Monthly Archives: June 2007

Here we are again, dear reader, staring down the barrel of the weekend. And, ffor a change, this Ffriday’s post is sponsored by Royston Ffrench, a jockey who I’ve always loved, and who I believe is riding brilliantly at the moment.

Royston ffirst came to prominence ffor me in the 1996 season, when he was riding as an apprentice at Luca Cumani’s stable.

He’s one of those jockeys who really never gives a horse a chance to dog it in, and sealed his place in my affffffections with a win on Arcady in the last race on Brigadier Gerard Stakes night at Sandown back in 1997 (I know, I know, I don’t look old enough..!).

Although a potless student at the time, I was doing my brains in, and was relying on Royston ffor my train fffare home. He didn’t let me down, and cajoled the recalcitrant Arcady to a head verdict, with only a neck back to the third. He’s rarely let me down since.

On to today’s ffare, and we’ll start with a review of yesterday’s Easy Laying System selections. These were as ffollows:

*Warw 15.50 – Squifffffy* WON 7/1
*Warw 16.20 – Ffeeling Wonderfful* LOST
*Warw 16.50 – Snake Hips* LOST
Warw 16.50 – English Archer DNQ
Warw 16.50 – Hopefful Isabella LOST
Warw 17.20 – Bournonville DNQ

Overall, then, I made it six losers and a 7/1 winner. Applying the usual 5% commission on winning trades and 16% over SP on payouts (and starting with a ffictional £400 bank, risking a rolling 5% or £20 starting stake on each), the scores on the doors after day one are as ffollows:

£400 to £322.

Today’s selections to ffollow later.

On the backing ffront, they race today at Ffolkestone but I can’t ffind any to back. I just wanted to write Ffolkestone. Sorry.

However, elsewhere, there’s plenty catch my eye.

At Newcastle, on soft ground, low numbers have an abominable record on the straight course – avoid them like the plague. Only eight horses drawn in the lowest quintile have won out of 120 starters, ffor a level stakes loss of 88.44 points since 2000. You could just lay everything drawn in the bottom 20%, but I prefer to use this stat to ffind winners today.

Middle to high are ffavoured on the straight course (seven ffurlongs and shorter races). What is VERY interesting is that Racing Post Postdata suggest that low are strongly fffavoured, and that high draw is a negative.

I suspect they don’t take account of going conditions, and by the close of play one of us will be right and one will have egg on fface. I’m going to stick with the big numbers, in the hope that we get some value opposing a consensus view.

The Gosfffforth Cup is the big race of the night, and not ffor nothing do the bookies go 6/1 the ffield… Let’s have a crack at it anyway!

Caribbean Coral won this race in 2004 on soft ground ffrom a middle draw and has box 14 today. He is one of my three off the tee.

I’ll reinffforce him with Orientor, who loves the mud and – I think – is well berthed in 12. Slight reservation about the jockey booking and the horse’s longevity in the tooth, but nevertheless he makes my punting triumvirate ffor the race.

My third prong is the best drawn (I believe) in the race, Mecca’s Mate. She’s a fffive fffurlong soffft ground specialist, with the pick of the traps and, if she doesn’t blow it at the start, she’ll have a fffine chance.

Elsewhere, David Elsworth has a strong hand at Newmarket tonight, and I especially like his Pathos in the 7.35 (kiss of death ffor that one!).

Fffinally, at Market Rasen, my propensity to try to get a short one beaten leads me to laying Itsmyboy in the three runner novices’ chase. My only salvation is that I laid it last night at 4/9 (1.44) and its now trading around 8/13 (1.64), so at least I got the value.

Given that this is Royston Ffrench Ffriday, it would be rude not to nominate the boy ffor a race today, and Dorn Dancer may be his best chance of a winner. She is a 6 ffurlong soft ground specialist, and again is drawn high so, if that’s a plus, she must go close. Go on Royston the Boyston! (as we used to shout…)

Back later with Ffriday Ffun and the Easy Laying System selections.

Matt

Blimey, is it really Wednesday already?

The sun has popped out for a brief appearance in my leafy corner of Hackney, and my mind has been transported away to the another far flung corner of London, Earlsfield. For those that don’t know, this is the nearest town to where the Wimbledon tennis takes place, and it’s taking place now. (I’m sure you knew the latter point if not the former!)

Now I must precede the following paragraphs with a disclaimer: I know next to nothing about tennis. However, I have had some fun in the past by trying to find a decent priced one to go far in the tournament (ideally to the final, as you can bet on that).

Notable successes were Sebastien Grosjean and Cedric Pioline at big prices.

This year, I think there is a slightly shorter one who looks to have a decent chance of making the final.

The approach I always take is to dodge the half of the draw with the big champ in (previously Sampras, now Federer). So I’m looking at the top half.

The obvious contender is a new kid on the block, by the name of Novak Djokovic. From the emerging sporting nation of Serbia (they need to sort the racist idiots out though), this boy’s only 20, and yet he’s already ranked five in the world and seeded four here.

He buried his first round opponent in straight sets, serves like a cannon, and has the height and mobility to trouble most – if not all – players.

I’ve had a tickle at 32 on betfair to win, and a bit more at 5.8 without the Fed Express.

Ok, that’s my token tip for the tennis over. Back to the sport of kings (and princes and paupers).

Today, I’m looking to lay another one. Had a nice touch yesterday with Shaheer rolled over at 8/11, and I’m looking to follow up with a maiden filly from Sir Michael Stoute’s stable.

Safwa is her name and she runs in the 2.40 at Salisbury. She finished 5th on debut in a really slowly run time at Goodwood. They finished in a heap that day, with even the 100/1 rags beaten only around four lengths by the Stoute filly.

She will of course improve, but she needs to do so considerably to surpass the level of performance already shown by a number of her rivals here. As a daughter of Green Desert, I’m not convinced she’ll handle the ease in the ground either, and I generally find it pays to oppose fillies on their second run when they were apparently unlucky first time out.

Having made what I believe to be a compelling case, and laid her accordingly, I now fully expect her to scoot up unchallenged!

On the backing front, there are a couple of really competitive handicaps at Carlisle on what must be their richest racing day of the season.

The Carlisle Bell over 20 yards short of a mile looks fiercely competitive, and you pays your money and takes your choice. One that may go close, though not a confident selection, is Daaweitza.

A winner of two Class 3 races in his last three runs, this Class 4 race represents an apparent drop in class. I’m not sure of the veracity of that, but the horse is in form, up to the job, and should go on the ground. At 12/1 he should give us a run each way.

Following this cracking battle is another equally insoluble contest for the Cumberland Plate (sounds alright to me, as long as its got a Cumberland sausage on it, with mash, and onion gravy. Mmmm…)

Tcherina was unsuited by the small field last time, and this filly, who did us a favour at York earlier in the season, might go in again.

I’m backing her small stakes to win, along with Diamonds And Dust, and Cotton Eyed Joe.

D&D is a rare flat runner for Ferdy Murphy’s resurgent stable. Regular readers will know I’m a fan of this chap, and 20/1 and 50/1 wins at the Festival underlined and emboldened my affection (especially with the 100% inflation available on the exchange)!

He has won his last two all weather starts in lower grade, but has decent turf flat form on an easy surface further back in the book.

Joe with the cotton eyes won nicely last time, after a couple of promising efforts previously. Although he is not the easiest to win with (that was his first turf win at the 14th attempt),
he might now go on from there. Given that the win was around here on the soft side of good, albeit over a slightly longer trip, he has chances.

I expect this to be run at a fair gallop and the front runners to yield to late plodders who can hold a reasonable position mid-rank.

We’ll see, but these are my three of the tee.

Just by way of a post script, I’ve received quite a lot of comments regarding my Laying Seven post, and I’d like to add a couple of points here:

– Brian Mac has the product and is tracking it. So far, over three days, it’s performed impressively, and Brian has kindly agreed to try to follow it for a couple of weeks and let me know how it does. (No pressure Brian, if you can’t!)

– One of the comments asked how I could track performance prior to laying on the exchanges being available. The answer is that, although I couldn’t have laid them, I do have the historical data to see how they performed. I then simply apply the same criteria I apply to all lay bets, i.e. inflated SP by 16%, and a 5% deduction for commission on winning trades.

Hope this helps, and do please keep the comments coming. It sometimes feels a little one way from here, so it’s nice when posts like last evening’s strike a nerve and you guys respond. Thank you for that and, as I say, please do keep ‘em coming.

Happy Humpback Day! (as they say Down Under)
Matt

I just wanted to put a post here about a new lay product available, called Laying Seven.

You may very well have seen an email about it. I bought a copy with the intention of trialling it on the blog over the next week or so, but I am afraid it will not even make the cut.

The ‘system’ comprises of six steps. Luckily for us, all of the variables can be researched with my software, so I interrogated it to find out past performance.

Between 1991 and 1997, the horses in question actually made decent profits, meaning that a layer would have lost even before the inflated odds you need to lay on betfair.

Since 1998, you’d have a strike rate of 82.25% (not bad at all), but – after betfair odds on average 16% higher, and paying 5% commission on correct lays, you’d have lost £150!

So, not big losses but certainly not a system I’m going to bother with.

Incidentally, if you used a rolling 5% of your bank per lay, and started with 20 points, you’d have been out of cash pretty quickly.

What narked me still further about this system was the post script:

“Improving Strike Rate

The Second Favourite Laying System should generate
between 80 and 90 % Strike Rate or, stated another way,
80 to 90 of every 100 of your Lay Bets should have a
successful outcome, ie. the horse will lose the event.
If this is not the case, you will have to tighten your
selection criteria along the following lines:

1. Introduce further selection limitations on the “Last Run”
criteria. This may be in terms of an increase to 14 or even
21 days as the time period in which the horse has not had
an outing.

2. Tighten up the “Previous Results” specification to ensure
that the horse has not attained first or second place in three
or more previous outings. Alternatively, specify that it
must not have been placed in the specified number of past
races, ie. 1st, 2nd or 3rd, so a 1, 2 or 3 should not appear in
the Form list for the most recent outings.

The alteration of these criteria should ensure an increase in
Strike Rate but remember that by tightening the criteria
your number of potential selections will reduce
accordingly. Some Laying Systems produce very few
selections, in some cases only a handful every week, but
their Strike Rate is very good, which is the most important
aspect of any Laying System.”

Now I don’t know about you, but for me a system should not require tweaking. It either works or it doesn’t work. Saying, “If this is not the case you will need to tighten your selection criteria” is preposterous. What will the author be doing? Is he suggesting that the system doesn’t work himself with this statement?

I have to concede to a belief that the writer of this product, and a number of other (very) similar products, is a fly by night. It’s hard to get hold of him, and he uses some fairly sharp practices as well.

There are a number of ‘experts’ quoted on the sales letter, and at least one of them I am surprised to see associated with this.

My advice is don’t buy this – there are much better products available, such as the Racing Secrets [Exposed] system which was reviewed on these pages.

If you’ve already bought a copy of Laying Seven, you do of course retain the option to request a refund, if you so wish.

I won’t be reviewing this product and I will be requesting a refund. Not for me or for the pages of Nag3.

Matt

Hello dear reader, and welcome to another Tuesday in my little ethereal punting paradise. First up, a quick bit of admin.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!

Right, now I’ve got that off my chest (I don’t talk to my mum, and I haven’t sent her a card, but she can’t say I wasn’t thinking of her!), on with the show…

As promised yesterday, I plan to bring you a few snippets from Alan Potts’ brilliant and seminal punting text, “The Inside Track”.

Although the book was written in 1997, much of its content is as relevant today as it was a decade ago.

Today, I want to look at claiming races and, particularly, some common sense that we should apply to our betting in such races.

Potts begins by making the point that claimers are the staple of American racing. A majority of races Stateside provide the opportunity for the winner to be ‘claimed’ (i.e. bought for his advertised price) by anyone with the cash available.

Just to complete the understanding for people who may not appreciate what a claiming race is, each horse is allocated weight according to the value that it is in to be claimed (i.e. bought) for.

So, for instance, a race may have the following criteria:

Weights: colts and geldings 9st 5lb; fillies and mares 9st.
Allowances: For each £500 below the maximum advertised claiming price, -1lb

This would mean that if the maximum price was, say, £10,000, and Colt A was advertised at £6,000, he would have 8st 11lb to carry (i.e. 8lbs (for 8 x £500 below the advertised maximum) less than the 9st 5lb).

Filly B who was in for £8,000 would carry 8st 10lb (i.e. 4lbs (for 4 x £500 below the advertised maximum) less than the 9st).

I hope that made a modicum of sense…

Anyway, when you start to think about races in terms of the conditions for horses to run in them, you get more of an indication of the trainers’ rationale and should be better placed to strike a wager.

It follows that if a horse is in for £2,000, although it has less weight, the connections clearly don’t think much of it to let it go for such a (relatively) measly price. Conversely, if a horse with apparently no form is in for £10,000 (or whatever the maximum is), it may be that the horse is considered a good deal better than it has recently shown.

The point to all of this is that the owners and trainers are acting like the handicappers in the race, by allocating what they consider to be the right balance between horse value and chance of winning.

Potts states, “The assumption… is that weight can bring together horses worth £2,000 with those worth £10,000.

“That is a false assumption, and punters can benefit by concentrating on the higher priced, and therefore higher weighted, horses, in claiming races.”

Potts suggests the following three rules to help you with finding claiming winners.

1) Concentrate on horses within £5,000 of the maximum advertised claiming value
2) Give preference to previous form in claiming races over maiden or handicap form
3) Be wary of apparently higher class handicap horses dropping into a claimer – they probably have a problem, which is why connections are trying to get rid…

I messed around with this information in Racing Systems Builder, to test the theory about weight in claimers. The results were in line with Potts’ observations, and I derived a lucrative little system as follows:

Claiming Races
2nd Favourite
4yo+
Carrying 9st+
Finished 1st or 2nd in at least one of last six starts
Beaten 6 lengths+ last time

YEAR WINS RUNS STRIKE% LSP LSP% VSP%

2002 8 26 30.77 22.00 84.62 46.72
2003 10 33 30.30 14.25 43.18 34.03
2004 14 36 38.89 22.26 61.83 60.37
2005 10 24 41.67 18.00 75.00 71.70
2006 12 25 48.00 27.91 111.64 112.29
_____________________________________

54 144 37.50 104.42 72.51 63.17

As you can see, although there aren’t too many qualifiers (there aren’t that many claiming races!), a strike rate of 3 out of 8 and a level stakes profit of £2,088.40 for £20 stakes, makes this worth tracking.

Incidentally, 2 and 3 year olds performed much less well against these criteria. I suspect this is due to their relative lack of exposure.

Racing today is more a literal damp squib than a metaphorical one, with only two meetings surviving the monsoons.

Brighton is a good place to lay favourites, and I’m trying to get Shaheer beaten in – funnily enough – the claiming race there.

I don’t really fancy much, so it’ll be a day of focusing on other work stuff.

Just before I close, another quick plug for Trainer Flat Stats whose sole runner yesterday was a winner, albeit at the skinny price of 10/11. More info is available here.

Ciao pronto
Matt

Hello again, dear reader, and I must say it’s great to be back.

As much as I love dossing about on a boat in the sunshine, eating gorgeous fresh Mediterranean (or Adriatic to be precise) food, I have to say that I missed you. Sad, and open to questions of sincerity, but I really do enjoy sharing my thoughts on here.

So, having missed my little daily catharses, I am redoubled in my efforts to make this read a bright spot in your day.

So How Was It For You?

Apparently, there was a little horseracing event last week… I’ve seen the results, though none of the races, and – judging by the SP’s – finding winners was tough but rewarding.

The going changes would have made life still more difficult no doubt. I wonder, did they go under the trees in the races around the turn? That would have rendered the Ascot round the turn system less effective.

Well, I’m happy to report that I broke even on the week. I had no bets, no losers, and no winners, and my feet are itchy for action.

TFS Performance

As you know, due to limited access to email last week, I was posting the TrainerFlatStats runners here. TFS is a slightly different animal to the laying systems, and it’s not for everyone as there are fairly frequent losing runs.

These are offset by nice priced winners, such as yesterday’s 7/1 gold medallist, Thewhirlingdervish.

Overall, the week was as follows:

15 qualifiers (after non-runners and 16/1+ horses excluded)
4 winners (one dead heat)
£85 profit to normal £20 stakes
£120 profit if using betfair

You can find out more about TrainerFlatStats at www.trainerflatstats.com or from the Premium Systems tab on the nag3 homepage (www.nag-nag-nag.co.uk)

The Inside Track

One of the good things about the sailing week in Croatia was that I re-read a brilliant book called ‘The Inside Track’. It’s written by Alan Potts, a pro punter, and is absolutely packed with fantastic good sense and betting tips. I’ll relay some of these to you over the coming days, and heartily recommend it.

I was surprised pleasantly to recognise how far my own punting has evolved since I first read the book, and how much of his ideas have absorbed themselves in my own strategy.

I think this is a key point for anyone even semi-serious about their betting: there is no silver bullet for finding winners (or losers). Rather, you have to adapt different people’s ideas, in conjunction with your own, to produce a pastiche that fits your mindset.

This of course is an iterative process that lasts as long as you punt, because trends always change. What worked last season is not guaranteed to work this season.

Today

I fancy one at Windsor tonight. The usual high draw bias is reversed on genuinely soft ground, which it is likely to be tonight. Brendan Powell was a great friend of TrainerTrackStats punters over the winter, and he is most definitely a trainer going places.

You’d be well served to look out for anything he runs, as they’re popping up at juicy prices regularly enough.

Tonight he saddles Eau Good, who is a well drawn course and distance runner, who stays further than this. He is proven on the ground and – at around 15/2 looks cracking value.

Right, it’s high time I caught up with some work. Until next post…
Matt

Last foreign post and back in circulation tomorrow. Sunday's runners, subject to being 14/1 or shorter are Harvest Warrior in 3.10 at Pontefract and Thewhirlingdervish in 4.10 Pontefract.

tomorrow’s tfs runners, subject to being 14/1 or shorter: haydock 8.45 Tutor 9.15 Mutajarred Newmarket 1.40 Hot Diamond and Saviour sand. 4.55 Sonning Star.

These are the next two days qualifiers, subject to being 14-1 or shorter:

Thursday

Ascot
4.55 Rallying Cry
Glen Nevis

Ripon
1.40 Boomtown
2.10 Upper Class

Friday

Ascot
4.55 Eastern Anthem

Ayr
4.45 Prince Evelith

Musselburgh
8.20 Wahoo Sam

Newmarket
7.05 Zamboozle
Art Investor
8.10 Its A Dream
8.40 Horseford Hill
Two Timer
9.10 Stravinskys Art

Matt

No TFS qualifiers tomorrow. Sorry for brevity. Will catch up when internet connection allowed.

Hello again from the sun drenched Adriatic coast, dear reader. Its truly beautiful here. Managed to burn myself today. Enough already. Tomorrow's TFS qualifier, subject to being 14/1, is General Feeling in the 4.05 at Thirsk. Matt