Category: Horse Racing
Clean sweep
A very pleasing today on all fronts with lots of decent sporting action to get stuck into and generally favourable results all round for my most popular strategies. The highlight was racing where I managed a clean sweep on all 34 races I participated in. It’s pretty tricky to achieve that nowadays and there are many ways to get tripped up as the day progresses, so it’s a very satisfying result.
Coupled with some excellent results elsewhere it was a …
£15
Not an impressive P&L. That is until you realise it was done with just £10 stakes, that’s a 150% return on stake! But not on capital, as you would need multiples of that to do this.
But the fact remains that I reckon using £10 stakes you could get profitable most days just picking and choosing your targets and strategies. The problem comes when you get to larger amounts, it’s much more difficult to do the same thing then. Today …
Quality over quantity
One trend I’ve noticed so far this year is the increasingly poor racing on offer, I hope it improves during the summer.
Today we are faced with three cards but only five races with 10 or more runners. Tomorrow, at the moment, there are only two races of similar ilk. It’s dreadful, fairly low quality races and very few competitors. 2,3 or 4 runners races are getting quite common at the moment. It seems to signify the underlying problems racing …
Doing a Moonee
Tuned in to the William Reid stakes this morning at Moonee Valley in Australia to check on the market and progress of the best sprinter in the world at the moment, Black Caviar. I doubt if many people outside of the UK have paid much attention to this horse but having seen the odds on it get shorter in each successive race I think it’s obvious something special is going on here.
Even at the remarkably short odds she was …
Bump..
Now Cheltenham is firmly behind us and the champions league football pauses for a few weeks, it’s time to come back to earth with a bump. On the racing front, the weeks before and after Cheltenham are often starkly different, so it’s time to dig deep and stay out of trouble.
I’ll be adopting a cautious approach in the coming week and not trying to push too hard to find an opportunity. Doing that gives you a tendency to look …
Great finish to Cheltenham
“Phew, that’s it then”. That was my feeling at the end of play today. An exhausting but rewarding Cheltenham. The gold cup was an excellent race and one that lived up to expectations, it’s really nice to enjoy the racing. We will be brought back done to earth for sure today! I have never had a good Saturday on Cheltenham week. If I do manage to pull a good day out of the hat, I’ll be in touching distance of …
Perspective
A better day again at Cheltenham so I will upgrade myself to a 9/10 for yesterday’s performance. I continued my strategy of trading on both exchanges this week. I now have a headache, it’s a bit intense!
I’m looking for a 10/10 tomorrow, but I think that’s a bit of an ask; but you never know!
It’s funny, while results can look impressive year on year, you often forget how you managed to dig a result out. This year is …
All green on St Patricks day?
Yesterday was an interesting day at Cheltenham. I did OK and, combined across both exchanges, I actually did pretty well so I’ll give myself at 8/10. Volumes on Betfair are almost exactly the same as in previous years, it’s very flat.
I have now gathered enough information to determine what is and isn’t working at Cheltenham. First off, the markets are much ‘slower’ than usual, getting an order matched is a painful experience; more painful that previous years for sure. …
Something odd
Hmm, I’ll give myself a 6/10 for my efforts on the first day of Cheltenham.
The markets were not particularly easy today, but I didn’t do a great job; in comparison to other people I know anyhow. Still chucked in some good numbers, but as others did a better job I have to mark myself down as a ‘could do better’.
The first day of Cheltenham is generally spent now looking at how things have changed since last year. I’ll …
Efficient Cheltenham
Just had a browse at the first few markets at Cheltenham and it’s amazing how small the book percentage is on a lot of them. Some of the books are only just over 100% and this makes it fantastic value for backers or people dutching the market.
I’ll be gathering data all week, so I’ll let you know if I spot anything interesting. But that’s the first thing to jump out at me this morning.
Detailed Cheltenham preview
As I mentioned in the newsletter, register now for GX Magazine and get a detailed preview of the Cheltenham festival to download today. There is a multi page spread in the magazine which contains information from us full of key stats, hints and tips.
Sign up here: –
https://www.gx-world.com/uk/register.html
£1.4m win for racing punter
Great scenes at Exeter today when a tote jackpot punter landed over £1.4m when Lupita won in the 17:00.
The Jackpot had not been won since Fontwell on February 27 and rose from £368,373 to £989,008 – the ninth-highest turnover day in Jackpot history – at Ffos Las on Monday. The biggest pool in history remains £2,308,852 at Haydock on August 5 last year.
Another difficult day for racing
Racing hasn’t had it easy this winter. Over half the meetings lost in December, November wasn’t a bundle of joy and the start of the year hasn’t really gone to plan.I am struggling to remember when we last had a normal week.
Lots of good thoroughbreds need a decent run out ahead of Cheltenham, but few are getting one. Just when you think you have seen it all; we see, on what was going to be a great days racing, …
Ouch!
You have to feel sorry for money chasers sometimes. On Sunday we saw one of those ‘classic’ horse racing moments when a horse, that traded at 1.09 before the off, fell at the first hurdle at Fakenham.
That said, I don’t feel that sorry for money chasers as when I see something at short odds I instinctively try to oppose it. Low downside and high upside is just too tempting to resist. Therefore I will always look for an opportunity …
NH Racing
OK I know that the NH stands for national hunt, but it may as well mean No Horse Racing. If Racing wants to know why its industry is in decline take a hard look at today.
Another big race meeting is lost to weather. Some low quality and small fields at Lingfield which are of little interest. Those races go off five minutes before Cheltenham so little time to build up to the big races, then Cheltenham clashes …
Kauto can’t
Last week I asked if Kauto can, but it seems he can’t. With no racing of note on today I thought I’d review this race for you.
The 11 year old isn’t the same horse as previous years, no surprise there. But it was disappointing to not have another historic moment in racing. There haven’t been many over the last year and it’s nice to hang a news story on these things. I think racing has missed out as a …
Levy debate starts in parliament
Three hours of debate has just started in Parliament about the future of the Horse Racing levy. Tune into BBC Parliament to hear the MP’s debate: –
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/tv/bbc_parliament/watchlive
Can Kauto?
Easy to spot the key interest today on the horse racing front when Kauto Star will try to make history at Kempton park. Such is the interest in this and the sentiment I suspect his price will shorten through the day so for once I am on early on this. It should be an interesting market and an interesting race, so I hope it turns out that way.
Backing a definite loser to win
Bizarre start to the racing at Huntingdon. Nine out of eleven horses took the wrong course, the chase instead of the hurdle course. The end result is that all horses on the chase course were disqualified. One jockey went back to complete the correct course though and netted third place. So only three out of the starting line up qualified as finishers.
You could still back the real winner for large odds as he approached the line and it seemed …
Some winter cheer
One look at the racing card will echo what you will have seen for the last month or so, abandoned racing. It’s the worst period I have known in my ten years on Betfair, pretty bleak. Boxing day usually brings a whole slew of opportunity and some top quality action at Kempton. Today, out of the 11 meetings due to take place today, only one hasn’t been abandoned as I write this, and there is a real prospect of that …
McCoy is sports personality of the year
Well done AP, well deserved. Looks like racing’s campaign to raise awareness, and votes, has paid off. I’ve got a lot of respect for jump jockey’s and especially for AP. So it’s great to see it the sport getting recognised.
SPOTY
Or Sports Personality Of The Year in its long form.
Let me declare my interest. I would love Tony McCoy to win this award. Not only is it fully deserved, but it would also give a boost to racing. Let me temper that with the fact that the short priced favourite just never seems to win this award any more. Also, in the general public, there is little recognition of who Tony McCoy is.
Before I got into horse racing …
Something from nothing
Hey, it’s been tough lately but that’s no reason to give up completely. Yes, you can be relaxed if you have worked hard during the peak season, but there is still opportunity out there; even if somewhat reduced.
Despite running around to do the last few elements of organisation ahead of Christmas I sat down behind my screen for the odd moment yesterday to keep my hand in on the racing. Not a great total but I know a lot …
Much better
Not only am I feeling better but I must say, what a relief it was today to experiance three race meetings on in the afternoon and some decent field sizes as well! After such a barren spell recently, it was really nice to get really stuck into some markets again.
Despite keeping my hand in the game over the recent barren spell I haven’t been doing as much as normal and it’s suprising how rusty you can get. I’d be …
Cheltenham didn’t bust
Phew, things worked out OK today. Nothing spectacular for sure, but £560 from 14 markets is a useful return to the fold. Nearly all that came from Cheltenham, so the prospect of a decent day looks on the cards with the twilight and evening racing to come.
Cheltenham or bust!
With most of the racing lost to the weather once again it looks like the week will rest on Cheltenham for most racing traders. It’s a high risk strategy as there is no gaurentee that Cheltenham will provide favourable markets, especially with little infront or behind of it. Already Channel Four have asked for the times to be put back so they can cover the meeting, that’s going to impact things as well. Lets hope that when the races get …
The week that wasn’t
I picked a good week to be ill last week. Never will a chest infection and fever be so well timed!
It’s never fun to be ill but with so much racing cancelled last week and some football, there was little going on in the markets. It can be really tough making money sometimes but a complete absense of opportunity obviously isn’t going to help either. But I actually quite enjoy the lack of pressure to perform and the chance …
Speechless
You could claim to be speechless about the prospects of racing this week. It looks like only the ‘all weather’ racing will survive, with all the other courses likely to struggle. But this title refers to my inability to speak well this week thanks to flu. Time for a break!
[Edit : Got a text from my local school saying there were 72 children off with the same thing, I hope you don’t get it]
Back to the weather, it’s …
Trading the drifting Denman
With a tough week already, it looked like Saturday was going to be a white out as well. Fortunately Newbury survived with a quality card and that gave me a reason to sit behind my desk. I’ve typically done OK at the Hennessy gold cup, so wanted a fair crack at it. When you have been going for a few years you can’t but resist looking at previous years and having that as an unofficial target. Tough when the most …
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