Well-Handicapped Horses
By colin on Saturday, September 11th, 2010Just finished reading Jon Gibby’s (relatively) new book, Well-Handicapped Horses. It’s to be thoroughly recommended, though anyone who’s read his previous Betting on Flat Handicaps will find it more like an update (on how best to use his methods in 2010 rather than 2002) than a new book. He does include a couple of new chapters on betting 2 year olds and using speed ratings, however. I won’t attempt a full review here, though a few points stand out.
Some of these points relate to the market in general and how the market is wise, or at least wiser, to many of the methods he previously advocated – in particular to draw bias. Basically, the same biases are more or less in existence, but the runners coming from the bias-affected stalls are sent off at far shorter prices than they were a few years ago. It’s not necessary to reproduce one of his examples from the book, since we can usually see a distinct correlation in known bias-affected tracks every day by comparing the ranking of the betting on Betfair (ie. favourite to least fancied) and the stalls positions of each.
Betwise produce these rankings every day – so, taking early prices today as an example, the current top 3 in the Betfair betting in the 5.20 at Chester (a 10 runner, 5 furlong race with a typically strong bias to low numbers) are drawn 1, 3 and 4 respectively. In the Sandown 2.50 (a 12 runner, 5 furlong race with a typically strong bias to high numbers), the top 4 in the betting are drawn 8, 12, 2 and 10 respectively. (Incidentally, Hoh Hoh Hoh, who has run well at Sandown in the past, is drawn 11 and is out with the washing in the betting at 25/1 – backers take note).
Thus it’s harder to make a profit by following the draw alone. Gibby compensates for this by looking largely at draw anomalies (where one part of the track is favoured/ not favoured at particular meetings) as well as longer term trends. He looks in particular to follow horses who were disadvantaged by the draw in their subsequent outings – as long as they have become well handicapped as a result.
One point that I should take issue with is when he concludes punters need to subscribe to The Racing Post and Raceform Interactive in order to spot and take advantage of these anomalies. Fine tools though these are, there are many alternative (and sometimes better, depending on what you actually want to do) data sources available. Not least of these is our own SmartForm, which adds the significant advantage of enabling you program directly with racing data. Whilst programming is an obstacle for some, once you’re over it you can automate a number of derived variables (or have Betwise do it for you), such as draw bias assessments. A type of analysis that Gibby also holds in high regard, which seems to be painstakingly manual for each race, is pace analysis. Again, with SmartForm we can program pace bias automatically, both his method and most similar ones. In fact, we use a slightly different method to Gibby and also calculate pace for likely laggers (ie. those horses who will break slowly) and hold up horses. Speaking of which, free leader and lagger ratings are now up in the Betwise Members’ area for all today’s sprint races…
The Placepot – yes, it’s always trickier than it looks
By colin on Sunday, September 5th, 2010We said yesterday we’d see how raw top racecard ratings fared as a play in the Placepot – and we got the result we might have expected. Assuming a straight £1 line, no permutations, the top rated fared as follows:
Thirsk, placed leg 1, unplaced in leg 2…
Stratford, won leg 1, unplaced leg 2…
Kempton, won leg 1, won leg 2, unplaced leg 3…
Haydock, placed leg 1, unplaced leg 2
Wolverhampton, out first leg.
A few top rated were non-runners, so here we just allocated their selection to the next best in the ratings. We could also have allocated to the favourite (where we would have fared better, as it turns out).
Still, no winning lines and no continuation beyond race 3 on any card…
This is not an unusual experience for the placepot. The alluring draw of the Tote’s placepot is an interest in every race, with a potentially big payout at the end, for the simple task of selecting a placed horse in ever race. It works as a great interest bet for the races, for the price of a £1 line. But it’s always trickier than it looks. Some maths can tell us why, but so can the experience of playing it. No matter what the ratings used.
Leaders and laggers, racecard ratings up for today
By colin on Saturday, September 4th, 2010Saturday leaders and laggers for all today’s sprints (all races under one mile), plus racecards ratings for each meeting are now up in the Betwise members’ area. A novel use of the leaders in the ratings was mooted as a possible Placepot play a few weeks ago. We’ll report on how this does for each of the cards tomorrow.
Saturday racing
By colin on Saturday, August 28th, 2010The recent weather deluge is a reminder that the Flat turf season hasn’t so long to go – and at the same time we can expect results to become more unpredictable over the next couple of months.
A combination of horses that have been on the go too long, fresh horses entering races that are saved for this time of year, plus erratic ground conditions can lead to longer priced winners.
Still, there is no shortage of racing to accompany the impending randomness, with 6 cards in England alone today. Saturday leaders and laggers for all today’s sprints are now up in the Betwise members’ area – clear leaders can often throw up a couple of longer priced winners. Free racecard ratings for each of the cards are also up. Both types of ratings methods are examples of what you can do with the Smartform Database – where the winner finding possibilities are literally limited by the imagination …. and, to be realistic, your coding skills – though we can be on hand to help with that, too.
Saturday leaders and laggers
By colin on Saturday, August 21st, 2010Today’s Saturday’s front runners are now up in the Betwise Members’ area. Some interesting contenders today on the leaders front, with win chances as well as likely pace setters.
Victorian Bounty is the first up in the Chester 2.20 – interesting because not only is it top of the leader rankings, meaning it is likely to set the pace, but is some way clear of its rivals on that front. And, as we’ve written many times before, he has the advantage of being drawn low, in stall 3. Stalls 1 and 2 show far and away the biggest bias, but stall 3 with a better break than that of the inner runners can be just as advantageous. Interesting that the Smartform tissue had this runner at 10/1, which is the same tissue price used on a number of online form guides, but the actual price being offered by many bookies is already a lot shorter, around 7/1.
Plenty of other good opportunities in sprints today – the leader and lagger ratings are a great starting point to narrow the field before further analysis on draw and form.
Ebor trends
By colin on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010A rare midweek post for us, motivated by the Ebor handicap (3.25, York) today. At the risk of stating the obvious, good racing analysis is often simply about knowing when to use the right tool for the right job – eg. the same methods you would use to analyse a 5 furlong sprint at Epsom will not do you much good in finding the winner of the Grand National.
Big handicap races are often in a category of their own, and therefore trend analysis, analysing the profile of previous winners of the same race, can be a useful method which helps narrow the field in looking for the winner of such races.
Here are the significant past trends that I think are worth concentrating on in the Ebor Handicap:
1. Previous winners are generally lower in the handicap, carrying lower weights.
2. Older horses (generally 4 and 5 yr olds) have been favoured, rather than 3 year olds, in the last 10 years (though no 3 yr old is running today!).
3. Lower draws (somewhat bizzarely for a longer distance race) have always been favoured.
You can look at the racecard and make your own analysis by applying these trends. For me, 2 horses stand out that qualify by doing so:
Elyaddi, drawn 3 and ridden by last year’s winning jockey and Bernie The Bolt, drawn 2 and ridden by Jimmy Fortune. Desert Sea is drawn 1 and is also low in the handicap, but I don’t like the odds of a 7 year old winning. Looking at the form, I like the chance of Bernie The Bolt to keep improving and with a win and place bet at a price of 16/1.
Around the country, it’s tipping down, what to do?
By colin on Saturday, August 14th, 2010It’s tipping down (how apt, for racing), it’s raining cats and dogs.
Your carefully thought out racing selections from yesterday evening have all been declared non-runners or you are unsure if they perform on the ever-worsening ground conditions. What to do?
If ground really is that important to your selection process, use Smartform to program current and historic going as a variable with different numeric levels, however you feel it’s appropriate, for example:
1 = Hard
2 = Firm
3 = Good to Firm
and so on….
If you think that’s a little inflexible, widen your categories to be more forgiving of previously inaccurate going descriptions, so category 1 = Hard, Firm, and Good to Firm. Category 2 can cover Good, Good to Soft and so on – right down to Heavy.
Keep your selections (or add the new going condition to your selection model), and run them against their previous historic performances on the prevailing going in Smartform. For sure, you’re going to have to write a small program to do this (or get us to do it for you), but it’s not so hard. There are a large number of methods you can use to evaluate performance on different types of going, but let’s say that any selection must have recorded a previous Smartform handicap rating on today’s prevailing going within N% of its best ever rating, in order to remain a selection. As ground conditions continues to worsen, you may find today that you are running everything for a condition of Heavy going – but it is August in Britain, what do you expect? 😉
Saturday Sprint Leaders August 7th
By colin on Saturday, August 7th, 2010After a brief holiday last week, today’s lagger and leader statistics, as highlighted in the blog on previous Saturdays, are now online in the Betwise Members’ area.
There are a large number of races rated today – over 17. As with any ratings they should be used with care when betting. The Leader ratings have a high success rate at predicting the leaders in the first half of the race, but an early leader has varying success at winning the race depending on the horse’s relative ability, its draw, and, last but not least, the course it is racing on. In general, it’s harder to win from the front in bigger fields at straight, galloping courses. So today’s meetings at Haydock and Ayr should be treated with caution if looking for winners amongst early leaders. Back to “lay-in-running” opportunities for small stakes (small stakes because the exchange markets are not that liquid for higher priced horses in running) may be found in many of the highest rated leaders, irrespective of course conditions, providing the bettor is quick on the draw in getting out.
King George value?
By colin on Saturday, July 24th, 2010A quick word on the King George.
The credentials of Workforce are there for all to see. Who wouldn’t want to see him to go on and confirm himself as this year’s wonderhorse after his extermely impressive Derby win? But it seems to be forgotten that Cape Blanco beat Workforce in the Dante by over 3 lengths (though Workforce had something of an excuse), and won the Irish Derby last time out. With Workforce likely to start at evens or odds on, and Cape Blanco at 6/1, is there some value in Cape Blanco’s price? What about the older horses? The last 10 years have only seen two 3yr old winners. With some of these older horses still improving, can we be sure this year’s 3yr olds are even good enough?
Well, today we’ll see. Too much to savour to worry about betting.