Improving conditions at Cheltenham
After a bumpy start on the first day at Cheltenham, day two proved more predictable and productive.
Overall turnover on Betfair was down 10% year on year, which was a surprise. Especially given the incredibly, and completely justified, short price on Sprinter Sacre. It was one hell of a performance and fully justified the price. I wasn’t sure what to the make of the market at first other than it would be almost impossible to trade. But I went for it anyhow.
Sprinter Sacre trade
I expected the price not to vary much, but very short prices do tend to get backed in a bit. So my opening gambit was to get a favourable fill on the back side. That went ‘pete tong’, so I found myself on the wrong side of the book potentially nursing a nasty loss. But after carefully judging all activity in the market I managed to scratch the position and start again.
This was one market where I had to put all my skill, judgement and money, to use. Having evaluated all possible outcomes I went for it and stuck down some new positions and waited, and waited and waited and waited. With over six figures sat on either side of the book it was going to take an age to fill any orders, so I had no option but to fully expose everything to the market. I had to carefully judge that all positions would be closed before the off, so a new dynamic for this race was the judgement on time and how long I had left to fill what was left in the market. It will most likely be the most stressful race of the week!
With a full position in the market if anything would have gone wrong it would have been a disaster, so with the Betfair crash on Saturday still at the front of my mind I sat there with HUGE potential exposure waiting for it all to happen. On the trading front my risk was small because it was really a case of either getting a pay off or not getting one. After a stressful ten minutes or so, I’m glad to report that it paid off!
I’ll be talking about this trade and others during my next course in late March.
Overall conditions improve
That was the main story from yesterday. Overall the markets were slightly more favourable than Tuesday, probably on the basis the card was ‘normal’ again. I managed to get some good results from most of the races but I always have at least a couple that I don’t get one with and I have to be happy with a much smaller result. But there were some highlights in there yesterday.
Fill rates improved on both exchanges and orders were filling much faster than on Tuesday, though we do have a couple of anomalies in the data. I’d forecast an improvement today, but the lack of Hexham on the card could jumble things up a little. I’d prefer it if everything was ‘normal’, I’m well practiced at normal.
I’m generally not trading the races in-between the Cheltenham. They tend to be poor liquidity, very volatile and they take my focus away from the real task at hand. But I’m always ready to strike if I see an opportunity. And so we move onto day three…..
Good luck today everybody!
Category: Horse Racing
