Category: Horse Racing
Back to earth with a bump
In line with my objective to take more time off this year, I had a well timed break after after Royal Ascot to head off for a BIG wedding abroad. What a fantastic experience it was and how I wish I could have extended the trip to the post wedding bash on the edge of the mediterranean. Wimbledon was calling though, so I had to make do with what was a fantastic few days instead. We packed so much in …
Final day of a busy week
Well done to Rory McIlroy who continued to rip through the US Open. Unfortunately this scuppered my trade which needs a competitive field to work. At 1.40ish this leaves only one possible strategy, to back or lay McIlroy. I reckon most people will lay McIlroy given his blow up in the US Masters. It’s a clear fact however, that the error most people make is to take past trends and extrapolate them into the future. Rather than go on gut …
Royal Ascot / Open Golf Thursday
Another good day in the bag for Royal Ascot, but I left it late today. I didn’t get a real blockbuster race till near the end of the card. I had to work much harder than yesterday and I took my foot of Betdaq, as working harder meant I couldn’t keep focus on two exchanges effectively. I did broaden my activity out on Betdaq though to other races and they worked well. So after Ascot I’m going to continue my …
Royal Ascot – Day two
That went well! I have to give myself a 10/10 for yesterday. After a quiet start with a few errors in my P&L I slowly got into stride and managed to really hit top speed by the end of the day. In the end I managed to achieve my best ever daily result at Ascot which was incredibly satisfying. I can’t pretend today will be a repeat performance, but I will try hard.
It’s difficult to pick any highlights out …
Ascot – Day one summary
I thought that went quite well. I struggled last year but this year was ok and I could have done better if I was a bit more aggressive. In hindsight I was too passive yesterday, didn’t take on board enough risk. So I’ll give myself an 8/10 as it was good, but I could have done better.
Frankel made a bit of a mess of the feature race of the day and the market on Frankel was so strong that …
Royal Ascot day one
An intriguing day one at Ascot. After all, what colour hat will the Queen be wearing. LOL!
I’ll be all guns on the first day to work out what feel the market brings this year. I’ve paid a lot of attention to Ascot over the years and each year we see the market shift subtly in one direction or the other. I didn’t do a very good job of it last year, comparatively speaking, so I’ll want to put in …
Levy board statement
The HBLB made a statement yesterday which you can read here: –
https://www.hblb.org.uk/document.php?id=411&search=
Betfair’s response is here: –
https://corporate.betfair.com/media/press-releases/2011/2011-06-08.aspx
Derby result
A satisfactory result. Not my best, but not my worst either. The market seemed pretty boyant today and volumes were much better than last year. Racing should be thankful that the Queen will bring so much attention to next years Derby. Can’t only help can’t it?
I’m taking tomorrow off from an activity perspective. I had hoped to trade the mens final at the French Open tennis, but I’ve been going downhill the last few days with a heavy cold …
Derby Day
An interesting day yesterday. The two Tennis semi finals were good, but not perfect trading fodder. I could have done with Murray coming back into the match a bit. Nadal / Murray had matched bet volume of £30m, the other semi was almost exactly the same amount. The Oaks had matched bet turnover of £2.6m.
Turnover on the Oaks was up on last year, but that can be accounted for by the way the field manifests itself. I will be …
Two card monte
We have reached the time of year when Monday and Tuesday racing drops to two cards in the afternoon. It’s an important time of year as this changes the characteristic of these cards to the negative, but also it allows you to do a few other things and skip these cards if needed.
Racing tends to be lower quality on a Monday and Tuesday and that combined with the 15 minute gaps in-between the cards leads to much poorer market …
Bank Holiday Moo-nday
Had to laugh at this great peice of camera work today from Carlisle. It seems it just wasn’t the punters that were interested in the Racing.
The big backer
If you are active on the markets, then I am sure you may have seen this character around. If not then they appear fairly regularly recently, either trying to get filled at a certain price or just deliberately trying to stop the price from moving. I think it’s an odd strategy, as dipping in and around the markets is like playing poker. You don’t want to show your hand!
When somebody shows their hand like this then it’s an …
BHA announces serious charges
Following an investigation into suspicious betting activity on a number of races, the British Horseracing Authority has charged 13 individuals with serious breaches of the Rules of Racing. The allegations focus on horses being laid to lose on betting exchanges in 10 races that took place between 17 January 2009 and 15 August 2009.
Each of the jockeys is additionally charged with a breach of Rule 243 of the old Rules of Racing in that it is alleged they communicated …
Black Caviar
Just got up early to have another look at Black Caviar who was running at Doomben this morning. As expected, she delivered her 13th win out of 13. Quite a feat and she is causing a significant amount of interest in the racing world and also from a betting perspective. Went off at 1.22 this morning with £1.7m out of £1.8m was matched on just one runner.
Jinx buried?
Day 4/6 and the seas are still calm. Well I say calm they are a little becalmed to be honest, but that’s sort of ok even if it is making for a tough week. I managed a decent day yesterday though, no thanks to York.
York has been quite tough this week and I haven’t enjoyed it, but other traders have done OK. So today I will dump all other activity and just try to be really focused today. I’ll …
York
Looking forward to some quality at York today. It seems racing is lacking a lot of quality this recently, volumes are not great and underlying liquidity poor, so I am keen to get stuck into some decent stuff.
There are a few threads on the forum about York in previous years. We have noticed that patterns often repeat in racing meetings so it will be interesting to see if the same happens again. I navigated yesterday without any errors, but …
Best trade ever?
It was a couple of years ago I said this and I’m hoping for a repeat again this year, but then again I was hoping last year would see a repeat and that didn’t happen either! Here’s hoping! You can never predict where a really big opportunity, but as long as you are focused you will always be able to jump on the back of one when the inevitable occurs.
Part of trick is being available and alert to opportunties. …
So you think
Despite the long weekend I couldn’t help but be tempted to dip in to the Curragh yesterday to take a look at ‘So You Think‘. I’ve seen this horse progress in Australia so my ears pricked up when I heard it was running in Ireland yesterday. It didn’t disappoint and despite it’s short price I managed to get a decent position on it, netting just short of £127. This could be a good summer for the flat season …
Guineas
I had a fantastic result on the Guineas last year, when just about everything fell into place nicely. This year already looks a bit tougher so I can’t assure myself of a similar result, but will try my best to make something happen. The much vaunted ‘Frankel’ is currently trading at 1.59 which should generate a lot of volume today, but whether it does much else is another question! I’ll be reviewing the Guineas trade, amongst others, in my next …
Royal wedding tip
Fontwell 17:30, Current favourite to shorten even further? Why? The favourite is called ‘Royal Wedding’.
My youngest daughter is fastinated by the spectacle, my son said ‘What wedding?’. Have a great day William and Kate!
The national – Part three
And so ends the national series for this year, a decent result on the The Grand national, the Scottish national and the Irish national. Outside of the Irish national there was little of interest for me today, I didn’t like the card and I was proved right, it was a mess. I really should stop doing days that I know I wont enjoy, it makes little material difference to me and to enjoy a day out on a boat …
Racing needs to wake up
Sunny public holiday, lots of people on extended holidays, spirits are high. But racing is struggling to muster up decent fare again.
Today we have a bumper bank holiday card with 8 meetings and 55 races on hand, excluding the Irish racing. But a casual glance down the UK card shows only Warwick with decent fields and out of the remaining 7 UK meetings only 4 races have ten runners or more. Hmmm….
No racing on Good Friday and only …
Man Utd to leave it late?
Manchester United have a chance to stretch their lead to nine points at the top against Everton at Old Trafford on Saturday lunchtime. The games are coming thick and fast for United and the signs were there for all to see at Newcastle. United could only manage a goalless draw at St James’ Park and Sir Alex Ferguson will be pleased to return home next. Old Trafford has been an impregnable fortress this campaign with only West Brom returning with …
Probe starts into AW races
On top of rumours of another scandal about to break, the BHA is investigating unusual betting patterns at all weather courses: –
https://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/horse_racing/9465233.stm
Grand national – take two
May seem odd to talk about the Grand National a week after it happened, but on Saturday we had the Scottish Grand National. While not as big, well know, or as popular as its bigger cousin it still provides some decent opportunities given the right conditions. Which it had on Saturday.
One horse race
I was going to write about the FA Cup semi final today as it looks a really tantalising prospect. But the thing that really caught my eye this morning is racing’s continued struggles to adapt to modern commercial realities. The result of which is a race that includes just one runner at the 17:10 at Leicester this afternoon.
https://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/apr/14/one-horse-race-leicester-protest
It’s unfortunate that prize money is under pressure, but in any other commercial regime you would simply incur less cost to …
Schwing
A really good day for swing traders and a generally good day to boot. Plenty of races, plenty of opportunties whatever your style; but the thing that stood out today were some big swings. Hope you had a good one.
Record day
Phew, what a weekend that was!
We are now entering peak season for all things sports related and this weekend was a good warm up for the months ahead. It also set a new bench mark for me as the Saturday just gone turned out to be my best ever day on Betfair! Whether I can ever beat such a storming weekend is another question. When you have been going for as long as me, you need a little luck …
A Grand day out
Last year’s Grand National will be remembered for Tony McCoy finally winning his first race with Don’t Push It. The pair are ready for battle again this year and the biggest race of the year offers a great chance for traders to profit at Aintree.
Most of what we do means we’ve normally settled up before the race, but that’s not to say there are no opportunities mid-race. We’ve had a look at a few horses in the running tomorrow …
Tiring weekend ahead
First day of Aintree is now behind me and I can take that knowledge forward to today. I had a difficult start yesterday but ended up doing OK on the day overall in the end. I think I could have done better, but lets see what today brings. If you remember Cheltenham, you will be pleased to know that the Betdaq markets are working well at Aintree also, so bear than in mind today if you are finding the going …
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