Read all sorts of commentaries and tips across a range of racing disciplines on the most popular horse racing blog in Britain, from staff and guest writers.
Now here’s a conundrum for you. We’ve just seen the 4 mile National Hunt Chase (I’ll just use it’s regular title here), a race in it’s 153rd year. Yet National Hunt racing has only regularly taken place at Cheltenham since the early 1900s, with the festival established in 1911. So what about the early years of the race? Read more
I have sometimes wondered when I've been watching The Scilly Isles Novice Chase at Sandown what the connection was between former Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s favourite holiday destination and Surrey. Read more
Handicap Ratings: giving everyone a chance
A day doesn't go by when a racing writer or broadcaster will refer to a horse as being 'six pounds well in', or 'racing from out of the handicap', or 'favoured by the weights'.
But what does that actually mean? And are there any anomalies that we can use to our advantage? In today's post, I'll look at handicap ratings in the context of UK racing, and try to find any related chinks in the armour of the betting masses.
So let's get stuck in, starting with handicap ratings.
Handicap ratings, in their simplest form, are a set of numbers used to define the ability of a group of horses. Many people keep their own set of private numbers, figured out according to method and structure (allied to a hint of subjective opinion).
The reason for these ratings is to group horses together in races, called handicaps, where each animal has a theoretically equal chance of winning. There are numerous other reasons as well, such as helping to ascertain the value of a horse in training at sale, and as a means of establishing the merit of horses in different years or generations... or even in the same year.
From a betting perspective, the main purpose of handicap ratings is to understand which horse or horses might be favoured by how much lead they carry. More on that in a moment.
As I mentioned above, there are many people who keep their own records and ratings on horse performance. These are known as 'private handicaps' and, assuming the owner has some talent when it comes to rating races and horse performance, they have real credibility when it comes to betting.
The reason for this is because information from a private handicap is, by definition, not available to the general public. So, whilst in the main, a private handicapper's interpretation of a race will align with the 'official' view, sometimes there will be horses who stand out on private ratings. For example, a horse which is 7/1 with the bookies but is clear top-rated on a private handicap, may be a cracking wager if the private handicapper knows what he's doing.
But the main producer of handicap ratings, and the official rater of horses in the UK, is the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), led by Phil Smith. There is some excellent information on what the BHA handicappers do here.
In most cases, a horse must run three times under rules before being allocated a handicap rating. These runs give the handicapper an opportunity to see the relative merit of a horse, when set against other horses in the context of a race. Of course, the race conditions - distance, going, course constitution, etc - may also play their part, and makes the job of handicapping horses initially the biggest challenge... especially when some trainers may want to 'disguise' the ability of the beast in question.
This is from the BHA site again:
Once a horse has qualified to run in handicaps, we will usually publish a handicap rating for it. A full list appears every Tuesday morning on the BHA’s Racing Administration website.
Most handicaps are limited to horses with handicap ratings in a specific range. If a Flat race is for horses rated 56-70, for example, then nothing rated higher than 70 is eligible for entry. Horses rated lower than 56 are allowed to run but they would normally be given weights as if they were rated 56 irrespective of how much lower than this they are actually rated.
It would not normally make sense for the trainer of a horse rated 46 to enter. He would have to carry ten pounds more than the weight that we think would give it an equal chance. Any horse running under those circumstances is said to be “out of the handicap”. It would be better to run in a race where he would have his proper weight and a proper chance.
In most races, the deadline for entering a horse is noon six days before the race.
Once that deadline has passed, the BHA publishes the list of horses entered together with the weights they have been set to carry. The trainers then looks at the opposition, consider all the variables and decides whether they want the horse to run in the race. On the Flat that decision has to be taken by ten o’clock on the morning two days before the race. Over jumps the deadline is usually ten o’clock on the morning before the race.
In order to convert ratings into weight, we need also to factor in a third variable, 'class'. Class in the context of horse races can be most simply described as a range of ratings which seeks to match horses of similar ability against each other.
Each point on the rating scale equates to a pound of weight in a race.
For instance, the above 56-70 example seeks to match horses rated within a stone of each other (70, the top of the range, minus 56, the bottom of the range, equals fourteen; and there are fourteen pounds in a stone).
So if Dobbin was rated 68 and Mister Ed 60, then Dobbin would carry eight pounds more weight in the race than Mister Ed (68-60=8). The specific weight they'd carry - as opposed to the relative weights outlined just now - would depend on who was the highest rated horse in the race.
The highest rated horse, who in this example could not be rated more than 70 (except under a certain condition which I'll get to later), would generally carry 9-10 (nine stone ten pounds). The other horses, rated lower, would carry one pound less per ratings point below the highest rated.
Again, Dobbin would be set to carry 9-08 (rated 68, two pounds below top rated/weighted), and Mister Ed would lug 9-0 (another eight pounds lower rated, and therefore weighted).
Still with me? Great!
Sometimes when a horse wins well, the owner and trainer will be keen to race him again quickly. This is because, as you've seen above, the handicapper does not reproduce his handicap every day. Rather, he does this weekly.
This presents an opportunity for a fit and well horse to run again before being re-assessed by the handicapper. In a fairly arbitrary attempt to counteract this, winners who are quickly turned out prior to re-assessment are given a five or six pound penalty in flat races, and seven pounds in jumps races.
The handicapper may, in due course, consider the merit of the horse's win to be worth more, or less, than five, six or seven pounds. But five or six (or seven) pounds is the excess a nag will shoulder for racing again after a win but before the official rating has been assessed.
For instance, today - Monday 16th January - Niceonefrankie carries the penalty in the 3.10 Plumpton. Note the 7x next to his name, denoting the fact that he carries the arbitrary penalty prior to tomorrow's reassessment.
But do horses running again before reassessment win often enough to justify their support? The answer is interesting...
In turf flat races since 2008, horses running off the same official rating in a handicap having won a handicap last time, won 57 of 222 races - about 25% - and showed a negligible profit of 10.33 points.
In all weather races in the same time period and under the same conditions, 29 won from 138 runners (21%) and showed a loss of 28..33 points.
And in jump races the story was similar to all weather, with 52 of 228 winning (23%) but losses incurred of 72.22 points.
What I find most interesting is what we see when we compare the performance of horses running under the seemingly arbitrary penalty, and the relative performance of those last time out winners who raced subsequently only after they were re-assessed.
The former group (quickly turned out, no re-assessed) won collectively 138 of 588 (23.47%) for a loss of 90 points (-15% ROI).
The latter group (won last time, re-assessed by the handicapper before running again) won collectively 3,461 of 20,380 (16.98%) for a loss of 2759 points (-13.5% ROI).
Notice how one's negative return in percentage terms is actually better for re-assessed horses. The implication, and take away, is this: horses running quickly under a penalty for a last time out win are overbet. They win more often, but they are less profitable. So the question, as ever, is this: do you want winners? Or profit? 😉
We've seen so far that horses are weighted according to their rating, and relative to the other horses in their race. But, aside from understanding the mechanics of handicap races, how does this help us punters turn a profit?
Let's look at the performance of flat horses performance in handicaps by weight rank, i.e. highest weight is ranked 1, second highest 2, and so on.
| Position in Weights | Bets | Wins | WinStrike | P/L | Places | PlaceStrike |
| 1 | 23619 | 3014 | 13% | -4128.71 | 7916 | 34% |
| 2 | 19710 | 2411 | 12% | -3648.09 | 6403 | 32% |
| 3 | 19527 | 2254 | 12% | -3478.47 | 6011 | 31% |
| 4 | 19271 | 2008 | 10% | -4355.82 | 5686 | 30% |
| 5 | 18888 | 1909 | 10% | -3460.54 | 5437 | 29% |
| 6 | 18116 | 1606 | 9% | -3700.75 | 4767 | 26% |
| 7 | 16861 | 1295 | 8% | -4214.45 | 4180 | 25% |
| 8 | 15298 | 1138 | 7% | -3019.92 | 3772 | 25% |
| 9 | 13271 | 937 | 7% | -2883.93 | 3019 | 23% |
| 10 | 11112 | 670 | 6% | -3075.44 | 2215 | 20% |
Look at the beautiful linearity between a horse's position in the handicap weights, and its win strike rate. Top weighted horses win most often, second top rated win second most often, and so on.
But, further, look at the place percentages. The results are exactly the same, in terms of weight rank and performance.
Of course, this by itself will not make us all rich, as the P/L column testifies. But when betting horses, or putting systems together, it is instructive to understand the relationship between weight rank and winning chance.
Another way of looking at this is to note that the top four in the weights collectively win almost half of all turf flat weights (47% to be exact). So you could expect to collect something half the time by just blindly dutching the top four in the weights.
The above table doesn't contain ROI figures, which are of course important. So let's factor that data in now.
| Pos in Weights | Bets | Wins | WinStrike | SP_PL | ROI |
| 1 | 23619 | 3014 | 13% | -4128.71 | -17.48% |
| 2 | 19710 | 2411 | 12% | -3648.09 | -18.51% |
| 3 | 19527 | 2254 | 12% | -3478.47 | -17.81% |
| 4 | 19271 | 2008 | 10% | -4355.82 | -22.60% |
| 5 | 18888 | 1909 | 10% | -3460.54 | -18.32% |
| 6 | 18116 | 1606 | 9% | -3700.75 | -20.43% |
| 7 | 16861 | 1295 | 8% | -4214.45 | -25.00% |
| 8 | 15298 | 1138 | 7% | -3019.92 | -19.74% |
| 9 | 13271 | 937 | 7% | -2883.93 | -21.73% |
| 10 | 11112 | 670 | 6% | -3075.44 | -27.68% |
We no longer have the same linearity, in profit/loss terms. But look closely, and you'll note that the top weight is still the least losing horse on average. And the top three are - barring what might be a slight anomaly with the fifth rated horse - the least losing trio of horses.
So focus your turf handicap wagering on the top three in the weights, and you can expect to win 37% of the time and lose as little cash as possible from such an arbitrary approach.
Ignoring discipline, and looking at all races - turf flat, National Hunt, and all weather - in UK gives this table:
| Pos Wgts | Bets | Wins | WinStrike | SP_PL | Places | Pl Str | Win ROI | |
| 1 | 20310 | 2688 | 13% | -3061.1 | 6783 | 33% | -15% | |
| 2 | 17176 | 2136 | 12% | -3164 | 5473 | 32% | -18% | |
| 3 | 16876 | 2023 | 12% | -3286.5 | 5255 | 31% | -19% | |
| 4 | 16736 | 1853 | 11% | -3303.9 | 5004 | 30% | -20% | |
| 5 | 16147 | 1749 | 11% | -2525.5 | 4757 | 29% | -16% | ?? |
| 6 | 15213 | 1471 | 10% | -3098.5 | 4215 | 28% | -20% | |
| 7 | 13942 | 1162 | 8% | -3040.4 | 3575 | 26% | -22% | |
| 8 | 12167 | 917 | 8% | -3130.1 | 3052 | 25% | -26% | |
| 9 | 10407 | 809 | 8% | -2081.2 | 2469 | 24% | -20% | |
| 10 | 8328 | 566 | 7% | -1868 | 1790 | 21% | -22% |
This table covers the period from 2008, and the win/place strike rates have that same perfect curve to them, from top weight to tenth ranked. (Lower weight ranks broadly conform, though as the sample sizes get smaller, so anomalies creep in. These are not material from a statistical perspective).
Again, we see that the top three weights are the least unprofitable of the set, with the same curious exception of the fifth weight. It could be that this is a point in the market where odds are greater than they ought to be. Or it could be anomalous.
I'm inclined to believe it's a curio and, mercifully, it has no monetary merit in any case - more losing less cash, rather than actually winning anything! - which relieves me of the temptation of investigating further.
Weight in racing is a divisive subject at the best of times, and there are plenty of learned students of the game who will attest to ignoring weight change in handicaps.
Nick Mordin wrote in his excellent book, Mordin on Time,
"The normal sort of weight swing that occurs from one race to another can only affect a horse by a few lengths, and if this is enough to cost the typical horse you bet a chance of victory, then your bets are much too speculative".
Whilst I don't agree with the ferocity of the statement, I think the general principle is true. My own interpretation is that, given the average weight of a thoroughbred racehorse might be estimated at 1200 pounds, adding seven pounds to the burden may not slow the beast down that much.
There is however a more material point about the nature of weight in handicaps. And that is this: horses who win or run well are allotted additional weight. But horses who run poorly have their rating reduced and therefore carry less weight subsequently. But which group performs better: those carrying more weight? Or those carrying less?
In the same book, Mordin quotes a US study by a chap called Rennets Alexandria, who found a large sample of horses which were running under nigh on identical conditional for two races in a row, and always over the same distance.
The study showed that the group of horses carrying more weight in the second race required, on average, an extra three pounds of weight to slow them down by one length in the race.
Compare this with the group of horses which were carrying less weight in the second race who required, on average, a drop of 6.2 pounds to improve their performance by one length in the race.
Weight of course is only one variable, and we need also to consider the fact that horses gaining weight are generally improving in their form cycle, and those losing weight are regressing in theirs. That alone, argues Mordin, is not sufficient to vindicate such a considerable disparity between the two sets of horses.
He contests that class must also be a factor. After all, when a horse wins a 0-70 race off topweight, he will be obliged to race in a higher class race next time (at least, after the handicapper has re-assessed his performance). In that higher class race, he will probably carry less weight, but against better animals.
Let's use British examples to illustrate the same point. The first table below shows those horses which won last time out, over the same distance as their next race, which was a handicap. That next race was in a higher class, albeit carrying less weight.
| Bets | Wins | WinStrike | P/L | Places | PlaceStrike |
| 6662 | 957 | 14.37% | -1059.1 | 2465 | 37.00% |
A one in seven win rate, and a loss in ROI terms of 15.9%
Now then, this next table shows a similar group of horses which won last time out, over the same distance as their next race, which was a handicap. But in this case, that next race was in the same class or lower, and the horse carried more weight.
| Bets | Wins | WinStrike | P/L | Places | PlaceStrike |
| 6548 | 1249 | 19.07% | -786.92 | 2883 | 44.03% |
Here, we're confronted with a roughly one in five win rate, and a negative ROI of 'only' 12.02%
In other words, horses carrying more weight in the same (or lower) grade after a win comprehensively out-perform those upped in class after winning.
Apprentice (flat races), amateur (both codes) and conditional (National Hunt) jockeys are generally all entitled to claim an allowance, depending on their ability - measured in terms of races won to date - and the conditions of the contest in which they're riding.
Some trainers consider these jockeys' allowances more than offset their relative inexperience and inability (in some cases, though not all!)
For instance, a seven pound claiming jockey on the flat may have already ridden nineteen winners in his/her first season. Alternatively, they may still be seeking their first win after a hundred or more rides under rules.
It's difficult to quantify the value of amateur jockeys, except by looking at the profit and loss tables. The most recent of these, which advertise the prospects of Richie Killoran, Kielan Woods and Lee Edwards over jumps; and Harry Bentley, John Fahy and Ryan Clark on the flat; can be seen here.
Latest apprentice/conditional jockey stats.
With almost half of all UK races run as handicaps, a decent grasp of the mechanics is a necessity if you aim to make betting pay. But that alone will not put your nose in front. For that, we need to dig more deeply and consider actual performance of groups of horses versus the conventional wisdom.
We've seen in the above that a horse's winning chance is directly proportional to its position in the weights, with those at the top favoured.
We've also noted that following horses quickly turned out prior to official re-assessment may win more often than those whose next run is post-assessment, but they also lose more money.
And we've learned that it is generally better to look to horses carrying more weight in a similar class race than those carrying less weight in a better class race, after a win last time out.
None of these pointers will in or of themselves make you a winning punter. But each, when factored into your own betting approach, and drawn upon as you study the cards - along with all the other variables which make racing such a glorious puzzle - will bring you closer to the elusive goal of making a profit from your betting.
Matt
p.s. Please do rate this post, and/or share it, using the buttons below. That's what they're there for! 😉 And, of course, feel free to leave a comment.
In this important post, I outline ten points that will make you win more money more often with your betting. Even if you think you know all of this, it may pay to review this as a refresher. Smart punters are always learning and re-learning.
So, without any more ado, here are my top ten tips for becoming a better bettor.
10. Keep Records
How to Bet: Keep Records
Yes, I know it's boring. But seriously, these days, it is very easy to keep records, especially if you have online accounts (because they keep the record for you).
But keeping records is simply an exercise in administration if you don't regularly review those records. Look specifically at where you're winning money. Is there a pattern there? Perhaps you have a stronger handle in sprint races, or novice hurdles. Whatever. Pay attention to where your strengths lie, and focus more on that.
Obviously, the converse is true. If you can't help but bet on the biggest races (Group races and huge field handicaps), and you discover you haven't backed a winner in these race types for six months, stop!
Or, and this is my preferred approach, keep a small 'action bets' pot, which is separate from your main punting pot. That way, you can still get involved in the races where you probably shouldn't (from a financial perspective), but want to from an entertainment perspective.
Let's always remember the value of small stakes betting for FUN. I know it has become somewhat 'shouted out' by the make money mob and the materialism of our current social malaise (don't get me started!), but readers of geegeez remain predominantly recreational bettors and the content here is designed to fully support that.
Nevertheless, that doesn't excuse you from keeping - and inspecting - your records! 😉
9. Never Chase Losses
How to Bet: Never Chase Losses
Yes, yes. I know you know. But you still do it, don't you?! Me too, from time to time.
There is a fundamental flaw in the human psyche that needs us to be right. That, on a subconscious level at least, is one of the main reasons we bet. And it can be expensive.
Have you ever spent a period of time studying for a race, before placing your bet on the horse you've determined looks 'nailed on', only to see it unluckily fall at the last, get beaten on the run-in, never quite make it under a lambastable jockey, etc.?
It happens often, right? And the way we deal with such reversals of fortune will ultimately define the success or failure we have in the long term.
Because the problem with chasing is it's irrational, and it happens when you're in a bad place mentally. You spent an hour going through that race where the gods mocked you, and you lost twenty quid when you should have won two hundred. So what happens next?
The scenario that I remember from my ugly past - which still gets replayed roughly once every four months - is that I see a race going off in about five minutes time, I rush to the paper on the wall (or the internet race card), and I inspect the race conditions and the form of the favourite.
If the favourite looks good, I bet it. With more money than I backed the selection I took much more time over, which finished unluckily. That selection where I'd looked at all the other horses in the race, and made a clear case for my pick, and against his opposition.
Here I am saying, 'the favourite looks like he has a favourite's chance, so I will throw money at him and hope he bails me out'.
'Hope betting'. That is expensive. When that 'jolly' gets beaten, perhaps in a close finish (30% of favourites win, but 62% place), you may feel doubly hard done to.
Obviously now the spiral is gaining downward momentum, and control is lost. The wallet opens and the next favourite is backed on little more than a whim. Soon enough, the last tenner in the purse is being lobbed at a greyhound - a bloody greyhound! - to nick back a few more punting chips with which to attempt to steal parity.
You walk out of the betting shop a hundred and fifty quid down. Or five hundred. Or a tenner. It doesn't matter really. That's a question of the scale of your betting. But the point is universal.
You feel terrible. Forget the money. If you're lucky enough to be able to afford to lose that amount (which we all should be, but this is not a time of rational thinking generally), you will still be kicking yourself at the stupidity of it.
So here's the deal: although I titled this one as 'never chase losses', I fully appreciate that this sort of monastic discipline is beyond most people - certainly beyond me - and I want to make these pointers actionable.
When you next encounter the ugliness of the above, 'wipe your mouth'. Accept it. Commit to not doing it again, at least not in the near future. Do NOT repeat the scenario on the next payday, Saturday, whenever is your punting day.
If a reversal like this keeps you straight for three to four months, as it generally does for me, then it is simply a self-levied 'stupid tax' on our entertainment, and our longer term quest to win a few quid.
Shit happens. But it shouldn't happen every week!
8. Don't Pay Too Much Attention to 'Stable Whispers'
How to Bet: Forget Inside Information
We'd all love to believe that there exists a mythical shortcut to betting fortunes - and what more attractive fortune is there than one accrued from gambling - as a consequence of insider dealing. Stable whispers. Job horses. Plots.
First up, let's be clear. They do happen.
Second, let's be realistic. With all due respect, unless you're paying serious money, why the hell would anyone tell you?!
But we're weak. And we're fundamentally lazy. We want to believe that the bloke in the pub knows something. Or that the 'tipster with connections' is letting us in on a coup. Who wouldn't like a few friends like that?
Alas, nine times out of ten (stat made up on the spot to illustrate the point) the horse is beaten, or wins at far too short a price to offer a profit in the long term.
The problem with stable whispers is that they, like my out of control 'alter ego' in #9 above, only focus on the form credentials of one animal in a race. Dobbin may well have been 'lined up' for this event. He might even be 'catching pigeons' on the gallops. Plus myriad other banal cliches to exhort the virtues of one amongst a number of beasts facing the starter.
Yes, the problem is that this solipsistic (there, I've said it!) contention is akin to walking around with your hands over your eyes like a three year old and believing that because you can't see anyone else, there's nobody else there.
It. Is. Not. That. Simple.
Nor should it be. Where's the fun in that? Win and you want more. A dirty addiction; a filthy affliction, wedded to someone else's knowledge of one animal in a race. Lose, and you need a scapegoat. (Clearly, it should be you. But if your blind faith in others is such, then you're hardly likely to see your own reflection when it comes to the mirror of the post mortem...)
OK, too much sermonising there. The point is simple. If you already did your research and came up with a horse in a race, and then someone said it was fancied by the stable, great. Even if they fancy something against your selection, you might review the merit of that horse based on the form in the book (or however you choose your horses).
But taking one person's word for a single horse in a race about which you have no other opinion is irresponsible, and you ought not to do it. Next!
7. Watch More Racing.
How to Bet: watch more racing, back less camels
All right, if listening to whispers is irresponsible, then how can we seize the ownership of our punting ways. Firstly, watch more racing. And watch it with your peripheral vision set to 'widescreen'.
What I mean by that is that betting is inevitably a pursuit of self-interest. We want to be right. We want to win money. As a consequence, why on earth would we watch any other nag but the one that could gloriously validate our pre-race assertions during the contest?
Er, because we probably will want to have another bet in the future... Again, flippancy aside, only one horse wins a race (apart from dead heats of course), and only one in six last time out winners follow up in their next race (stat not made up, but based on all UK winning horses in the last eight years).
So if you want to know about a horse's winning chance, in five out of six instances you'll need to look beyond the most obvious.
There are lots of ways to watch racing these days. The bookie, for sure. Some pubs show ATR and RUK, the industry channels. And ATR is free to many people with a digital telly. Subscription to RacingPost.com will give you a lot of races as well. And sportinglife.com will give you access to some races.
attheraces.com will also allow you to review past races for free.
There is then no excuse for not watching more racing. Aside from finding the time to do it. If time is precious, then you'll likely have to accept that there is limited utility in this entire post, because pretty much all of the points here require a time for knowledge transaction.
[Incidentally, time is a curious construct, which seems to expand or contract in direct and inverse proportion to our needs for it! But it can be tamed, and previously lost hours reclaimed, with a bit of desire and a clear action plan.]
When time is of the essence, your records inspection will support you in identifying where best to focus your attention in the limited window available to you. If you have an 'eye' for sprints, watch sprints. Look for troubled runs, or poor piloting. Look for potentially unfit horses who ran well and then may have 'blown up' due to lack of match fitness.
Some of these pointers you will find in the form book. But you'll see much more if you watch races, even if you're relatively inexperienced.
And, trust me on this if you don't already know, the satisfaction of finding an unheralded winner in this way smashes the living daylights out of receiving a 'hot tip'.
6. Don't Bet Outsiders.
How to Bet: don't bet outsiders
Again, I know this may be draining all the fun out of betting on horses, but here is a sobering fact:
In UK racing since the start of 2009, just 1.75% of all races have been won by a horse starting at 20/1 or bigger. And those horses account for a bigger amount of lost betting points than all lower priced horses put together (roughly 35,000 compared with roughly 31,500).
That's a quite staggering stat to my eye.
Generally speaking, big priced horses are big prices for a reason. Lack of talent, maybe. Lack of form. Or unsuitability of conditions are three obvious reasons.
Trying to be clever is the best thing you can possibly do when betting. But we have to acknowledge the time and the place for contrarian thinking.
This is the logical slot for my 'wisdom of the crowds' reference... this has been discussed in great detail by far, far more erudite and intelligent bods than me, but in essence what we're saying here is that if three people have to guess the number of sweeties in a jar, they could be miles away from the actual number, when their guesses are averaged out.
But if three thousand people estimate the number of sweeties in that jar, and their guesses are averaged, there's a pretty strong probability that the mean average will be very close to the actual number. [You can read more about the wisdom of the crowds here.]
In betting terms, this means that a bookmaker may open his book with a horse at say 8/1, but it will take very little time for the crowd to 'assist' the bookie in moving the horse's odds far closer to the true price. This might mean it shortens or lengthens, but generally it will move. By off time, the market will have a very solid idea of who should win, and the likelihood thereupon.
And we can see the effectiveness of this collective betting wisdom by looking at the patterns of market rank (i.e. favourite, second favourite, third favourite, etc) and market odds.
This table, taken from horseracebase.com, shows the direct correlation between odds and win strike rate (and, actually, also losses).
| Odds | Bets | Wins | WinStrike | SP_PL |
| A) Less than 1/2 | 1042 | 766 | 74% | -30.71 |
| B) Btw 1/2 & 10/11 | 3291 | 1757 | 53% | -265.05 |
| C) Btw Evens & 6/4 | 5017 | 2096 | 42% | -282.66 |
| D) Btw 13/8 & 9/4 | 10883 | 3377 | 31% | -890.79 |
| E) Btw 5/2 & 4/1 | 32822 | 7006 | 21% | -3144.8 |
| F) Btw 9/2 & 6/1 | 31966 | 4509 | 14% | -4170 |
| G) Btw 13/2 & 8/1 | 34509 | 3559 | 10% | -4799 |
| H) Btw 17/2 & 12/1 | 41145 | 2964 | 7% | -7356.5 |
| I) Btw 14/1 & 20/1 | 47408 | 2116 | 4% | -10788 |
| J) Btw 22/1 & 40/1 | 41723 | 842 | 2% | -16591 |
| K) 50-1 or above | 30667 | 181 | 1% | -18633 |
And this one illustrates the market rank principle in the same way:
| Market Rank | Bets | Wins | WinStrike | SP_PL |
| 1 | 31851 | 10156 | 32% | -2365.2 |
| 2 | 29822 | 5673 | 19% | -3865 |
| 3 | 29633 | 3982 | 13% | -3899.1 |
| 4 | 29396 | 2806 | 10% | -5421.2 |
| 5 | 28257 | 2200 | 8% | -4480.5 |
| 6 | 26632 | 1438 | 5% | -7052 |
| 7 | 23855 | 1017 | 4% | -7485 |
| 8 | 20472 | 655 | 3% | -7937.5 |
| 9 | 16752 | 468 | 3% | -5826 |
| 10 | 13318 | 293 | 2% | -5205 |
| 11 | 10191 | 190 | 2% | -4173 |
| 12 | 7298 | 125 | 2% | -3172 |
| 13 | 4870 | 74 | 2% | -1936 |
| 14 | 3042 | 38 | 1% | -1461 |
| 15 | 1869 | 26 | 1% | -936 |
| 16 | 1085 | 15 | 1% | -375 |
| 17 | 679 | 6 | 1% | -395 |
| 18 | 411 | 5 | 1% | -184 |
| 19 | 296 | 2 | 1% | -211 |
| 20 | 168 | 1 | 1% | -139 |
Again, we can see the direct relationship between market rank and win strike rate.
This is why I, and many others who are generally shrewder than me, look for a 'sweet spot' in the market. This is somewhere between the 'blindingly obvious' of short priced favourites, and the 'blind pin-sticking' of backing 20/1 and longer shots habitually.
A couple of important caveats to this are as follows:
1. If you identify a horse in the morning that you genuinely believe has been wrongly priced, then that's fair game. You will know by race time whether you were right to do this. If the horse has contracted into the 'money zone' (18/1 or shorter), well done, and good luck. If the horses are the same price or longer pretty much as often as you bet them, you may need to re-evaluate your technique.
2. If you identify a horse in an ante-post market that you genuinely believe has been wrongly priced, then that too is fair game. Again, you'll know by race time whether you made a smart call or not. And again, too many bad calls means it's time to get the metaphorical drains up and review the proverbial plumbing of your picking processes.
Either way, if your horse starts at 20/1+, you now know your chances of collecting!
5. Systemites Need Logic and Discipline!
How to Bet: Logic and Discipline
Few things polarise thinking in betting circles as much as the use of betting systems. Here, I'm not talking about staking plans but rather mechanical rules-based selection techniques.
For instance, 'bet grey horses on a Wednesday when there's an 'E' in the month'. (I have deliberately used the most preposterous example I could think of).
When systems fail to be profitable, it is generally to do with one or both of the two main components involved in their operation: the system, and the user!
Let's look at that in more detail.
Firstly, the system. If you've been around racing for any length of time, you will probably have a pretty good 'bullshit detector', both when it comes to sales materials and system rules.
I've left the 'how to spot a scam artist' element for another day, because this is about you and me and how we can bet better.
So, the system. Use this as a rough framework through which to run a possible system, either devised by you, or bought by you.
1. Does the system have a vast number of rules?
Most of the best systems I've used are based on simplicity and strong (but often contrarian) logic. Every rule a system employs takes it a step further away from the most logical premise of all: a horse, in a race.
I'm extremely loathe to put a precise number for the rules threshold as that will be arbitrary, and in some cases fewer would be better, while other will demand deeper drilling and more rules.
Generally speaking though, more than five or six rules is probably whittling down to a statistically unrepresentative sample size. (However, to further complicate matters, experienced judges can still create micro-systems in very small pools of data, when they use a portfolio approach).
2. Are the system rules based on logic?
I saw a system recently that said, 'bet in all months except December'. When I asked why not December, I was told matter-of-factly that the system wasn't profitable in December.
In case you didn't know this already, the fact that a part of a variable (e.g. a month in a year, a going type, a race course) is not profitable is no reason in or of itself to exclude it. Equally, the fact that a part of a variable is profitable is no reason to include it.
It is the logic that underpins the rule that determines whether or not it should be included. Let's use a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean:
- Firstly, suppose I'm looking at a turf flat system which relies on the fitness of horses as its rationale. In this case, I might well be justified in excluding the month of April (the first full month of the flat turf season). Further, I might be justified in excluding a horse's first run of the season. Both of these exclusions would generally support the underlying rationale of my system, which is to bet fit horses, defined as those who were not having their first run of the season and in any case were running later than April.
- Secondly, let's say I was looking at the performance of highly weighted handicap chasers, based on the going conditions. Suppose I had a nice correlation of profit to loss based on going, from firm through to heavy. But suppose within that, the 'good to firm' category showed a loss whilst the 'firm' and 'good' categories (the neighbouring descriptions) were profitable.
There could be no conceivable logical reason to exclude races on 'good to firm' from my calculations. And, if the profile was sound enough, I'd proceed despite what looks to me like an anomaly. In other words, I can't explain why I'd exclude it, so I'll assume that in the future races run on that going description will conform to the general trend of races run of quicker surfaces.
These examples aren't brilliant in truth, but I hope you catch the general drift of what to look out for, and how to stop yourself from 'convenience fitting' (which I much prefer to the much misused 'back-fitting', a valid technique used by the likes of weather forecasters, insurance underwriters, and, gulp, system developers. Here's a Wiki definition of back-fitting).
Now let's look at the system operator, i.e. you or me!
Ask yourself some questions here. When a system says, 'I advise a bank of x points', do you start with a bank of x points? When a system advocates paper trading (as I always do) through all or part of the refund period, do you do that? If you are creating a system, and it suffers a losing run, are you likely to go back and 'tinker' with the rules?
If you don't use the recommended bank, or paper trade, or stick to your rules, fair enough. But you need to know that it may not be the system that is at fault... especially if it is grounded on the principles of sound logic espoused in the first part of this point.
As a user of one or more systems, we have a responsibility to be clinical in our trialing and / or betting approach. Like stable whispers, systems can be a bit too sterile for some tastes, and it can be argued that they take the magic out of the selection process.
However, for others, the narrowing of the selection process to a (hopefully) proven set of parameters is a joy, and the identification of those picks a happy moment in the daily routine.
Either way, a system user must either 'buy into' the logic of the system, or not. These days, when I see a system I can generally tell if it has merit or not by cursory inspection. After that, if I'm not sure, I'll use a database to interrogate certain rules to see if they make some sort of sense.
If I decide to incorporate a system into my portfolio, then I stick by it for a reasonable period. A reasonable period is three months at least (although it varies, depending on the number and price of selections).
Too many people lurch from one system to the next after a few losers, whining that the product doesn't work. If you're one of these, then forgive me, but how do you know if it works or not?!
In point of fact, there are stacks of betting system review sites out there these days, many of them reputable. Of course, we still do some reviewing here on geegeez. But most of the betting system reviews are now carried out on www.onlinebettingexposed.com or www.onlineracingreview.com, both of which are within the geegeez portfolio.
These are reliable sites, where products are trialed for sixty days, and a view offered not just on their profitability but also their ease of use, volatility and various other factors that influence the usability of a system.
So, no excuses, the evidence is there, and one needs to take personal responsibility for how and when systems are used. 🙂
4. Good Runs and Bad Runs.
How to Bet: good runs and bad runs
I can't remember where I first read this, but it has always stuck with me, and I want you to try to remember it. I'll explain why in a minute.
"After a good run, expect a bad run. After a bad run, expect a good run"
Everything is cyclical: good times, bad times; night, day; yin, yang; blah, blah.
So here's your problem: you receive yet another email declaring that System A or Tipster B has been on the most rip-roaring tsunami of winners that you surely must be a mug not to pay up and join up.
Well, er, no actually. What should you expect to happen? "After a good run, expect a bad run."
I don't need to tell you that nobody is infallible, and alchemy was proven to be bunk in the middle ages when they were not very good at science.
If someone is telling you they've found a stack of winners... heck, even if you actually believe them!... the inevitability of a losing run in the near future is set in stone.
Let me put this another way: "After a bad run, expect a good run"
It is the most contrarian logic, maybe, but if one of the systems in my backing portfolio (note, I wouldn't do this with a laying system) has a losing run, I often increase my stakes.
Why? Because I know that if a system has made it into the portfolio, then I have confidence in the underlying logic. I also know something of the likely length of losing runs, based on the average odds and such like. So I know when to turn the taps on a little, and by how much.
This is the case with my own Winning Trainers (aka Dirty Two Dozen) as I write (22nd December). It's on a losing run of 43. FORTY-THREE.
But that was after a period when it had four winning months and is still over 110 points up since going live at the start of August. And, as these runs are wont to do, I - and other Winning Trainers users - have suffered second places at 8/1, 11/1, 17/2, 11/1, and 16/1 in those 43 losers. Bummer. But that's life.
I've increased my stakes for the second time in this run, and am looking forward to the inevitability that 'after a bad run, expect a good run'.
May I suggest that the next time an email or mailing piece tells you of a phenomenal run, you consider what I've written here.
Oh, and if you want to, you can read more about Winning Trainers here.
3. Tipsters and Shysters
How to Bet: Beware of Tipsters
Tipsters. The very word sends shudders down my spine. I know a fair bit about racing, and I write a fair few pieces on here (and elsewhere) which conclude with a selection. But I am not a tipster. I'm much more of a systemite, I'd say.
The problem with tipsters in the main - though there are exceptions, some of them notably good - is that you don't actually know if they're any better at picking horses than you!
Another problem with tipsters is that many followers of tipsters want winners not profit. As long as the follower in question recognises that, there's no problem at all.
What I mean is that 'Honest 'Arry' could give five winning tips from seven in a week, but still lose money if they were all odds on, some of them heavily.
Now if 'Honest 'Arry' has a track record that is both in the public domain and has shown 'imself to be profitable, then all well and good. Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and all that; good runs and bad runs.
But if 'Arry's trick is to make people think they're winning because of the number of winning selections, then we have a problem. This happens more than you might imagine.
We need value in our winners. What is value? Well, aside from being another article entirely, it is this: a sufficient return to both justify and pay for all of the losers and leave a little bit besides.
This, I'm afraid, will often require the user of tipsters to keep records (gasp, again). But the bookie accounts will show the tale of the tape (recorded messages).
Now, don't get me wrong. Whilst I'm personally not a fan of tipsters (I prefer to back my own judgment, for better or worse), there are some good ones. Tom Segal (Pricewise in the Racing Post) is the most everyman affordable and effective tipster I know.
For a couple of quid a day, you can get real insights. I remember recently on the amazing 'Champions Day' card at Ascot, he put up two horses in the closing 30 runner apprentice handicap (amazing Champions Day, bar that), and they finished first and third. The winner, Edinburgh Knight, was 18/1 and the third was 12's, having been heavily backed.
Top tipping.
Gavin's brother Gary is a notable tipster of sprint handicappers at huge prices. They don't win often, but when they do, they pay for the losers and leave a lit bit extra besides. That's value. And he's been doing it for the twenty years I've known him. He's just a judge of these things.
So yes, you can find the occasional top tipster. But look for clearly documented evidence that they are who they say they are, and they have tipped who they say they've tipped. Again, OBE and ORR have tipster reviews which you can trust as coming from the geegeez stable of reviews.
Me? Like I said, I prefer to pick 'em myself, though I will often look to see what Tom Segal or Gary have put up (and they'll generally make my placepot perms at least!)
2. Be Selective!
How to Bet: Selectivity
It is impossible to win every race. Duh! But if you're the type who sits in a shop backing from race to race, or sits at home doing the same, here are some interesting pointers.
The top tipster in the Newspaper Challenge this year is Rob Wright of The Times, with an excellent 26% strike rate and a loss of 6.22% of all stakes invested. Across 8673 picks, that's pretty good going.
But blindly backing favourites this year would have yielded a 35% strike rate (more winning favourites this year than usual), and a loss of 7.01%
'Favourites' sits second in the newspaper challenge behind Rob Wright, with all other 'paper tipsters lower down.
However, if we look at the national newspaper 'nap' selections, we get a very different story.
There are fully seventeen newspaper tipsters in profit with their naps. The pick of the pickers is currently Blackpool Gazette's Steve Simpson, who is over 31 points in front.
My point here is that selectivity is much more likely to lead to profit than trying to bet every race.
If you must bet every day, no problem. Have that 'action bet' sub-bank ready. It makes sense that if you're following a system you trust, or you fancy one, you should be having a bigger bet than if you just want to have a wager.
There's nothing at all wrong with 'just wanting to have a wager'. I do most days. But I might have a tenner (or a fiver) on a 6/1 shot. Or I might even have two quid on a longer priced thing, for an interest. This is different from when I fancy something, and the stakes reflect that.
The numbers in the stakes above are unimportant. Some bet more, some less. The material point is that when betting for fun, use smaller stakes.
When betting based on a view, bet your normal stake. And be selective.
1. Commit to Learning
How to Bet: learn more about racing
What a boring number one point, eh? Well, yes and no. It depends how you think about it really. For me, watching racing presented by intelligent people (I'm afraid you'll need a satellite dish or digibox for that, in the UK at least), is instructive.
Reading blogs - maybe even this blog - can be helpful. Reading books too.
It doesn't really matter how you learn best, whether it's the spoken or written word, TV, internet or a book or newspaper. What matters is that you understand that if you keep doing what you've been doing, you'll keep getting what you've been getting.
As cheesy and hackneyed as that maxim is, it is also true. So commit to learn more about horse racing and betting. Understand how the betting market works, and the different routes into it (ante post, morning prices, best odds guaranteed, exchanges, arbitrage, laying, tote, indices).
Learn more about trainers to follow. Look at how class affects performance. And pace. And fitness. And speed. And jockeyship. And trip. And so on and so on.
It is as impossible to know everything as it is not to learn anything when you commit to the subject matter. For me, this is a lifelong journey, irrespective of whether I get to continue writing here or not. I'll never lose my love for racing, and betting, and my thirst for knowledge remains as unslaked now as it was the first time I ever watched a race.
I have more books to read on the subject than there is time available (currently on Michael Pizzola's 'Handicapping Magic', a rare out of print US text written about ten years ago; and Racing Post's 500 Greatest Gambles, a bit of light entertainment with some interesting historical snippets that I'll drop into the blog from time to time), but that's ok. I'll get to them... probably. 😉
The other side of the coin, for more experienced racing bettors, is research. Who says you can only consume the work of others? The internet has both made huge quantities of data readily available, and made everybody a potential publisher.
This is how I got to jack in the day job and indulge my passion. And it's how I've ended up writing 5000 words here, when I only planned for about 1500...!
But this is not about me. It's about you: about you being a better bettor.
If just one or two of the points above resonate with you, and you vow to work on those elements, you'll have more fun, win more money, and feel more in control of your racing and wagering experiences. Surely, that can't be a bad thing!
Please re-tweet, like/share, or otherwise spread the love in this post if you think it worthy of such actions. Thanks in advance. 🙂
Matt
40th birthday trifle: easier for my aging teeth!
[Published on October 18th 2011 - ARCHIVE POST]
Well, it's fair to say I didn't know whether or what to write to mark this occasion. So allow me a little self-indulgence if you will, for today, dear reader, I celebrate reaching the life milestone of being forty years old. Read more
If you're anything like me then you love the idea of a nice payout for a smallish stake. The best way I know of achieving that is the good old placepot (or your national equivalent: pick 3, pick4, pick 6, etc).
Obviously, trying to win the 'pot with a single selection in each race is akin to searching for and hoping to find a needle in a haystack, so the savvy punter uses a permutation of more than one horse in some of the races. This is more commonly known as a perm.
But then it's quite easy to encounter the opposite conundrum: too many permutations.
Enter the multi-race bet ticket builder, a clever piece of web software I've had developed that recognises the unlikelihood of your longer priced horses winning (or placing) in all legs, and creates a series of 'most likely scenario' tickets based on how you identify A, B and C selections.
Let me explain in more detail...
Let's say there's a race where the favourite is 6/4 and you quite like it. But there's also another horse in the race who you think is over-priced at 8/1, though clearly is a less likely winner than the favourite. In terms of the multi-bet builder, we'd call the favourite an 'A' selection, and the 8/1 lively sort, a 'B' selection.
If there was another horse who you thought might sneak in at a longer price, then you might add it in as a 'C' selection.
This process is repeated throughout the number of legs in your bet (e.g. three in a Pick3, six in a placepot, etc) and, as you make your choices, the multi-bet builder calculates the 'part-perm' combinations for each of the following:
- All 'A' selections on one ticket
- Any five 'A' selections with each 'B' leg
- Any five 'A' selections with each 'C' leg
- Any four 'A' selections with each combination of two 'B' legs
You can de-select some of these options if you like. Personally, I very rarely use 'C' selections on placepots, but I do occasionally use them on multi-race win bets, like the jackpot.
OK, enough theory. Let me show you how this works in practice. This is the opening portion of the screen you will see:
The numbers represent the following fields, some of which MUST be entered and some of which are optional:
1. Date - this is pre-populated to today's date, but can be changed if you need/want to.
2. You may choose any track from UK, Ireland, USA, Australia and South Africa - again this field is optional.
3. Select the number of legs in your multi-race bet - it is mandatory to select this one.
4. Choose the start race leg - optional, but will help you if for instance you are playing rolling Pick 3's.
5. Select a base unit for your bet. For example, if you are planning to make a 10p perm placepot, then the base bet would be .1 (mandatory field)
6. Choose your total budget. Again, this is a mandatory field.
7. If there are races with more than 20 runners, select the 40 runners option from the dropdown.
8. Once you've completed the fields you need/want to, hit the 'Create' button.
You will now be presented by a series of numbers and boxes, similar to the image below (for a three race sequence bet)
It's now a case of simply 'dragging and dropping' the relevant numbers to the appropriate boxes in the grid. So for instance, if you like horse #6 in the first race, drag it to the 'A' box. If you think horse #2 also has a chance, though less so than the #6, drag it to the 'B' box.
As you complete each race (see the numbers on the left side, corresponding to your selection of start race in the first part), the tickets are automatically created beneath.
Let's look at both a part completed, and a fully completed example. First, a ticket with partial completion.
We can see from the above that as the first two legs have been completed, four tickets have been created. These are, as follows:
Ticket 1 - The 'all A' ticket
Ticket 2 - The first of the 'A's with 1 B' tickets
Ticket 3 - The second of the 'A's with 1 B' tickets
Ticket 4 - The first 'A's with 2B's' ticket
Now let's look at a completed ticket. In this example, I've used different numbers for each leg, so that you can see how the ticket combinations are pulled together. (Click the image to see full screen).
In this example, I have included A, B and C selections to illustrate all the possible ticket combinations.
Note that the tickets are always displayed in the order: all A's (ticket 1, in this case); A's with 1 B (tickets 2-4, in this case); A's with 1 C (tickets 5-7, in this case); and, A's with 2 B's (tickets 8-10, in this case).
Also note that the total stake here is in dollars. This is because the selected race meeting is from Belmont Park, a US track. Each track will calculate the ticket totals using the local currency denomination.
To de-select any of these combinations of A, B and C, simply untick the relevant box - they're located between the race boxes and the ticket combinations.
Finally, if you'd like to accentuate any of the tickets, you can tick the 'x2/x3/x4' box on the ticket(s) you'd like to emphasise. For instance, I generally use the 'x3' or 'x4' for my 'all A' ticket, and the 'x2' or 'x3' for my 'As with 1B' tickets.
The multi-bet builder will automatically calculate the revised total value, and each individual ticket value as well.
And that's it. One important note - when dragging and dropping, your cursor MUST be over the number as you place it to a box, or it will not release.
Finding betting value is key to winning at betting
This is part two in the series about how to bet for a living. You may remember in part one, 'How To Be A Professional Gambler', that I talked about the differences between romantic fiction (i.e. the usual media portrayal of pro punters) and reality. Read more
Professional gambler.
Those two words instantly conjure an image in the minds of every reader.
Some may think of the 'face' at the track, picking his moment before plunging into the betting ring, and striking his trade with a wad of fifties.
Others imagine the sharply dressed poker player in the dark glasses, outwitting his Read more
HorseRaceBase.com Geegeez trial
For those of us who love tinkering with systems, there a few great sites out in interwebland, and HorseRaceBase.com might just be the best!
I've been using HorseRaceBase for about three months now. It should have been as many years, as that's when I first learnt about it from my friend, David Peat (of HorseProfiles.com fame). He was always raving about this great site where you could analyse anything and produce daily reports that took the grunt out of finding your system qualifiers.
As with many things in my life, I cotton on in my own good time, usually two or three years later! That's certainly the case with HorseRaceBase. Now I thought I'd show you rather than tell you how I use HorseRaceBase, and how you might like to as well.
There are a lot more features than those I highlight below, and the best way to learn about them is to play with them yourself. To that end, I've managed to secure Geegeez readers an exclusive SEVEN DAY trial, which is 133% longer than other visitors to HorseRaceBase get.
During that time you'll be free to use all of the functionality at HorseRaceBase without constraint, and see if it does anything that will be useful to you. If it does, then sign up there for a minimum donation of €7.50 (about £6.43 at this morning's conversion rate).
For the record, there's nothing in this for me except starting the new year with a dollop of goodwill, and sharing what I believe to be an excellent resource. It's like Adrian Massey on steroids!
Here's my short video on how I use HorseRaceBase, which I hope will give you some ideas (feel free to steal my trainer form settings!)
And here's the link where you can get the extended seven day trial for no cost, with no obligation. You don't even need to enter any payment details.
>>>GIVE ME A GRATIS TRIAL OF THE MAGNIFICENT HorseRaceBase PLEASE!<<<
If for any reason the link above doesn't work, type the following into your browser's address bar:
Winning The Placepot
Winning the placepot bet is a great feeling. Not only does the average placepot dividend amount to over £500, and frequently go into the thousands, but the feeling it produces when you 'have' it is incredible.
And in that feeling when you 'have' it is one of the biggest drawbacks of betting this kind of wager. I'll explain what I mean in a moment, but for now, let's quickly recap what the placepot is and how it works.
A placepot is a pool bet operated by the tote, where the player is required to select a placed horse in six consecutive races (usually the first six on the card at any given meeting).
Place positions vary depending on number of runners and type of races, but typically we're trying to get a horse to finish first, second or third in each of the six races.
As I say, this is a pool bet, which means all of the money wagered is placed into a central betting pool, from which a deduction is made (28%) to cover admin but mostly to put money back into the sport.
The remaining 72% of money in the pool is divided equally between the number of winning players. So, for instance, suppose the pool of money was £100,000, and there were 72 winning tickets.
The dividend (always declared to a £1 unit stake, though players can play multiples of as little as 5p) would be calculated as follows:
£100,000 - 28% /72 (because of the 28% deduction and the fact that we have 72 winners in this example).
In other words, £100,000 - £28,000 / 72 = £72,000 / 72 = £1,000
So the dividend in this case is £1,000. Make sense so far? Good!
Now of course you might only 'have' 20p of it, or you might have £12 of it, depending on how you staked your bet.
Alternatively, you might very well have none of it, depending on how you picked horses in your bet! 😉
So that's what a placepot is: a six leg place wager where you get back a return based on how many of your fellow placepot wagerers also correctly selected six placed horses.
This is one of two places I think a lot of people make mistakes when betting the placepot. Sometimes people - and I've been guilty of this many times myself - try to be too 'cute' in their selections.
They might put in the long odds on favourite, and also a 16/1 who they quite like, just in case.
There's nothing wrong with that per se, but... it is clear that there is far more likelihood of the 2/5 favourite placing than the 16/1 chance. So it must be equally clear that both horses ought to be 'weighted' differently in the bet. That people don't do this is almost certainly THE most common mistake in placepot (and jackpot and scoop6 and exacta and tricast) betting. More on that in a moment.
So, back to how to pick horses for a placepot. Obviously, we're picking horses that we need to place. This may mean that we actually select horses differently from the one we might pick to win the race.
Many horses have form figures like '4011816'. In other words, they either win or run nowhere if things don't go their way. If I was playing a jackpot (I never do, though I love the US Pick 3, a more achievable mini-jackpot), I'd definitely have this horse in the mix.
But in a placepot, I'd think twice, because he's as likely to finish nowhere as he is to place, and there may be more reliable place wagers.
A good example of this is in the 1.15 race at Cheltenham today (12th November 2010), where Theatrical Moment has form figures of 44116P-
He has two wins to his name, but they were sandwiched in between a number of unplaced performances. (Clearly, there is a lot more to the selection process than that, but these horses take an inappropriate amount of the pool money quite frequently).
The other problem with contrarian views - or trying to beat the odds on favourite out of the frame - is that generally you'll be wrong. But you don't want to miss out on the relatively rare occasions that you're right! So, what to do?
Well, Steven Crist in his excellent book 'Exotic Betting', has a solution to this problem. [Exotic bets are what these type of wagers are referred to in the US, and they take FAR more of the money bet than straight win, and place bets.]
Crist suggests you break the horses down in each race, according to how likely you think they are to get the required placing. He talks of dividing them into four categories:
A - horses you feel have a very high chance of being placed
B - horses you feel have a reasonable chance of being placed, and who represent value (i.e. who might be 'dark' horses)
C - horses who might just enjoy a revival today based on some element (course, distance, going, jockey, etc) coming in its favour, and who represent value (i.e. who might be 'dark' horses)
X - horses who either have no chance, or are terrible value to place at their expected odds, or on whom you have no strong opinion
As you can see, these gradings take into account two elements: your ability to read a race (reflected in terms of what you like) and the market's relative ability to read a race (reflected in terms of where you see value horses, or under-priced horses)
By breaking each race down like this, you might end up with a chart as per the below. (This example assumes six nine-horse races).
------ A B C X
1 3,4 1,8 2,5,6,7,9
2 1 4,6 2,3,5,7,8,9
3 2,3 9 5,7 1,4,6,8
4 1,3,6,7 2 4,5,8,9
5 8,9 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
6 6 4,7 1,2,3,5,8,9
The good news is we've managed to discard many of the runners in most of the races. The bad news is that if we tried to perm all the runners in our A, B and C lists, we'd still end up with 4 x 3 x 5 x 5 x 2 x 3 = 1800 lines.
Even if we did just 10p per line, that comes to £180 and, more worryingly still, we'd need some luck to get big priced horses hit all place positions in one, and possibly two races at least in order to get back more than the £180 we'd invested.
But, by weighting our opinions according to our perception of the likelihood of those horses making the frame, we can bet the horses in a commensurately weighted fashion.
In other words, if we can't get at least four of our A horses in the frame, we don't really deserve to win the bet, because we don't have a strong enough and / or smart enough opinion of the sextet of contests that form the placepot that day. Besides, getting four out of six on the placepot is easy, right?! 😉
So, if we accept that we should have at least four of our A-team selections come in, then we can write out multiple tickets where we'll collect if any of the following scenarios occur:
- A in all six races
- A in five races, and a B or C in the other
- A in four races, and B in the other two
This gives us lines that look like this, from our example above:
AAAAAA 2x1x2x4x2x1 = 32 bets
ABAAAA 2x2x2x4x2x1 = 64 bets
AABAAA 2x1x1x4x2x1 = 16 bets
AAAAAB 2x1x2x4x2x2 = 64 bets
CAAAAA 2x1x2x4x2x1 = 32 bets
AACAAA 2x1x2x4x2x1 = 32 bets
AAACAA 2x1x2x1x2x1 = 8 bets
ABBAAA 2x2x1x4x2x1 = 32 bets
ABAAAB 2x2x2x4x2x2 = 128 bets
AABAAB 2x1x1x4x2x2 = 32 bets
So we now have ten different placepot perms we're going to strike, and we could stake them differently as well. In this case, for simplicity, we won't bother to do that.
The total number of lines comes down to just 440, or less than a quarter of the initial number of plays for 'full coverage'.
We have lots of chances to win and, because it's a placepot bet where we can get more than one horse placed, we still have lots of chances to double - or even triple - up.
So, our previous 1800 x 10p bet, which would cost us £180, can now be re-struck at a cost of just £44 (440 x 10p), or we could 'go large' and play 40p lines for £176 - still four quid cheaper than the initial permutation.
In order to exemplify this further, I am (stupidly) going to attempt this on today's Cheltenham placepot... Drum roll...
------A ------------------------ B-------------------- C---------------------- X
1- 4,6,9------------------- 3,10-------------------------------------- 1,2,5,7,8,11,12
2- 2------------------------ 1,4 ----------------------------------------- 3,5,6,7,8
3- 1----------------------- 4,7 ------------------- 2,6----------------- 3,5,8,9,11,12
4- 1,5------------------------------------------------------------------ 2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10
5- 11,12,17,21---------- 9,18------------------------------------------ THE REST
6- 7,8-------------------- 3,6----------------------------------------- 1,2,4,5,9,10
Again, we have to get four A's at least for a score. Just eight tickets this time, as follows:
AAAAAA 3 x 1 x 1 x 2 x 4 x 2 = 48 bets
AABAAA 3 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 4 x 2 = 96 bets
AAAAAB 3 x 1 x 1 x 2 x 4 x 2 = 48 bets
CAAAAA 2 x 1 x 1 x 2 x 4 x 2 = 32 bets
ACAAAA 3 x 2 x 1 x 2 x 4 x 2 = 96 bets
AACAAA 3 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 4 x 2 = 96 bets
AAAACA 3 x 1 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 24 bets
AABAAB 3 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 4 x 2 = 96 bets
The total is simply perming all A, B and C selections would be a whopping 5 x 3 x 5 x 2 x 6 x 4 = 3,600 lines. Even for ten pence a line, that's a scarcely affordable £360 which is a lot of money to recoup even if you 'have' the placepot at the end of the day.
Granted it is still not the most affordable of placepot bets even with the 'four A's' rule in play. But at least we've managed to massage that figure down to a more palatable (and affordable) 536 lines which, at the aforementioned 10p a turn, is £53.60. That's just under 15% of our full coverage, and we have very good chances of getting through at least the second and last races.
Initially, I played one each in the B and C slots in the cross country race, but it's VERY hard to envisage both Garde Champetre and Sizing Australia being out of the first three. So I've used that as the banker play in the ticket.
I have placed these bets this afternoon, so we'll see how it goes!
The eight tickets for my Cheltenham Placepot
And that, dear reader, is how to play the placepot. 🙂
Matt
p.s. if you have any clever ways of whittling the number of perms down, do please leave a comment...
It’s a dream for millions of punters up and down the country: to become part of the one percent or thereabouts of betting people who can call themselves successful gamblers. Those whose profession is betting horses, football, tennis, whatever…
But what separates these pro’s from the rest? What special talents do they have which mere mortal bettors don’t?
Well, the answer, in short, comes down to two things: mindset and method. When people start betting, or – more accurately – gambling, they generally have neither of these attributes.
I very well remember when I started betting on the football, over twenty years ago now. I used to pick up the fixed odds coupon, and look for seven or eight home wins. SEVEN or EIGHT! When I look back, I realize how preposterous that was (you’re not putting seven teams in your weekend acc’ers, are you?!!).
The basic premise is that there are three outcomes for every game – home win, away win, or draw – and a reasonable rule of thumb is that for every additional short-priced team you put in, you double the chance of failure.
So, if you have three teams, your chance of success is roughly one in eight, or around 7/1.
If you have five teams, 30/1; seven teams equates to approximately 120/1. And this is if you’re betting teams at odds of around 4/6!
The mindset of the successful gambler is all about discipline and expectation management and damage limitation. Every event you bet on gives you another opportunity to lose money. So, it follows that the less matches you put in your accumulator bet, the higher the chance that you a) get your stake money back, and b) get a return on your investment.
It is simply the flawed maths of a novice to believe that you can catch a windfall by betting twelve teams in a bet. Sorry if this comes as a shock to you (I know it won’t to many, and I hope it’s a wakeup call to a few), but mindset is massive.
Discipline, expectation management, damage limitation. For professional punters, that is something of a mantra which they chant subconsciously, and which underscores the majority of their successful wagering.
Of course, they have one other thing in their gambling arsenal, which sets them apart from almost all of their peers, and that is an effective method. Or several effective methods. If you have the mindset but you don’t have the method, you will just go skint in a very orderly and measured way! Death by a thousand self-inflicted cuts.
Some of the methods I personally use are systems-based, and some are simply rules of thumb that I employ when sizing up a card. Most of this is so ingrained that it is in my subconscious and, as such, it’s hard to explain.
But, as an example, when I look at a race card, depending on the track, I’ll put more emphasis on things such as course form (e.g. at Southwell, Fakenham, and Cartmel). Often my start point is looking at the strength of the race favourite: do I think it’s a weak or a strong jolly? Should I be with it or against it? Normally I’m looking for reasons to be against it.
Things I’d look for are whether the trainer or jockey’s horses are typically overbet; if the horse has yet to win in the class of race (especially if it’s tried and failed previously); what the stable form is like currently.
Much of this is instinctive to me, refined gradually – and usually through the experience of numerous losing wagers – over time. But it is not just losing wagers that have informed my betting. You see, I am a voracious reader on betting and the science (that’s a rather grandiose term for what is at best pseudo-science) behind it.
This generally boils down to so much contrarian thinking. In other words, how do I get ‘value’ (ah yes, that elusive concept) by opposing the vox populi view. It is OK to be correct just 10% of the time, so long as a) you have a deep betting bank, and b) you are rewarded at odds of 11/1 or more!
If you want to be a better bettor, then you should read on the subject. Read my blog, for sure. And I hope you find some value here. Read the likes of Potts and Mordin. Read some of the US authors, like Beyer and Davidowitz. And you might also read a part-work that was sent to me recently called, Secrets of Successful Gambling. I’m going to call it SSG for short, and for obvious digit-drain-related reasons.
SSG is one of those ‘does what it says on the tin’ sort of things. Somewhat unusually for our little online microcosm, SSG is a printed newsletter. It comes through your letterbox, with a stamp on it. And it’s not a bill, and it’s not junk mail. How novel! 😉
It is a monthly series, which is – as I said – sent to your home for you to chew on (or just read if you prefer) at your leisure. And, best of all, you get to try it out for… no charge. Marvelous! Ok, before I send you to the ‘grab the freebie’ page, let me just run through some small print so you know exactly where you are.
I think if you’re new to betting (or relatively new), you’ll definitely get value from issue one. If you’re longer in the punting tooth, you might enjoy the first issue and you should check out issue two as well.
There is plenty of meat in each issue, and lots of new angles to take at face value or work into your own betting patterns (the real value in almost any system or methodology is finding a way to weave it into the fabric of your existing betting knowledge, experience and practices).
And it's written in a clear and digestible format, with loads of little take-aways to apply to your betting straightaway.
The first issue will be sent to you free and, only if you decide to stay on board, you will be sent further issues at a cost of £29.75 per month. And don’t worry about any catches because there are none.
If you sign up, you’ll do it either through PayPal or direct debit. In both cases, you control the mandate and decide when to cancel. No problem. If you forget to cancel, or you simply don’t like the content of an issue, send it back and Mike (top man, by the way, whose company publish this letter) will see to it that you get a full refund. No if’s or but’s.
It’s a straight up service that aims to teach the twin towers of any successful gambler: mindset and method. And you can try it for free, here: www.ssg2.co.uk/p10
Well what a weekend that was, dear reader, for some people more than others. One lucky Geegeez reader posted a comment Saturday night to say that he'd had the best betting day of his life. He collected £30,906 for just a £3 bet!
Of course, I couldn't let that pass without asking him if he'd share how he did it, and Peter was gracious enough to say yes.
First, here's the comment from the blog:
Hi Matt, you wished me a good weekend in your e-mail and I’ve just had the best days racing of my life on Saturday at Cheltenham. I did a £3 treble on baccalaureate 100-1 , hey big spender 5-1 and taranis 16-1 which gave me £30,906. It’s a day which will live long in my memory. Isn’t it wonderful when everything goes right for once.
Best wishes Pete.
A £3 treble with a 100-1 shot, a 5-1 and a 16-1, all of whom cruised to the front when winning their races, must have been sweeter than sweet. I mean, when did you ever see a 100-1 shot amble to the front? At Cheltenham! (I know, Norton's Coin...)
When I asked where the inspiration for this turbo-charged treble came from, Peter replied:
Hi Matt,
As to my picking method, I've noticed for some time that novice hurdles tend to throw up unexpected results, and pistolet noir was carrying a penalty which put me off of him. I had noticed that baccalaureate had run well on the flat in France and I had backed it twice before, so I wasn't going to miss it out of my bets. The price of 100-1 was crazy on it's flat form.
I picked hey big spender, ( very apt name don't you think) by reasoning that with soft ground at Cheltenham it was better if a horse had run over furthur than the race trip of 2m 5f, and he had run over 3m 1f last time out.
Taranis was the easiest horse to pick because it's a bad race for favourites and Taranis had won first time out for 4 seasons in a row.
I doubt that my picking will hit the mark as well again for a long time but I will never forget Taranis cruising home over the final fence.
Best wishes from Pete
Be lucky.
PS. I'm getting a copy of my bet framed so I can hang it on my wall.
********
Wow! You've got to salute a man who says that the 16/1 shot was the easiest horse to pick! Seriously, I'm sure all Geegeez readers will join me in a hearty congratulations for what was a truly epic wager. (And if you fancy emailing me a picture of the betting slip, that'd be great! 😉 )
********
Catching our breath and moving on, what did the weekend's racing action tell us (aside from who the champion tipster is)?
Well, the action at Cheltenham was entitled 'Festival Trials Day', so we were looking for a few clues for the March puntathon. And we got them too.
Firstly, I was also pleased when Baccalaureate lowered the colours of the supposed Nicholls first string for the Triumph Hurdle. Why? Because on the blog here on Friday I'd advised, erm, Advisor for the race at 16-1. He's now down to 14's generally and as low as 12's in places. And, importantly, he'll probably be the choice of Ruby Walsh.
There appeared to be no fluke about the win of Baccalaureate, though the ground may have favoured him over Pistolet Noir, and it's unlikely to be as soft in March.
Hey Big Spender dotted up in the handicap chase and definitely appreciated the cut. Again, he may be less effective when the hooves hit the harder stuff in six weeks time. But for now, he's definitely one to keep on the right side of. Keep in mind that he's a novice and is entered in the RSA Chase. However, a more likely target would be one of the staying handicap chases (for novices or not). The Big Spender has wins at Cheltenham and Newbury to his name, so he clearly has a touch of class about him, and his trainer - Colin Tizzard - is nobody's mug.
The Sawyer broke a couple of key trends to win for the second year in a row in the Betfair Handicap Chase. He loves Cheltenham and will have peeved the handicapper somewhat by doubling up after last weekend's betting coup. Expect things to get tougher for this chap now. In behind, Mister McGoldrick ran another supremely gallant race from the front. He won at a fat price at the Festival last year and, though he's now a 13 year old with 83 runs under his belt (!), he still looks to love the game and may reward a place bet at a decent price.
In the big race, the Argento Chase (formerly the Cotswold Chase), Paul Nicholls vindicated his decision not to bring Denman here, as his second string in the race, Taranis, blew away the cobwebs of a two year absence with a very classy victory and, in doing so, made one reader extremely happy. (I can only imagine how you must have been feeling Peter, when Taranis cruised alongside Carruthers, your horse hard held, Mattie Bachelor's shoved along...!)
It can sometimes be the case that horses returning for their second start after a long lay-off fail to reproduce the level of form of their first run but, if Taranis could repeat that performance, he might just give his two eminent stable seniors a race. A lot of if's in the above, which is why he's still 33/1 with William Hill. But, in the betting without the first two market (a great market that gives you down to fifth place, if both Denman and Kauto do what they can do), he's an 8/1 shot, which might be tempting.
Personally, I'm sticking with Albertas Run in the 'without the first two' market, at around 25/1 (quarter the odds a place).
Carruthers ran a bold race and had all the rest bar the resurgent veteran Joe Lively beaten off, but it might be that this wasn't the strongest Festival trial.
In the staying novices' hurdle on the other hand, Restless Harry quickened away from them in the style of a very nice horse. It's obviously not going to be easy to dominate a field in the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle at the Festival, but he'll give them all something to aim at if they're good enough.
By winning this contest in the style of a very able runner, he paid a handsome compliment to his Newbury vanquisher, Reve de Sivola, and I immediately snapped up the 11's available on Betfair about de Sivola winning the Baring Bingham / Neptune at the Festival. Immediately, that is, prior to him drifting back out to his current 14 on that exchange!
The Cleeve Hurdle was still to come, and this looked a good opportunity for a number of animals to book a return ticket to Cleeve Hill for the World Hurdle. As it turned out, it was a Festival favourite, Tidal Bay, who turned back his own recent tide of under-performing to win handsomely from the improving Time For Rupert and the tough, but maybe now a little limited, Katchit.
Any doubts about whether Tidal Bay would run in the Ryanair or Queen Mother Champion Chase were dispelled, as it now looks long odds on that he'll be taking on Big Buck's et al for the Stayers' crown. Considering Big Buck's himself and Inglis Drever mopped up this event en route to their World Hurdle crowns, and knowing TB's affection for Cheltenham (never out of the first four in eight starts, including four wins and two seconds), he's a definite contender in a race that lacks depth.
In the last race Aather should have won, and may well do next time, if produced later and by a more aggressive pilot.
********
Over the pond, there were a couple of Grade 2's at Punchestown, and THE trial for the Cross-country race at the Festival. The last mentioned, the PP Hogan Memorial, produced a real shock as Enda Bolger failed to win! In fact, the best of Bolger's quintet of runners could manage only sixth of the seven to complete (another seven failed to pass the post).
Take nothing away from the winner, Another Jewel, who is an up and coming sort but this looked a moderate renewal, and whether it can retain its stranglehold on providing the Cross Country winner at the Festival must be in more doubt than is usually the case.
Next up for Punchy punters was the Tied Cottage Chase, a Grade 2, featuring a match between Big Zeb and up-and-coming Golden Silver. I'd backed Zeb, fully expecting him to boss these slightly below top grade sorts, and - for once - I was proved spot on.
I've always felt that the Zeb is a bit of a choker in top class. His jumping seems to go to pot in the best races and, as here, he is much more fluent against anything below Grade 1 company. Funnily enough, he strikes me as the sort who might make a very dark horse for a race like the Champion Hurdle, but I'll probably never see that.
Golden Silver stuck to his task well, having been properly outpaced by the winner heading down the back straight and turning in. Whilst he wasn't getting any closer at the finish, he probably recorded a slight reduction on his previous level of form.
The big race from my perspective was the Grade 2 Moscow Flyer Novice Hurdle, which featured a rematch between Hollo Ladies, Saludos and Luska Lad, the 1-2-4 from the Grade 1 Future Champions Novice Hurdle over the Christmas holiday. As it transpired, they finished 1-2-4 again, only in the reverse order from that previous affair.
My money was on Saludos, not for yesterday's race but for the Supreme Novices Hurdle, the opener at the Cheltenham Festival in March. He again tried to run them off their feet, and he again found one too good. Despite jockey Robbie Power's protestations that he's "much happier going left-handed", I can't see me getting paid out on this ante-post voucher.
Oh well, I've still got Loosen My Load for that race!
The winner, Luska Lad, had looked relatively exposed, but is clearly better going right handed (funny how these horses improve or regress depending on which way round the clock face they race!), and the trainer doesn't think he'll run at Cheltenham, preferring - probably sensibly - to wait for the Punchestown Festival and a Grade 1 over course and distance.
********
So, for all those contending the weekend action, there was very little to really rattle the ante-post market cages. Perhaps the most notable exception would be Tidal Bay, who ran a stormer and - as I've said - I do believe that the places at least are there for the taking in the World Hurdle.
The Champion Chase looks like the race to play outsiders in, as the top three in the market are Master Minded (fractured rib when last seen); Twist Magic (can't jump, won't jump at Cheltenham); and, Big Zeb (capable but expected to fold like an origami black belt when put under pressure).
Given that sixth favourite Petit Robin's trainer (Nicky Henderson) has said the horse might well not run at the Festival, and that joint fourth favourite, Kalahari King, has yet to run this season (he's entered in the Blue Square Handicap Chase on Saturday), I make Forpadydeplasterer an each way banker. But then you knew that already, because I told you right here on the 21st December (http://www.geegeez.co.uk/3250/2010-queen-mother-champion-chase-preview-each-way-banker/ in case you missed it before).
********
The ante-post portfolio is actually looking pretty good at this stage (obviously, many armies have looked mightily impressive before the battle's begun!), and blog recommendations from here and horse-racing.ie are as follows (with prices from the time of writing):
Champion Hurdle
Most Likely Winner: Celestial Halo (8/1, general)
Best Each Way (nap): Punjabi (14/1, William Hill)
Best Long Shot (e/w): Go Native (33/1, general)
Gold Cup
Selection: Denman (9/4)
Best Each Way: Albertas Run (50/1)
Champion Chase
Most Likely Winner: Master Minded (7/4, no bet)
Best Each Way (nap): Forpadydeplasterer (10/1, most firms)
Best Long Shot (e/w): Petit Robin (33/1, Stan James, Ladbrokes)
World Hurdle
Selection: Big Buck’s (4/6)
Best Each Way: Karabak (10/1)
Best Outsider: Katchit (25/1)
Supreme Novices' Hurdle
Most Likely Winner: Dunguib (6/4, no bet)
Best Each Way (nap): Loosen My Load (25/1, vcbet, Stan James, Coral, William Hill)
Best Long Shot (e/w): Saludos (33/1, Boylesports)
Triumph Hurdle
Selection: Advisor (16/1, general)
Alternative: Mille Chief (15/2, sportingbet.com)
Speculative each way: Olofi (33/1, general)
As you can tell, I'm already frothing at the mouth about the Festival, and I'll be taking a look at a few more races over the next few weeks.
That's it for today though. I hope your weekend betting was, if not as amazing as Peter's 10,301/1 treble, still pretty darned good.
Best,
Matt
It seems, dear reader, that the previous rate of newly released wonder systems has upped in its tempo considerably in the last month or so. Maybe it's the start of a new year; maybe the growing number of 'silver bullet seekers'; maybe just an inflation of the scumbag peddlers. For whatever reason, there's never been more of a threat to us system buyers than now.
So, what should we do? Stop buying systems for fear of being ripped off? Just roll over and admit we have to run the gauntlet every time we click 'buy now'? Refund on nine out of ten systems we buy?
No. None of the above. We simply have to be diligent and sensible, and follow the advice below...
1. Before you buy a system, look for a review of it. Type 'xxxxx system review' into Google. And look for the sites where some / most systems get average or bad reviews. If a site gives everything a favourable comment, you know they're not for real.
2. Look for systems or services that offer a free trial. If there's a free trial, you have no risk. Note, it's acceptable for a system seller to ask for your details up front AS LONG AS no money is taken until the specified date. Use (relatively) trusted suppliers like PayPal and Moneybookers for this.
3. If your system or service offers a money-back guarantee, try to establish whether that will be honoured. If you bought any product through Clickbank, you can get a refund by sending your payment id to re*****@*******nk.com (A word of caution: if you habitually buy and then refund, you will get closed down by Clickbank, so do due diligence in advance and use this as a last resort).
4. Avoid systems that make ridiculous claims. Come on, be sensible! 😉 You and I both know that it IS possible to make a few quid and enjoy your punting more than losing a few quid. And... you and I both know that no fifty quid ebook (and, frankly, no two grand mega-service) is going to book you a one way ticket to Barbados. If it looks too good to be true...
5. Review the lists you've signed up to. You're most likely reading this because you've signed up to my list. Great! If you receive emails from people who you don't trust or in whose information you're not interested, click the 'unsubscribe' link at the bottom of the email. Seriously! Don't be lazy. They send you a note probably twice a week - just open it, click the link, and you'll get no more 5h1t from them! Simples.
6. When you find people whose information you trust, whitelist them. That is, make sure their emails go to your inbox and not your 'spammy junk blahblah' folder.
7. Er, that's it...
The above is of course absolute basic common sense. The trouble I have, and maybe you do too, is that because I receive so much carp on a daily basis, I find it difficult to make the time (like, thirty seconds!) to delete the extraneous hyperbole. Like the guy who's too busy working to make any money, I'm too busy deleting emails to unsubscribe.
Am I making any sense?!
So, here's my #1 tip for you. Go through all the emails you receive and unsubscribe yourself from any you don't trust (including me for that matter!)
You'll still get occasional unsolicited emails, and you'll still 'accidentally' sign up for new guff, but maintain a monthly regimen of spending five minutes (might be ten or even fifteen minutes the first time you do it, if you're on as many lists as me) unsubscribing from the rubbish.
It IS terrible that there are so many sharks looking to make a monkey out of us. But... we have to take some responsibility for ourselves. If they're emailing us, in the main, it's because WE signed up to them. So we need to un-sign up.
In the coming weeks, I'll compile a list of 'suspect characters'. This will be based on my personal opinion, and will not be a 'proven guilty' sentence for that person.
Have a great weekend, and I'll be back early next week with some important news on building your own systems. Now there's a way to guarantee you never get ripped off again!
Matt
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The cold continues, dear reader, ensuring my nose and throat are as full as my inbox currently. And it's directly to the inbox that we'll go, as promised yesterday, to answer publicly another reader's question.
Steve, from Tasmania no less (you devil!), wrote in to ask about systems research, specifically in relation to trainer patterns. His email is below, and my answer then follows:
From: Steve W
Sent: 18 December 2008 23:27
To:
Subject: Geegeez Question
Hello there Matt,
Firstly - I hope you're feeling a bit better?? Nothing worse than being crook!
My name's Steve, and I'm in
I've been looking up your stuff and read some of your articles - excellent stuff!
To be brief:- I was hopeless in my 20's on the punt. I read some good stuff (good books), but had neither the capital nor the discipline to bet sensibly. I had a good long break from punting that did me the world of good.
Now, a bit older (33) and wiser(!) I'd like to make a fresh start. One of the things that always intrigued me was trainer stats. I have a couple questions, if you don't mind. I'm hoping you might swing me in the right direction with a bit of advice and guidance?
(a) Have you found any books particularly helpful? Been a long time since I've bought any.
(b) I intend to purchase a database of some sort for Austalian racing, so I should be able to have a look at some systems. I'm looking forward to that. Any advice there (other than, keep the rules logical?) I note with interest that you don't mind being track specific in your mechanical systems that you have posted in some of your old newsletters? Have you ever gone back to see how they've held up? Can a portfolio of systems approach win overall?
(c) Trainer stats! Where do I start?? lol Here is where I'm really hoping you might help me on my path. Obviously there's a lot of things one can look for. Are you able to guide me in what you've found to hold up over time? When I've had a cursory look, I've noted that stats between different trainers in broad categories just don't seem to hold up year to year (e.g. one year J Smith made a profit with first uppers, the next year you would have lost following them). In fact, so far, (albeit from a cursory look), the stat that seems to hold up strongly is that some trainers are very much overbet on there short priced horses. So - either lay them, or, the overbetting of them creates value in the race.
In the DRF form guide (for the
One thing I've noticed here in
So - I'm looking for advice really!
What type of stats to track
How to use those to bet! (i.e. does one still handicap the horse etc)
Finally - I'm interested in your answer if I were to ask you: "why do you fundamentally believe that your trainer stats method will continue to be an underbet (therefore profitable) method into the future?
If you've read this far - many thanks for your time! It's a big ask of a stranger, but I'm really hoping you might help me out here!
Blessings & merry christmas to you,
Steve
--------------
Hi Steve
Many thanks for your long email, and sorry for the delay in coming back to you. I’ve been under something of a deluge just recently! Still feeling rough, I’m sorry to report on the sickness front, which of course doesn’t help anything.
Regarding your questions
(a) I’m not sure if you’re referring to Australian racing (about which I have no knowledge!), or
There is also a flat racing version of this book, called ‘Trainers Flat Statistics’, ISBN (978-1905153749).
Both of these are available from Amazon, and all good sports book resellers.
I do of course produce my own jumps statistical guide, called ‘TrainerTrackStats’, which you can get from www.trainertrackstats.com. I’ve produced this in conjunction with Gavin Priestley this season, and it continues to show a profit as it has done in every previous season we’ve produced it.
(b) and (c) Regarding what sorts of parameters to look for when researching a system, if the system is based on trainer patterns, then it logically follows that you should consider possible differences in the way trainers train. Taking that a step further, I mean that here in the
For instance, Nigel Twiston-Davies has the following record over the last four seasons (14/1 odds or shorter):
2m races 68 wins from 332 runs (20.48% strike rate) Loss of 34.62 points
2m1f – 3m 145 wins from 781 runs (18.57% strike rate) Loss of 40.22 points
Over 3m 48 wins from 236 runs (20.34% strike rate) Profit of 56.58 points
Although the strike rate remains consistent, the profit emerges only in races with more of an emphasis on endurance. (Incidentally, this implies that his horses are overbet at shorter distances, and underbet at longer distances.
Taking another example, let’s look at Alan King’s record over the same period:
2m races 128 wins from 571 runs (22.42% strike rate) Loss of 62.31 points
2m1f – 3m 184 wins from 870 runs (21.15% strike rate) Profit of 47.27 points
Over 3m 30 wins from 146 runs (20.55% strike rate) Profit of 22.31 points
Although on the face of it, it appears that we should back King’s runners at anything beyond the minimum trip, slightly deeper research reveals that for trips beyond 3m, you would have lost in three of the four seasons in questions, and a couple of big priced winners in 2006/7 season have skewed the stats somewhat.
Trainers may also train horses for chases rather than fences, or vice versa (or even for bumper / flat races).
Consider the following over the last four seasons:
Alan Swinbank (3 and 4 year old horses)
Hurdles 3 wins from 17 runs 17.65% strike rate
Bumpers 27 wins from 75 runs 36% strike rate
Nicky
Chases 73 wins from 358 runs 20.38% strike rate
Hurdles 159 wins from 659 runs 24.13% strike rate
Bumpers 51 wins from 159 runs 32.08% strike rate
Some trainers focus more on precocious early types (both the above are examples of this), whereas others tend to allow their horses more time to mature.
Some trainers focus on setting horses up for nice priced handicap wins, so the race type is another area to look at.
Some trainers see their horses perform on certain ground conditions (often, though not always, allied to whether they train horses for stamina or speed).
And all trainers go through good and bad runs – in some cases, this is ‘deliberate’ in so much as they train their horses en masse for certain key targets, such as the Cheltenham or Aintree festivals.
Although in the above examples I’ve tried to find positive indicators, do bear in mind that with all of these, you may well uncover strong negative patterns that can be used to handicap a race without a certain runner (or, of course, to lay the negative trend horses).
Finally Steve, in answer to your question about why I think TTS will continue to be underbet and therefore profitable to follow, this is simple. We don’t make fortunes and most of my customers are small players whose total cumulative investment measures more as a ripple than a splash in the great liquidity ocean that is Betfair (where virtually all TTS players wager).
In other words, TTS is not mainstream. Even though a few hundred people now use it, that’s as nothing to the tens of thousands who play on Betfair. And, moreover, when the average TTS punter stake is factored in against the average Betfair unit stake, again TTS is not hitting the pools hard. Of course, this may not last forever. But for now, I’m comfortable and confident that things will continue ‘as is’.
Hope this helps, and if you do find anything interesting in your Oz research, perhaps I can help you market your system (if that’s a route you’d like to take).
Best Regards,
Matt
I will try to feature some of the more interesting letters on here going forwards, as this seems to be a popular feature in newspapers and magazines (I assume for their reader interest rather than just as filler - I hope you don't consider the above to be the latter!).
Onto Project Betfair, and after a no bets day yesterday, today's runners are:
Hereford
2.10 Six Day War
Ok, so that should have been today's runner is... but no matter.
Finally, although its only Monday, I heard a great joke yesterday from my old friends Ronnie and Ronnie (Barker and Corbett, lest you're not following), in the 'And here is the news' section of their timeless, peerless Christmas Special of many moons ago:
A woman from Worcester was seen covering her horse with lettuce and tomato yesterday. When asked what she was doing, she replied that she wanted to ride side salad... Boom, boom!
It may just be me, but I thought that was brilliant.
Until tomorrow,
Matt
