eye shield.
Eye shield wearers also scored at comfortably the lowest rate - 8.02% - and I can only assume these implements are akin to a minor torture device used for the sole purpose of favourably handicapping an animal.
[Note, I don't actually believe that wearing eye shields would cause a horse any harm, of course. But, please, allow a little poetic license in what is turning out to be a fairly arid exposé!]
The headline messages in the table are clear if conflicting:
1. Horses not wearing headgear win more often than horses wearing headgear
2. Horses not wearing headgear lose more money overall than horses wearing headgear
The reality of 20+% negative ROI's is that it is of only academic interest to work through the apparent paradoxes of the data. A separate analysis of headgear may follow in a subsequent post. For now, the management summary is that while headgear should not necessarily be considered an advantage, nor is it especially more disadvantageous in performance terms than those unadorned by workplace millinery.
5. The forecast favourite
The province of generally desperate 'need a winner' players, checking the forecast odds for the favourite is, unsurprisingly, not a smart play. As an example (because the forecast favourite will vary from racecard to racecard), backing the 'tissue jolly' from sportinglife.com in all UK/Irish races since 2012 would have garnered 12,259 winners from 43,404 bets. That's a 28.24% strike rate, better than one in four. So far so good...
But strike rate is only (the easy) part of the battle. The reality is that those 12,259 winners came at a cost of 5,619 points, a negative ROI of 12.95%.
Ouch.
5b. The Control: unnamed favourite
All of the above can be gleaned from the racecard, and all will lose religious followers stacks (not that anyone would back one or more of these religiously).
For comparison purposes, let's include the performance of unnamed favourites, including joint- or co-favourites. Since 2012, they've scored 15,785 times out of 47,683 bets, which equates to a strike rate of 33.1%. That's comfortably higher than any of the racecard snippets.
That one-in-three trip to the pay window will keep you in the game, but the ROI of -6.91% means it's just a slower, less painful, route to bankruptcy.
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Conclusions: The Status Quo
So where exactly does this leave us? The table below shows how each of the five racecard factoids measures up against the others, and against the control: unnamed favourite.
How racecard info measures up: not terribly well
There are all sorts of inferences which can be drawn from that little table. The key pair are:
- Consistently betting any 'obvious' racecard angle is punting suicide
- Traditional racecards in Britain are no longer fit for purpose (unless you're a bookmaker)
In fairness, there is an intrinsic cause and effect relationship between those data which are most prominently presented to the market, and the market's voracious desire to subsume such knowledge into the available odds.
In plain English, the most clearly displayed information is the most over-bet information.
Conclusions: The Future
What then can the time-pressed punter do to keep herself in front of the masses, and the market? Clearly, the crucial point is to NOT do what everyone else is doing. That's all well and good, but it would be immeasurably more helpful to understand what to do, rather than what not to do.
Below are a couple of suggestions that ought to sway the balance of probabilities more in your favour:
1. We now know what not to do. So... train yourself to ignore the form string to the left of a horse's name; the betting forecast; and, any letters/symbols on the racecard. Better yet, ignore the actual card itself* and instead focus on whatever form content is included alongside the list of runners and riders.
[*unless it's a Geegeez Gold racecard 😉 ]
You'll be genuinely amazed at how (relatively) easy it is to isolate value when you trust yourself rather than relying on some numbers thunk up by someone else.
2. Look for readily digestible data which is not in the mainstream public domain. Specialist racecard and form services are relatively commonplace, and there are some very good ones out there. Not least of which, naturally, is Geegeez Gold. Our racecards have additional, meaningful, symbols, such as (four different) trainer and jockey form indicators; and flags for horses running for a new trainer (TC) and/or in a handicap for the first time (HC1).
Clicking on the TC or HC1 indicators opens a report from which you can review the trainer's form (and all others with similar sorts running today) in that context over the past year, two years, five years, or at the course in the past five years.
These are often golden nuggets and, importantly, they're not known to the vast majority of the punting population. Here's a quick example from the 7.15 Uttoxeter tonight, which will hopefully win (all the best examples win!)
We know trainer and jockey are in form, and horse debuts for trainer...
Regal Park has form figures of P4P2P/ over jumps. Punters whose first port of call is that data string would leave this fellow well alone. However, he has his first run for Dr Richard Newland this time, and that gives reason to be more optimistic.
We can see (click the image to make it bigger if you're struggling to see) from the trainer form indicators that Dr Newland has the full set of four: two recent form ticks (14 30), and two longer term course form ticks (C1 C09+). Jockey Will Kennedy is also in top recent fettle.
Note as well the TC to the right of Regal Park's name. As I've written, that denotes a change of trainer since last time. So what?, is a perfect legitimate response. Well, let's click the TC and find out [click the image to open it full size in a new window]:
Hmm, this trainer can really improve a horse...
The good Dr Newland has taken charge of 26 second (or more) hand equines in the past two years, and he's won with eleven of them. That's a 42% strike rate. Moreover, the ledger shows a positive balance of 12.51 points at starting price. Taking early BOG prices or BSP would further embellish his already lustrous punting appeal.
It takes me - and anyone else who employs this gen - less than two minutes, literally, to compile this info. That's because I normally take the 'top down' route first: I check the Trainer Change report against my filter settings, and look more closely at horses that fit well.
Win or lose, Regal Park can be expected to step forward on what he's shown historically on the basis that his trainer has shown himself to be able to improve most of the horses he takes into his care. As well as improving them, his record screams of an ability to place those horses optimally.
He was 10/3 with Paddy when I wrote this at 10.40pm Monday night, and for those who can avail of best odds concessions, that will be the worst price you'll get (Rule 4's notwithstanding). Anyway, the point of the example is not to tip especially, but rather to highlight a simple route to finding useful information on the racecard, something that is all but extinct in most of the mainstream digital media and in all printed newspapers.
[STOP PRESS: Regal Park bolted up at 9/4. The Racing Post said "he ended up winning with any amount in hand".]
Now it's over to you: How do you read the racecard? Which elements do you look at first/most? More importantly, what information would you like to see displayed on the card?
Leave a comment below, and let us know.
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To get a 14 day trial of Geegeez Gold for £5 (normal price is £24/month), click here.
Or, to enjoy some of the features of Gold via Race of the Day and Feature of the Day, click here to sign up for a free account.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/1980racecard2.jpg233486Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2015-07-07 07:48:232015-07-08 10:57:30Five Perils of Punting from Racecard Information
Since I put my first bet on the Grand National at the age of 10 (via my dad of course), I have had an interest in horse racing. With my grandparents living on the east coast of Yorkshire it meant we would regularly have days out at Beverley racecourse.
When I finally got to the age of being able to put a bet on, I found myself at York university, studying Chemistry. This meant that for every birthday since I can remember, we would go to York racecourse for a day of racing and not once have I actually known why I am betting on a horse other than the mediocre list of numbers that are at the side of the horses' names in the race card.
Having been a member of various tipster groups and being subjected to the various highs and lows associated, I decided to embark on a mission of choosing my own horses and see how well I could do. I had a look around a few websites and decided that Geegeez was easily the best tool that I could use to pick winners. As a scientific man I was drawn in by all the stats that are on offer, and also by how intuitive they are.
I watched most of the videos that are in the “my geegeez” section and thought to myself, “I know what, I’ll take my limited knowledge of horse racing and see if I can become a winner” and the following is what happened…
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My Betting Week
I have been a member of Geegeez for a few months now and have used the stats in various different ways but never really kept track of why I’ve picked certain horses or the profit or losses involved, so I decided to become a more conscientious gambler and see what I could learn from my chosen bets. From all the features that are on offer I have mainly used the following to make my choices:-
Speed Ratings (SR)
The difference column on Instant Expert to see if they are on or below their last winning mark
Instant Expert / The Shortlist
Pace analysis (backing longer odds horses in slow races)
Trainer/Jockey combo
Tracker
Full Form Filter (Today form)
Watching previous races on bet365
Handicap Debut/Trainer Change
I decided to start off with a theoretical £100 in the bankroll and see how it all went. I made no rules on how much I would spend on a given day, something I'd later regret, and no real limits on how confident I was about the win. All the odds quoted are the odds that were available on the Geegeez website at the time of analysis and these did frequently change when compared to the SP.
Day 1
An absolutely fantastic start to the experiment. I made 15 picks using a mixture of the criteria above. Instant expert, Tracker horses and the FFF returning 100% strike rate. SR gets an honourable mention of 44%. The highlight for me though had to be Sennockian Star at decimal odds of 9.00 who was chosen due to being top of the IE.
I went heavy on “Dr. Red Eye” who led all the way then got outpaced late on.
Daily Profit/Loss is +£137.65 to give £237.65 in the kitty. [Click the images to enlarge]
Day 2
A pretty steady day overall, “Monotype” being the highlight which was a pick made on Trainer/Jockey combo percentage. My heavy touch was on “El Grande” who proved to be more of an “El Pobre” in the end and weakened 4f out.
Daily Profit/Loss is -£26.20 and Bankroll is at £211.45.
Day 3
Only one winner today and that was “Alkhor”. Mainly picked due to Hannon being the trainer and Frankie being booked. The odds reflected this and were only 1.91. A win is a win though. I really fancied Shady Lane because of the Trainer/Jockey combo but to no avail as he finished a creditable 3rd, only 2 lengths behind the favourite, “Miss Sassypants”.
Daily Profit/Loss is -£45.45 and Bankroll is at £166.00.
Day 4
Some nice horses running today, a couple of places help to fill the pot but my big bet of the day returns at odds of 3.50 which makes a massive difference overall. Last winning mark is starting to annoy me slightly, I am quickly learning that they are returning to their last winning mark because the horses are on the downturn of their career.
Daily Profit/Loss for the day is +£25.63 and the Bankroll is at £191.63.
Day 5
I do believe this was the day when things started to wrong and the reason it went wrong was mainly due to me going against “Stat of the Day” and doing some crazy staking by putting £50 on “High Ron”. I went with my gut feeling and it cost me big. Everything seemed to point to him but it wasn’t to be. “Urcalin” was a decent win at odds of 3.50 but didn’t make a dent on the day’s overall outlay.
Daily Profit/Loss -£87.50 and Bankroll now at £104.13.
Day 6
For the second time, I am playing with my own money. Today I fancied “Tumbaga” which was handicapping for the first time. I had a look at other horses in his previous races and at their speed rating now and he seemed head and shoulders above the rest of the field. “Kyrenia Castle” was a non-runner so we’ll never know what could have been at those juicy odds.
Daily Profit/Loss -£38.25 and Bankroll at £65.88.
Day 7
Death or Glory. I decided to place all of my money on bets to see what I could do. I really fancied “Limato” to win and his close second was no consolation. He is a horse who I do believe has a lot more to offer but couldn’t do it today.
Daily Profit/Loss -£35.88 and Bankroll at £30.00.
Summary
So overall for the week I am £70 down on my theoretical £100 bank. It is quite easy to trace these losses back to a few pivotal bets, and some poor staking. I have come to the conclusion that it is important to put a lot of effort into choosing the right bets but it is even more important to analyse your winners and losers, and to stake consistently.
Here is the breakdown of my week's bets.
As you can see from the table, tracker horses and watching previous races is a very good tool in deciding if the stats have meaning or not (though this did come from very small sample sizes).
As with all stats, lots of them are contextual. Trainer/Jockey combos seem to yield quite a good strike rate and often at good odds. I personally think that this is also quite a small sample and shouldn’t be taken as definitive, but what I hope it shows is that every one of the tools can yield winners but the tools are most powerful when combined together.
There are so many races that I look at and it throws up about three different horses and this makes it very hard to pick. I know for a fact that in future I will be making a lot less picks due to the Last Winning Mark as this has led to a lot of losses in the week.
This discipline of this experiment has led me to change my betting though, and I think from now on I am going to have some stricter criteria to my bets:-
Make sure it’s not just one piece of data that points to a selection
Watch the races of previous runs when there is a choice of a few horses in a race
Bet smaller/more consistent stakes no matter how sure I am. Big stakes are dangerous to the bankroll!
Trainer/Jockey combos can be extremely important in making picks
After doing this experiment I am going to have a bit of a rest before the next one. I am thinking that I might investigate the value in following Trainer/Jockey Combos and see how profitable that can be when combined with Instant Expert.
- Damien
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Matt Writes...
Firstly, a big thank you to Damien for taking time to sketch out his week for all of us, and an interesting week it was too!
It's easy to see that Damien actually has a fair handle on the tools, and has used them pretty well in the main. Whilst I personally wouldn't use the Instant Expert 'last winning rating difference' as a means for placing a bet (there's a reason it's not green, red, amber - there's no direct correlation between the numbers and a horse's winning chance), I think the other methods are all valid.
Ignoring that, the obvious issue was the staking. Betting all horses for £5, except the daily £20 bets - and that mental (sorry Damien!) £50 aberration - was the killer. If all bets had been a total stake of £5 (i.e. £5 win or £2.50 e/w), the return on those bigger bets would have been -£22.50. Compare that with the actual -£120 and you can quickly see that there is a whopping £97.50 differential.
In this case, that was the difference between a painful loss of £70, and a satisfying gain of £27.50.
Geegeez Gold can help you find good winners, but you need to stake sensibly and consistently to make them pay.
One other thing on bankroll. This was a notional £100 bankroll for the purposes of a very interesting experiment. Betting 75% of it on day one is a disastrous way to go! One has to manage one's funds for the long haul. On a £100 bank, £5 bets equate to 5% staked - and the £50 bet was half the bank on a single horse!! This is, erm, verynot good.
I definitely agree about looking for multiple positives, rather than just a single piece of data, to isolate a bet. For instance, when looking at Handicap First Time, I'll respect any trainer with a solid performance in the last year or two in that context, but his horse today MUST have something different in the race conditions (e.g. a step up in trip, different ground conditions, noteworthy jockey change, etc) to be of interest.
When multiple horses qualify in a race, it becomes about the market. If you like three roughly equally, and one is 10/1 with the others much shorter, the value bet is the 10/1 shot. That is one way to play the race. Another is to sit it out: if there are three possibles, it's maybe too competitive. And a third is to split your stake between the possibles you've identified.
My lessons/comments for Damien
1. Stake consistently and in line with your bank. It is reckless to be staking more than 2.5% of bank on a single selection, even if you make it a 'five star nap', and even if you tend to bet at the top of the market. (Most Gold users don't bet at the top of the market as a rule, because they have intel which leads them elsewhere).
2. Use Last Winning Rating (LWR) on Instant Expert as a reference point only. When I was researching the correlation between LWR and Today's Rating, I couldn't find anything especially meaningful. That's why the numbers are in blue, and not Red/Amber/Green. They are for information purposes only.
3. Well done on looking at videos and using your Tracker to find winners. Data can tell us a lot, but if we have the time to use our eyes as well, we'll glean plenty more from between the form lines.
4. I agree that TJ Combo is a great source of winners. In fact, it's arguably the best source of winners in the whole Gold offering. They take a little more finding than, say, Stat of the Day (but not too much more), so won't necessarily be for everyone, but very good - and very gettable - winners are there most days.
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This was Damien's idea, and I thought it was a really good one. And, as I was writing this up, I also thought it might make a nice occasional feature. So, if you'd like the chance to put yourself under the microscope in a bid to improve your betting - and if you're happy to share, and for me to pick out a few items like I have with Damien - then leave a comment below or email me at the usual place.
My thanks again to Damien for sharing, and I hope you found this of interest. Perhaps there's a pointer or two for you in there as well... 🙂
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/daysummary.png394549Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2015-06-22 23:13:442015-06-22 23:20:00A week in the life of a newbie Geegeez Gold user
Jim Bolger doesn’t like rules, writes Tony Keenan. Some of his more liberal stable staff might disagree with the code of abstinence that prevails around Coolcullen but in terms of training rules of time, space and distance, Bolger doesn’t care. The received wisdom with Group 1 horses is clear: find their distance and stick to it, campaign them sparingly, don’t travel them too much. Bolger ignores all of these, treating his group horses like handicappers, mixing up their trips, racing them often, travelling abroad at will. If another trainer took the same approach, the racing world would question what sort of bat-crazy methods they’re using. With Bolger, we’ve seen it all before and have come to expect the unforeseen.
This season’s experiment is Pleascach. Already she has dropped back from a strong finishing win over ten furlongs to win the Irish 1,000 Guineas in which her trainer ran two pacemakers to bring her home. Her next trick will be a relative sleight of hand in the Ribblesdale before a planned David Blaine-esque feat taking on the colts in the Irish Derby. But she’s only following on from other Bolger horses that have broken the rules and won.
Alexander Goldrun
Only the brave, drug-addled or a hopelessly optimistic owner could have predicted Alexander Goldrun would win five Group 1’s at the end of her juvenile season. At two, she ran eight times, including five nurseries; she started off with a rating of 88 and won just one of those juvenile handicaps. Improvement came at three, though, where she was in the frame for three Group 1’s before returning from a French-style mid-summer break to win the Prix de l’Opera on Arc day.
It was her next run that would define her, however. Bolger took her to Sha Tin in December of that year to win the Hong Kong Cup, becoming the first – and as yet only – Irish-trained winner of that race; in fact, by my reckoning there had been just four Irish-trained runners in the race before her, the race first run in 1988. She was also the first three-year-old to win the Hong Kong Cup – Snow Fairy became the second in 2010 – and joined a roll of winners that includes Fantastic Light and Falbrav. Not bad for a filly once rated 88.
Dawn Approach
An unbeaten Champion Two-Year-Old who won the Coventry, National and Dewhurst, Dawn Approach was clearly not the average thoroughbred but nor was he unique. He returned at three with a five-length win in the 2,000 Guineas which led to him being sent off at 5/4 for the Derby, the decision to run influenced by factors like Godolphin buying him and Bolger having taken the Guineas route to Derby success with the sire, New Approach.
The trainer couldn’t get away with breaking this rule, his top-class miler running like what he was, pulling viciously with Kevin Manning in the early stages, allowed to lead six furlongs out and ultimately finishing a tailed off 33 lengths last. This may have been a rare time where Bolger second-guessed himself as he could have left the winner at home; his Irish Derby winner, Trading Leather, would later beat the Epsom form at the Curragh.
Dawn Approach seemed set for some time off after the Derby, if for nothing else than to teach him to settle properly and calm his nerves. But Bolger was having none of it. Seventeen days later, Dawn Approach runs in and wins the St. James’s Palace at Royal Ascot, beating his arch-rival Toronado in a race that didn’t go to plan as he suffered a heavy bump in the straight. Many questioned whether Dawn Approach had left his season behind at Epsom, but Bolger just kept him rolling.
Finsceal Beo
There were hints at two that Finsceal Beo could take racing and travelling well – she won the Boussac and the Rockfel, the second under a penalty, within a fortnight in the autumn of her juvenile season. This set up an ambitious plan at three; three Guineas, four weeks, the UK to France and back to Ireland. Taking the modern period into account, from 1979 to present, winning the first two races is doable if unusual. Miesque (1987), Ravinella (1988) and Special Duty (2010) completed the Newmarket/Longchamp double.
The English/Irish double, seemingly the more logical for horses trained in these islands, is much rarer, only Attraction in 2004 achieving that since 1979. Finsceal Beo of course did the double in 2007 and narrowly failed in winning all three, going down by a head in France, with the ground perhaps an excuse. What is most notable however is that defeat came in the middle leg, giving Bolger an obvious out not to run her at the Curragh. But he didn’t deviate from the plan and she landed her second Classic at home.
Light Heavy
Topping out a rating of 113, Light Heavy is hardly the most memorable Bolger horse but he is an unheralded cog in the headgear revolution that has happened in Irish racing. In 2012, he landed the Ballysax/Derrinstown double at Leopardstown; nothing unusual in that but he did it in cheekpieces. The aesthetics may not have been pleasing but they were effective.
Irish racing is hidebound and things like blinkers and cheekpieces were viewed in the traditional sense; rogues’ badges that you really don’t want your horses, especially the good ones, to wear if at all possible. This is backed up by the numbers though I do allow that the Irish authorities were quite slow to include this as part of their racecard information. Between 2003 and 2011, cheek-pieced runners in Irish group races were 3/124, a strikerate of 2.4%, and two of those winners were trained in the UK; Irish trainers simply didn’t want to use them.
Since 2012, the year Light Heavy won his double, their record is 14/113, a return of 12.3%; there have been almost as many runners in cheekpieces the last three and a bit years than there were in the previous ten. We have had a Derby winner (Ruler Of The World) race in them as well as an Ascot Gold winner (Leading Light). Aidan O’Brien uses them extensively and set the tone for the rest of the training community as befits his position as Champion Trainer. It was his old mentor Bolger who was the earliest of adopters though.
Lush Lashes
Lush Lashes ran only once at two – I don’t understand it either – but her three-year-old season more than compensated and was a thing of beauty in terms of endurance. It is worth rehashing in full, race-by-race with her finishing position: Park Express – seventh; 1,000 Guineas – sixth; Musidora – won; Oaks – fifth; Coronation – won; Nassau – second (unlucky); Yorkshire Oaks – won; Matron – won; Prix De L’Opera – second; Hong Kong Cup – fourteenth. And the variation in furlongs (wins in bold): eight, eight, ten, twelve, eight, ten, twelve, eight, ten, ten.
It is one thing to experiment with a horse’s trip preferences early in their three-year-old season to find their optimum, quite another to continue doing it all season while bringing her back and forth from Britain and Ireland and later France and Hong Kong. Lush Lashes was the blueprint for the trip-versatile, frequent-running Bolger filly that would later be seen at a lower level with Banimpire (though there was nothing lower-level about her price tag as she sold for €2.3million in 2011 as a broodmare prospect) and hopefully Pleascach.
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