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It’s been a grinding sort of week since I last wrote with a few reasonable winners like Prince Jock on this card and Elusive In Paris the previous evening at Dundalk peppered with plenty of losers like Catch Light, Ondeafears and Harry Trotter; I think the technical term for this is chiselling out a profit but I’ll take it whatever way it comes.
Also, despite the turf season being nearly two months old, it was the first week of really slogging form study with seven back-to-back flat meetings from Killarney on the 15th to Roscommon on the 21st. Thus far, I’ve been enjoying it and getting a winner or two has helped, though I’ll be glad of a little breather this week to catch up with some reviews ahead of the Guineas meeting at the Curragh this weekend.
When the racing starts to come thick-and-fast like this time management is important; during the summer it’s not so bad for me as I have more time on my hands but at this stage of the year I have other work commitments and how I distribute my time matters. When I come home from work in the evenings, I know I only have a narrow window in which I can work, probably a period of two or three hours. One could pull all-nighters and simply devour the formbook but such moves are unsustainable and I know, having already put in a day’s work, that I only have a short time in which my attention is at the quality level required to go through a card properly.
This means that I have to choose my battles wisely and I’m looking at doing four or maybe five races in real detail while scanning the others for obvious plays. Inevitably, I am drawn to handicaps; I wrote last week about my love for them and I know from past records that I do best in them; in 2011 for instance, I made 92% of my profits from handicaps.
When I get the declarations in the morning I will plan how I will distribute my time and select the races I want to study and in what order; I will often avoid maidens as I find they are a drain on time and rarely offer good betting opportunities. Some would say that this is because stable insiders have the edge here with the merits of unraced and lightly-raced horses but I wouldn’t overestimate this as so-called informed punters often get it wrong and the market is not always the accurate guide some pundits would have you believe.
Often, it is more a case that few have chances and the layers prices up very accurately to big margins. All that said, handicaps are my thing and I prefer to start with handicaps for older horses where the form is well established. Once I have ‘got my eye in’ I will move onto the trickier three-year-old races or nurseries where the horses are less exposed.
One of the main features of handicaps, and for me it is an appealing feature, is the transience of it all; things change very quickly with handicappers and loyalties have to be switched quickly. Over the past 3 weeks I’ve been compiling horses to follow lists for my Betfair blog and the challenge in selecting group horses and handicappers to note is completely different; with the former, you need to play the long game and project the whole season while with the latter everything is recent.
Handicappers run more frequently and a punter needs to stay on top of the form but with classier horses there is more time to digest things. Good handicap punters tend not to be too loyal and can oppose a horse one day and then back them a fortnight later; when the facts change, we change our opinions with them.
Indeed, excessive loyalty can be a flaw in a punter. I never cease to be amazed that when I give a tip to casual punter who asks me about a race and the horse wins (infrequently, I’ll grant you) that person will still be following the same horse 18 months later when its brief period of being well-handicapped and/or in-form has long since passed and they have done their best to give back the profit they made on the original bet. With winning punters, most loyalties are quickly cast to the wind and I only want to know about a winner I backed in the future if it shaped better than the result on its recent starts.
It is often said that the most important factor in the outcome of a race is the ground but I don’t agree; what matters most is the talent of the horse, or in handicaps, the talent of the horse relative to its mark. I have two main means of determining whether a horse is well-in: form and video. The former is an old-fashioned approach where one is simply looking for races that are working out or horses that have been running against tough competition while with the latter one is looking for those that were better than the bare result, be as a result of pace, draw, trouble or whatever.
When you find a well-handicapped sort you are onto to something and, by-and-large, a well-handicapped horse has to go close granted normal luck; considerations of ground and distance, provided they are not totally unsuitable (a fast ground sprinter stretching out to 10f on soft, say), are secondary. The toughest races are those in which there are no well-treated entries as other factors – ground, distance, how the race will be run – come into play and there have been a few such races in Ireland of late, for example the handicaps won by Whipless and Jazz Girl on consecutive Sundays; I tend to keep my stakes small in such races.
Another important consideration when playing in handicaps is class. In Britain, there is a straightforward framework of classifying races from one down to seven and it works well; we have no such system in Ireland, relying instead on ratings bands such as 47 to 75, and we could certainly do with a more transparent method.
Punters should keep an eye on ratings of horses (usually updated on a Monday in Ireland) to see what band they qualify for and whether they can sneak into a grade that they have previously been ineligible for. This sort of class drop, though it may appear imperceptible, makes a huge difference as a horse is now competing against animals of a totally different league; to take an extreme example, a horse rated that has run sixth in a good 0-85 may now be dropping in to compete in a 0-65 and he may have a significant class edge against the bottom feeders.
A good recent case was Moonbi Creek at Dundalk on May 4th; he had run fourth in a decent 0-80 against fair horses like Barrow Island and Knockgraffon Lad on his first run off a break but dropped into a 0-70 next time to take on limited sorts like Tsar Paul who may have been in-form but it was form from a lesser grade. Moonbi Creek won at 7/2 and while I didn’t get enough on (I missed the price), his sort are always work looking out for; he carried top-weight in the race but I never consider such things, class being the key factor.
Finally, a word on very low-class handicaps. I play in them quite a bit and would know plenty about the horses involved but I would have a preference for slightly better class races; horses that run in 0-65 races in Ireland (the lowest grade available) invariably have some sort of hole in them, being ungenuine, injury-prone, slow or simply unreliable.
It wouldn’t put me off having a good bet on one if I thought it was overpriced but I have a preference for the better handicapper or at least the middle-of-the-road ones that are just that bit more reliable. Premier handicaps, races like the Scurry or Galway Mile, are my favourite medium of all with their competitive big fields and are made for exchange betting where prices on my favourite type of horse, outsiders, tend to be inflated and offer the opportunity to knock it out of the ballpark.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Wexford.jpg13912100TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-05-23 08:01:342020-04-30 09:03:15Playing The Handicaps
I managed to the get the flat season – or at least the punting part of it – up and running at the Curragh on Bank Holiday Monday with a pair of decent winners in Ondeafears and Wrekin Rock; that the pair came in 50-80 handicaps should come as no surprise to anyone who knows my punting methods.
I realise there is something perverse in making your biggest plays in the worst races on the card – that was certainly the case here with the winners returning the worst and second-worst form ratings of the meeting – but I’m a contrarian by nature and handicaps are very much my bread-and-butter.
Group races just don’t do it for me and while some will argue that the perils of punting in such events were brought into sharp relief later on the card with the St Nicholas Abbey debacle in the Mooresbridge Stakes, I don’t agree. That race saw what was palpably the best horse getting turned over but such results are the exception, the problem with playing in pattern races from a personal punting perspective being quite the opposite, i.e. that the best horse wins all too often.
For me, this isn’t a good thing because such horses are all too obvious and invariably sent off at short prices; what I really want in a race is complexity – whether it be provided by pace, handicap marks, track or draw biases or any number of other variables – as this provides the possibility of a big score. Handicaps, by their very nature, are complex in that their stated aim to give each horse an equal chance and the fastest horse does not always win.
One of the best things about handicaps is the predictability of pace. Exposed handicappers have a running style and by-and-large they stick to it; to change it could compromise their chances. This means one can a have very good idea how a race will be run beforehand which is helpful as one can see how the likely pace scenario will favour one type of runner over another; there may be a front-runner that is going to be left alone in the lead or there may be loads of pace on which will suit closers.
Not only is such pace analysis a useful tool pre-race, it comes in handy afterwards when reviewing a meeting as one can come up with a sensible idea of which horses were advantaged or disadvantaged by the run of things; knowing how the race was expected to be run makes this sort of work far easier.
Analysing pace in other races is much more problematic. In maidens, a punter has little or no evidence to go on with running styles and oftentimes pace becomes an irrelevance as there is such a differential between the ability levels of runners. Group races are even worse, especially in Ireland, and Ballydoyle have to shoulder much of the blame for this. Such is their strength of numbers they can choreograph Irish group races which is not something that can be achieved in England and further afield where the competition is much stiffer.
The best example of this was last year’s Irish 2,000 Guineas where the Aidan O’Brien-trained Roderic O’Connor defeated the best horse in the race Dubawi Gold by dint of tactics, something Dubawi Gold’s jockey Richard Hughes was well aware of in his Racing Post column on the morning of the race; the winner finished the season pace-making in the Irish Champion Stakes while Dubawi Gold was in the frame of Group 1s with Excelebration and Frankel.
Pacemakers are another complicating factor in Irish Group races as one never knows what Ballydoyle are going to do with a race; sometimes they want a breakneck gallop, other times they want to slow it down for a suspect stayer and there are even occasions when they hardly know what they want. Getting stallion prospects is the raison d’être of the yard and it seems that any horse can be sacrificed at the altar of bloodstock, or at least a sire you can charge at least €50,000 a nomination for.
With the Ballydoyle horses, their run styles change markedly from race to race; what a horse did when a short-priced favourite for a Group 3 bears no resemblance to what it is likely to do in a Group 1 next time at 50/1 when the yard has a fancied horse they perceive needs a certain pace. I suspect this sort of chopping and changing is not good for individual horses are they are not allowed to get into habits on the track and stunts their development and I am sure it is bad for punters who simply don’t have a clue how each horse well be ridden.
Another factor that keys in with pace is track configuration; some tracks favour certain run styles and horse types. The problem with Irish group races from a punting point-of-view is that the vast majority of them are run at the Curragh or Leopardstown, a pair of tracks that are in the main very fair. This is important when one is trying to further the breed and simply find out which is the quickest horse but it reduces the complexity of races and thus makes them less interesting betting mediums.
Personally, I would find pattern races much more interesting if they were run on the Naas sprint track on soft ground (high numbers all the way), at Tipperary (a front-runner’s paradise) or even around the up-and-down Western gaffs like Galway and Ballinrobe (chaos rules).
With the top group horses, punters often need to ask themselves how much more they can know than the market; here are a coterie of talented horses who make up about 10% or less of the equine population yet take up about 90% of the column inches on horse racing (rough figures I know, but you get my meaning).
You may hold a low opinion of the standard of the racing media (I know I certainly do) but the more information they have the more they are likely to spot value and point it out to the public and the few good analysts there are among the media soon spot pricing errors in the top races. With handicappers, it’s a different story.
The proclivities of exposed handicappers may be clear to someone going through their form in detail but they are not covered in media in any great detail and this is where a shrewd punter can get an edge on the market. It seems no coincidence that a number of the punters and analysts I respect – Hugh Taylor, Tom Segal and Dave Nevison in his prime – do a lot of their backing/tipping in fields of older handicappers. Personally, I would have every confidence in playing my knowledge of Irish handicappers against most punters and certainly against the odds compilers.
I suppose an awful lot of this boils down to an old chestnut of punting: specialisation. A punter simply cannot know everything and one has to find races that suit your style. I don’t want to rule out group races entirely as I’m sure some punters swear by them and one should never be dogmatic about rules in racing as one never knows when a good betting opportunity will arrive. It may well be in a Group 1 but somehow I doubt as handicaps have provided most of the best bets of my life.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Curragh-Racecourse.jpg204285TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-05-15 09:30:502012-05-15 09:36:09The Punting Confessional: Beating the handicapper.
Today’s Epsom card features two longstanding races whose importance has slipped over the years, but which nevertheless have a significant place in the history of the sport. Read more
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00IanShttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngIanS2012-04-25 11:54:582012-08-29 16:40:53Race Histories 6: City and Suburban and Great Metropolitan Handicaps
The Punting Confessional: Losing Runs and how to deal with them...
Dundalk, April 11th
Another losing day among many at the start of this current flat season so now seems a good time to address losing streaks and how to respond to them.
This early stage of the year is a time when I tend to lose money but I am wary of falling into the trap of cliché and saying things will turn when the form settles down; I often do well at the backend, another supposed time of form chaos, and odds compilers and layers make mistakes in March and April as often as they do at other times of the year.
We can all look back over the years and see periods when we tend to do well – Cheltenham or Galway or Christmas, say – but I often wonder is this just a self-fulfilling prophecy brought about by a positive mental attitude to a particular time of the year rather than our methods working better at different points in the season. On balance, punters need to be open to a profit seam arising at any stage of the year and not wait for a time when things should improve; past performance is no guide to future success.
The first thing to know about losing streaks is they are inevitable; this doesn’t make them any easier to handle but it should somewhat leaven the feeling of failure they bring. Losing means different things to different people; for a selective punter who places only a bet a day or even a week it could theoretically go on for months but for me when I talk of losing I don’t mean that I haven’t backed a winner for weeks but rather that I have had a period of consecutive losing days.
My approach would be quite scattergun – in a seven-race card I could easily be playing at least six races, if not all seven, and would have no aversion to backing more than one horse in a race – so I wouldn’t have a losing streak in the traditional sense of a long period without a winning bet.
It all comes back to matching your punting style to your temperament; if you really struggle to handle backing losers then playing a series of outsiders probably isn’t going to be your thing as losing streaks are more common with such an approach; I have no numbers to back up the likelihood a long string of losers but Hugh Taylor had some very interesting analysis on the Form Factor (the best racing programme on television and always worth a watch) recently and showed that with an average price taken of 10/1 losing streaks of 20 bets and more are common.
When losing, self-doubt kicks in and one needs to be wary of recency biased thinking; just like when on a winning streak when seemingly everything we touch turns to gold, it now appears that we will never back another winner. Such black-and-white thinking leads to sweeping generalisations and should be avoided.
Again the brilliant Taylor springs to mind. When interviewed at the start of the Form Factor the invariably clueless presenter asks him how his punting has been going and regardless of whether he is winning or losing, Taylor adopts a sanguine attitude and replies that all that matters are the figures at year end. I can only dream of achieving such punting equilibrium but it should certainly be aspired to.
Perhaps the key to overcoming a losing streak is routine. Consistency is vital and returning to past methods (assuming, of course, that these methods have proved profitable in the past) a must. One must do what needs to be a done whether it is form study, pace analysis or tissue prices; now is not the time to change. This is not to say that your methods should not be questioned; of course they should but not now.
In the midst of a poor run of form one is inclined to view everything in the negative whereas such questioning of performance really needs to be done in the cold light of day, perhaps even during a time when one is not punting seriously, an off-season if you will. This analysis should be backed up with data and not undertaken piecemeal; major punting decisions should be governed by the head not the heart.
A further point on taking a consistent approach; this applies to staking at least as much as to form analysis and perhaps even more so. Ask yourself how much you would have on the same horse in the same situation during a good period and if the answer is different it’s time for a rethink. Striking the balance is important here; too much on and you are chasing, too little and your money is scared and both have their pitfalls.
Past records can be a very useful source of information at these difficult times if only because they will allow you to take a more logical balanced view of your current situation. This of course assumes that you have past records to call on and if you haven’t it is probably time to start keeping them. Spreadsheets are probably the way to go now but I have to admit to being a troglodyte in this regard and being the owner of piles of hardback copies with reams of bets inside; everything else in my punting life may be digitised but records are not as yet.
Finally, a word on having horses get done on a line or coming with a late rattle and just failing to get up. These are good things for a punter particularly if like me you play away from the front end of the market; it means you are getting something right and the time to really get concerned is when your fancies are running up the track and getting beaten by the ambulance.
When they are going close you are reading the form well and the worm may be about to turn; this can be a danger point for punters as they may go on tilt when luck appears to be swinging against them. Accept that luck is a myth and on the whole will even itself out over the course of a year.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-04-24 20:42:532020-04-30 08:59:02Coping with Losing Runs
At around quarter to four tomorrow a craftsman will inscribe in gold leaf the name of the latest winner of the Scottish Grand National on a large oak board at Ayr racecourse. But the board and the race are both interlopers, as until 1965, they were both to be found 14 miles up the coast at Bogside racecourse, just outside Irvine. Read more
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00IanShttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngIanS2012-04-20 11:34:292013-09-02 08:40:54Lost racecourses 2: The Elephant Man
There was some downtime early this week with no flat racing in Ireland so I used it to set about planning my betting for upcoming flat season; ideally this should have been completed before the first day of the turf season but I had been drawn by the action of Cheltenham and had spent much of my time in early March preparing for the Festival and either way it would be a while before the turf really got up-and-running.
I don’t particularly like this sort of strategic planning which probably makes me like most other punters; I would much prefer to be cracking through races and betting away. It is however a necessary, if boring, part of improving your game and requires not a little soul searching and research but hopefully it will pay off by season’s end. In terms of planning ahead I looked at four important areas of my punting – profit targets, staking, routine and getting on – though I’m sure there are other angles that could be explored.
I began by deciding what sort of profits I wished to achieve over the coming months and to do this I looked at my figures for the past 6 years. Rather than simply pull a figure out of thin air – there is no point in taking a ‘this time next year Rodney, we’ll be millionaires’ approach – I took an average of my profits over the past four years as a guide and decided I wanted to achieve that figure plus 20%.
There were a couple of reasons for this; firstly, I think I’m a better punter now than over those years as I have changed my methods slightly and secondly, during one of those years I was working on a book about the Galway Races that took up a lot of time and meant that my punting suffered. External factors like this can of course affect your betting but it is important not to use them as excuses; in this case however I feel justified in putting some of the blame on another project.
Staking is always an interesting issue and broadly speaking I work off a points-based system that runs from one to six; this means that on horses or races I have a strong view on I will play six times heavier than on one where my opinion is weakest. At any stage, I am unlikely to work on a bank of less than 200 points so my staking is always small relative to my overall bank; I tend to play a lot of races and am more about turnover than selectivity while I also tend to oppose the front end of the market so this gives me the security I feel I need to work best.
I never go all in on a race in terms of my overall betting bank, it’s just not my style and I’m all for punters finding their own individual approach. This method has been a constant for me in recent years but this season I plan to make a change by increasing the size of the point staked by 20%; I have punted to that sort of stake in the past back in 2008 but that was when I was only really playing at weekends whereas now I am punting most days during the flat season. I have a slight concern, as should every punter, about raising the stakes as it can put you out of your comfort zone but I have been there before and I feel it is necessary if I want to achieve my profit targets.
Nor do I want to up the stakes immediately as I often find this period of the season a hard one to make money on; I will probably wait until the beginning of May by which time the form will have settled down.
Broadly speaking, I have good routine going for studying racing that includes two main areas: video reviews of past meetings and form analysis of a specific meeting the day before. I had a tendency last year to let the reviews build up on me and do four or five in a single day but I felt that this was too draining; it takes about ninety minutes to review a meeting and I invariably write about a thousand words on each and it requires quality of attention.
This season I want to do them within 3 days of the meeting itself; I have always been better at working gradually through things rather than cramming at the last minute (again, finding your own punting style is vital here) and I feel that things about that meeting such as the likely pace of each race will be fresh in your mind at this point rather than trying to recall these things two weeks after the event.
Another point I want to include in my betting routine this year is a regular look at the Turf Club excuses (published weekly on their website) and rating updates (on the HRI website, posted on Monday) as they can be an important tool; too often in the past I have taken a piecemeal approach to these areas and need to be more systematic. Given that I tend to do my writing for this site and Betfair on Mondays and Tuesdays, Wednesday seems the best day for this.
For any remotely winning punter, getting on is the most frustrating aspect of the modern game; we have more information than we have ever had before (this is not to say we wouldn’t like even more!) but we also have more hassle in getting our bets on. I don’t want to turn this into an anti-bookmaker rant – we all know that they don’t really want to support the opinions of their odds compilers and much less so to anyone who has any clue – as we simply are where we are with this and have to find ways around it.
During the past years, I have played a lot at early prices and used all sorts of chicanery to get on but there is a point where it begins to wear on you and the legwork and otherwise becomes more than a minor irritation. So over this winter, I put some time (ok, a lot of time) into comparing the early prices I took last year with Betfair Starting Price (BSP) and I was surprised to see that the difference between the two, despite all the hassle of getting at early price, was minimal.
I would classify myself as fairly good at reading a market yet much of my trouble was for nought and it is worth remembering that BSP is only one reflection of the market and there can be a lot of fluctuation in these prices in the minutes before the off so in most cases one will be able to get the money one wants on at the right prices. So this season, I intend, where possible, to push my business towards the exchanges to negate much of the hassle of getting on.
This brings up two further issues that I need to be aware of. Firstly, patience will be vital as the real money on Irish racing only comes into the exchange markets in the 15 minutes before the off and it is very hard to watch the price of a horse you fancy collapse in the early markets as you wait for the exchanges; there will however be times when your selection drifts. Secondly, there is the risk of becoming a slave to the machine as it becomes harder to maintain discipline and a slot machine mentality could possibly kick in.
In this regard, it is important to stick to your broad staking plan for the day while still allowing room for flexibility, a pair of issues I hope to return to in the future.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-04-11 09:37:012020-04-30 08:59:20Planning Your Betting
Editor's note: In the first of a brand new series of features, Tony Keenan, Betfair's Irish racing writer, brings his 'punting confessional'. Part diary, part teaching module, I'm really looking forward to this series, as I very much enjoy Tony's frank and generally contrarian outlook. I hope you will too.
The Punting Confessional
Cheltenham, March 13th through 16th
The Punting Confessional
I’ll leave the Dickensian allusions about the meeting to the site owner and simply say the Festival was edging towards the worst of times for this corner; bar the momentary relief provided by Teaforthree and Riverside Theatre it was a disappointing punting week with near misses for Fruity O’Rooney and Tanks For That particularly galling.
The only other bright spot over the four days was Son Of Flicka landing the Coral Cup as it meant I copped on a special bet placed with Ladbrokes around the time of the Open meeting that any horse running in the Paddy Power or the Greatwood would win at the Festival.
The price of 3/1 was a silly one as the bet would have been landed in two of the past three years – odds-on surely more accurate – and called for a decent wager and in fairness to Ladbrokes they did hold the price for much of the day and take the medicine for their error.
There was something poetic about the horse that landed the dough having essentially been lapped in the Greatwood but that was the selling point of the play; one simply had so many horses running for you at the meeting. These bookmaker specials are for the most part unviable for punters with the only special thing about them being they are especially quick to drain your bankroll and should be ignored in the main.
However, every once in a while a gem does pop up where the odds compiler has had a rush of blood to the head and not done his figures and so can be exploited; the biggest issue then is reacting quickly as the offered odds can be pulled quickly.
Punting at Cheltenham can be fraught with problems, not least the information overload that we are faced with about the runners, especially those in the feature races and we seem to know about every misstep, schooling sessions, racecourse gallop, breathing op and heaven knows what else in the run-up to the Festival.
To be honest, I don’t want to know any of this stuff and am reminded of one trainer’s comment – I think it was Edward O’Grady but am open to correction – that you would never back a horse if a trainer told you everything that went wrong with them at home. Much better to focus one’s attention on racecourse evidence rather than hearsay about events off the track; it is after all the crucible they will be tested in and action from there is much more meaningful.
Shutting off the constant drone of Cheltenham information is nigh on impossible before the meeting as one inevitably has a host of half-baked opinions about races before you have looked at them in real detail and I much prefer approaching a card fresh and without preconceived ideas. Should any reader have a solution to avoid this information, please feel free to comment at the bottom, but I’m not holding my breath.
This meeting may demand a somewhat different approach to exclude extraneous information but it is worth remembering that the Festival horses are still horses and have the same predilections as their fellows running at ordinary meetings; for instance, they are still prone to the bounce factor and tend to perform best off a recent run.
I would put forward those ideas as reasons for the defeats of Hurricane Fly and Grand Crus respectively, a pair of horses that failed to live up to their banker status, a mythical quality ascribed to some horses that seems to make them invincible until we discover, usually post-race, that Cheltenham tends to be much more competitive than to allow bankers free reign.
To these eyes at least Hurricane Fly bounced off a big first time out effort in the Irish Champion Hurdle, a run that surprised his trainer as he didn’t think he was that forward and that was right up with his very best runs in terms of ratings. Yet because he was a supposed banker he couldn’t be beaten at Cheltenham.
Did Burton Port bounce?
The Racing Post ran a really interesting piece by James Pyman in the lead-up to the meeting about the possibility of Burton Port bouncing where the figures all suggested that it was a distinct possibility, an idea surprisingly supported by a number of industry insiders including vets and trainers who usually would have scant time for punting theories.
In the end, Burton Port probably didn’t bounce – he was a bit below his Newbury form in the Gold Cup though not much – but the significant aspect of the bounce theory is not so much that a horse is sure to regress after a big run off a break but rather that the chances of that happening are underestimated by the market.
This is where the bounce and recency bias (a thinking bias that privileges the short-term over the long-term) intertwine: if a horse puts up a big effort last time it is invariably factored into its price on its next start but it should be much less so if that run came off the back of a break.
And so to Grand Crus who for me could have done with a run in between his Feltham win and RSA disappointment. Yes, I realise he has scoped badly since and is probably better on softer ground than prevailed on the Wednesday but either way he is just the sort of horse I love to oppose in any race, a horse coming back off a break.
There are some horses that are best fresh but on the whole horses run best off a recent run and as a rule I want to be against any horse coming off a break and all the more if they are a short price. These mini-breaks in season are often the product of some sort of training setback and if Grand Crus was really in peak-form in January and February, there were plenty of suitable targets for him to get a prep run in for the Festival.
He didn’t and that was probably his downfall though it must be said it didn’t help me back the winner of the race; I couldn’t have Bobs Worth on my mind after how he’d jumped at Ascot and ended up backing Lambro and Cannington Brook so the less said there the better.
Even so, being against horses coming off a break mid-season is a good stance to take, particularly at the lower levels where I do much of my punting, as they win a lot less often than they should and we might try not to forget it when playing in better races too.
- Tony Keenan
Editor's note: Do leave a comment and say hello to Tony. Like me, he loves feedback, so if you've any thoughts on issues related to betting you'd like covered, feel free to share them in the comments section below. Or just say hi! Thanks. 🙂
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00TonyKeenanhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngTonyKeenan2012-03-28 08:53:342018-08-09 05:58:03The Punting Confessional 28th March 2012
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
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00IanShttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngIanS2012-03-14 15:13:162012-08-29 16:40:43Race Histories 5: The National Hunt Chase
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
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00IanShttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngIanS2012-02-09 10:23:122012-08-30 11:34:06Sandown and the Scilly Isles
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
What are handicap ratings and why do we have them?
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.
Who produces handicap ratings?
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.
How are handicap ratings produced?
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.
How do handicap ratings transfer to weight allocation?
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!
Class Band Exceptions
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? 😉
How does weight rank equate to performance?
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.
Is weight change in handicaps even important?
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 orlower, 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.
Jockey Allowances and Handicaps
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.
Final takeaways on handicap ratings
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.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2012-01-16 12:37:192012-01-16 12:55:10Handicap Ratings in UK racing
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.
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
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2011-12-22 13:09:582021-01-30 11:15:59How to Bet: 10 Steps to Betting Better
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
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2011-10-17 21:45:532020-04-30 08:01:05Today I am 40…
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
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2011-08-30 08:26:522011-08-30 08:26:52Betting For A Living Part 2
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
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.png00Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2011-08-15 10:38:462011-08-15 10:41:12How To Be A Professional Gambler
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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).
