Royal Ascot is a highlight of the flat turf season and the often the social season.
Well it usually is, but this year there isn’t a crowd, but it will still be a big highlight for the racing fraternity. We also have extra races and focus this year thanks to the global situation. Based on the attention other sports events have received out of lockdown, this should be an interesting meeting.
I’m lucky that Ascot racecourse is the nearest racecourse to me and I’ll often walk the heath. Due to my proximity I’ll often get invites to Ascot and often the Royal meeting as well.
In normal years, it would be I would decline any invitation to attend the event. I’m sure I will return to Ascot one day, but for the moment, I’d still rather be on this side of the desk during one of the busiest weeks of the year. You wouldn’t see a professional footballer work hard all season, only to decline the chance to play in the Champions League final. So missing any major meeting is not an option for me.
Major race meetings are still massive for me and make up a big part of my annual profit. So there is little chance I will skip one any time soon. Maybe, when my children get a bit more Betfair trading experience, I’ll enjoy it from the other side. But they not quite ready, yet!
Royal Ascot tips
Like most major meetings you get a feature race or two surrounded by ‘other stuff’. Some can be good quality, but some not. So it’s really important to understand which are the key races. Often you will find people try and trade a minor race like the feature and the whole market becomes harder to read. So carefully read the entire card to see what you are trading.
The first race of the card of the card is the hardest to trade as volume has a long time to build up. You also have the problem that nothing has been proven at this point. Going is assumed, which horses and jockeys are at the top of their game isn’t proved, so it’s probably the hardest to judge. Things gradually improve as the week marches on.
From a daily perspective Ascot usually gets off to a bang on Tuesday, so be well prepared. For more insight watch the video at the top of this blog post and also the Trading Ascot videos on the Bet Angel Academy. Quality will build during the week and peak on the Friday, Saturday can be a bit of a let down and often trades just like any other meeting you would expect on a Saturday.
You usually get the added bonus of lots of drunk people places bets on horses because they like the name! But seriously, this is typically a major component of the meeting and makes a valuable contribution. So it will be really interesting to see how this plays out this year. We have already seen the impact of crowds on football, but what will 300,000 missing punters have on Ascot. It will be interesting to see if it has any impact.
Other factors to take into account his year are the reduced field sizes. This generally isn’t a good thing, but Ascot has expanded the number of races to try and compensate, but I generally love big fields. So this may impact my ability to pick off good results on these sorts of races.
The two-year-old races have been pushed back in the week, so that will make the week feel a bit different from normal as will the lower number of stall handlers. In all, I’m sure it will present as many opportunities as challenges. Typically we find that during a major football tournament interest in Ascot declines. But this year, of course, there is now no Euro 2020.
Last year Royal Ascot had matched bet turnover of £81.2m at post time. The biggest race turned over £5m and the average race matches about £1.2m. The non-feature races can turnover considerably less, so be aware of that. If you contrast Ascot with Cheltenham, Cheltenham matches an average of £4m a race. They feel very different to each other.
If you are interested in how my trading style changes on a large race, have a read of the following blog post: –
How I trade a major horse racing meeting
Royal Ascot Trading videos
I’ve prepared a video playlist discussing Ascot and how it trades, coverage of thinsg you may be interested in and finally some of the numbers that sit behind Royal Ascot.
Register for free at the Academy to watch the Royal Ascot playlist. It seems easier and more entertaining, to present the information this way, rather than a blog post. So I hope you will find it interesting, register here: –
https://online.betangelacademy.com/courses/betfair-trading-royal-ascot
Betfair trading forum
Our trading forum is the busiest out there and full of people who will be trading very large volumes through Ascot.
You can join in the conversation or just lurk and see what everybody is talking about. Like many others, I will chit chat in there and offer advice while trading every day. You can pick up on a few themes or ideas by reading the threads, or when something exciting is happening maybe join in the fun! Keeping an eye on the forum will give you a view on how each day is trading. Or why not check out some of the popular threads: –
https://www.betangel.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=21219
Automation
As you will know, Bet Angel can automate a wide range of tasks for you. We have lots of ready-made automation examples for you to edit and play with. This means you can improve your existing trading, or run something in the background while you focus on the job at hand.
You can find example templates on the forum, click on the link to view them: –
If you are looking at all types of automation across different sports you can view nearly 200 example, by look at Automation – All files.
If you are interested in automation specifically related to Horse racing we have two sections. One for Horse racing – PreOff and one for Horse racing – InPlay.
Don’t forget to check out things that will signficantly improve your manual trading by using Trading alerts and Bet Angel – Servants.
Good luck!
Royal Ascot has been a key fixture in the racing calendar for a number of years. It’s high volume and interest across five days should provide plenty of opportunity and be a highlight of your trading year.
Bet Angel gives you the tools to make the very best out of this meeting, so make sure you utilise
We wish you the best of luck!
