Category: Horse Racing
Getting a little jumpy
It’s that time of year when the flat turf season yields to the jumps.
You often find the markets and underlying results go a bit wonky at this time. Things don’t act the same way as normal and markets shift a bit, I have mentioned this in previous years.
You tend to find, feature races being the exception of course, that the flat turf races tail off and it’s too early for form lines to be properly assessed on the …
Traders of the Prix De L’Arc
Once a year I will taste some French racing like a connoisseur tastes French wine, with a sense of appreciation but with the gusto of a true enthusiast.
I don’t tend to trade on Sunday’s, or on French racing; but the richest race in Europe always draws my attention as it and the companion races are nearly always an opportunity. Most of the surrounding card in the UK is not the greatest quality, so I’ll tend to do some other …
Newmarket Cambridgeshire & a bit of a warning
An interesting set up for racing today. It’s a shame Ripon is off and Chester is only 5 minutes in front of Newmarket.
I’ve picked off a few good results from the Cambridgshire in the past but I will remember this race forever for the disaster of last year.
As we approached the key race of the day people started posting in the forum about performance issues with Betfair, we have a specific thread for this. Having done well on …
St Leger Day
The oldest classic horse race in the world is almost upon us again and while it marks the closing of the flat turf season, tradition dictates that it also marks an upturn in financial markets if folklore is to be believed. “Sell in May and go away, don’t come back till St Leger day”
There is a general ‘theory’ that during the summer stocks languish and only when everybody is back to their desk does the market perk up. Here …
Laying on the beach
Laytown – Sounds like a small town where people favour only one side of the book. But its actually a racecourse in Ireland. Since 1876 Laytown has hosted a single annual horse racing meeting on its beach – one of only a couple on sand (held on the beach) race meetings run under official rules of racing in Europe.
The BBC have made it the subject of a documentary, titled Racing the Tide, and have included passages in their …
Manic Monday
The late summer bank holiday brings with it, not just the traditional rain in the UK, Cartnel is abandoned due to waterlooging; but a plethora of racing as well.
That’s an issue. Even with the one abandoned meeting there are still 64 races in the card. But quite a few of them clash directly and during the day it’s unlikely that all will go off on time so that will bump up the number of clashes.
It’s going to be …
Trading Frankel
Not as easy at it sounds, as expected. But I did get something from the race. Mainly, as expected again, on Betdaq. In fact Betdaq was pretty favourable yesterday. I think today’s card overall looks a little more interesting and varied, so I’m hopeful of a decent day today.
Frankel’s market was characterised by a drift before the off. I was a bit surprised to see this, but it did also happen at Goodwood. You would have thought people would …
York Ebor meeting
An interesting start to the meeting with the return of Frankel.
It’s nice to see Frankel getting out again today, it generates some real interest in racing just as the evening racing draws to a close. Have to say though, it won’t help make the trading day any easier. I think it’s a tricky start to the meeting and there are not many clear cut opportunities across the card. Hopefully I can find some in the run up to each …
Goodwood day three/four
A day of progress yesterday.
It was steady, but nothing spectacular. It’s a nice base to build from and I have finally settled into a pattern for Goodwood festival. Hopefully I can use today and tomorrow to pick off a quality opportuntity. Goodwood has lacked a blockbuster race for me so far this week, so I’m hoping to pick off something useful. Betdaq has been comfortable for me all week so I upped stakes yesterday and got my best day …
Goodwood day two
I didn’t have high expectations for yesterday and those where met!
The Frankel market was especially hard and I had to take a loss. You win some, you lose some and yesterday I lost some on this race. But that’s normal, you can’t win them all and it’s unrealistic to expect to do so, so it’s all about the balance of the two. So I didn’t get a result here but I will almost certainly another time. Looking back I …
The most challenging race ever?
First day of Goodwood was quiet with nothing spectacular coming out of any of the races. I didn’t really get any stand out results from the card, just plodded along all day pulling in steady numbers. Overall a nice result on the day, but no thanks to Goodwood.
Today we have Frankel running. I think this is possibly the most uncompetitive group race I have ever seen in the UK? It’s difficult to do anything useful in a market like …
Goodwood, close but no cigar
So Glorious Goodwood is upon us.
I used to live on the South Coast and Goodwood has always stuck in my memory as a very scenic and entertaining course to visit. Perched just north of Chichester, you can climb Knights Hill and get a great view from which to look down on the course and the wonderful surrounding countryside.
If you fancy a round of Golf, the golf club is only just around the corner and is very enjoyable and …
Betfair implement new turnover charge
News from Australia this morning that Betfair are to implement a turnover charge on customers, full details: –
https://betfair.com.au/turnovercharge/
In case you were not aware, a high court ruling this year in Australia has switched the law from a gross profits tax to a turnover based revenue fee for racing. This doesn’t affect the well established and politically well oiledl, but slightly ancient and backward thinking, incumbents in Australia; but does have a significant impact on the new entrants like …
Good old Barney Curley
Flicking through the racing today I noticed three Barney Curley runners on the card. Whenever a Curley runner is on the card it’s interesting; when there are three, even more so.
Barney Curley has a long history of landing a gamble. One of hte most famour was the the Yellow Sam betting coup and more recently another in May 2010.
Because of this Curley runners usually attract a lot of attention in the market. People fear they may be …
Royal Ascot trading review
This was an interesting year at Royal Ascot. The obvious highlights were Frankel’s win and Black Caviar’s close call. I thought the Duke of Edinburgh presenting his wife with a trophy was also a moment to remember, surprised to see no caption competitions on that!
Overall, according to Betfair’s statistics, £92.6m was traded before the off, up from £73m the year before. However, that included to races at incredibly short prices. If you strip those out and add back average …
Black Caviar to romp home carrying the Aussie flag?
Ascot trundles on this week and all is well.
I feel a bit like I am going through the motions this year. Yes it’s nice to get a really good week, but year on year there isn’t the sort of growth in the underlying market I would like, I’ll explain more in my final ‘a question of scale’ post at some point.
It’s been a manic couple of weeks so I’m looking forward to getting a break in the near …
Royal Ascot so far
A blockbuster start to day one with Frankel opening proceedings and promptly romping home by an astonishing distance.
Matched bet turnover was up on last year, but that’s no surprise on the basis of Frankel’s very short price. Overall pre-off volumes are ahead of last year, £35.3m has been matched on the races of the first two days. Curiously in-running matched bet volumes are down £3m on last year.
Tuesday is the day when I try and work out what …
Royal Ascot – First up Frankel
So it’s finally here, Royal Ascot starts today and I can’t wait!
I’m going to have an easy morning each day this week so I can prepare and feel relaxed for the on-coming challenge of the busy Ascot markets. Yesterday I did a dry run of all my set-ups, back up positions, automation, settings etc. and then went out for a bike ride with my youngest daughter. So I’m relaxed and about as ready as I can be.
The only …
The Derby on BETDAQ
Last year I consciously decided to allocate a lot more of my time to learning and understanding how the markets on Betdaq work in great depth. No guess for what prompted this! In the past I’d tended to cherry pick markets as it was easy to find markets that were more suitable for my style, but I felt I really should make the effort to work harder on ALL markets.
A year on and I’m active on pretty much all …
The Royal Derby
Many thanks Ma’am for bringing some focus to racing on your Diamond Jubilee, it is much appreciated.
The Derby market is a funny one for me. Over the years I have flip flopped between good and bad results. Looking at today’s race, it looks a bit tricky. With Camelot going off at such a short price interest in the market will be high and I expected there will be significant volume in the market. That’s great, but it will squash …
Frankel Fever
Frankel is back in action as he goes for win number ten in the Lockinge at Newbury today. It’s difficult to forget his winning Guineas run and it will be an interesting race to watch at Newbury.
I flunked the Guineas market when he ran and I’m hoping Newbury will be different, but I’m not so sure. At the time of writing he was trading betwenn 1.30 and 1.40. Looking at the race the market is effectively pricing in a …
Black Caviar makes it 21 out of 21
Wonder horse Black Caviar stepped up this morning to register her 21st victory out of 21 races. Going off at an SP of 1.06. A total of £2.39m was matched on the race at 07:50 this morning UK time. £2.374m or 99.4% of that was matched on Black Caviar.
Black Caviar was never ever in trouble in the race at all and the Jockey, Luke Nolan, did nothing other than sit on her and steer her. Without any effort she …
Newmarket Guineas
Two contrasting years for me recently in the Guineas, for the full story click here for the previous blog posts on Guineas day.
In summary, last year races was tricky to trade and the year prior was a dream. I’d forecast that this years race is somewhere inbetween the two, so I am hoping for a result somewhere inbetween as well. The weather has improved so that should make the market just that little bit more stable.
Reading last years …
Lacklustre start to evening racing
Looking out the window I see is droughting down again. Just got into the office today, having had the morning off to relax and get ready for a full weekend of sporting action.
We have the Guineas meeting over the weekend and of course the FA Cup final tomorrow. Fingers crossed we don’t get many more abandoned meetings because it’s really put a damperner on the start of the evening racing season. It’s usually nice to get tucked into all …
Black Caviar – New records all round
This morning we saw Black Caviar step up to win a record 20th race in a row. Number 21 is already planned and number 22 could be a royal Ascot showdown with Frankel. Amazing.
If this happens, the race of the decade could be on the cards. While this race could be massive, with Ascot just up the road from me, I’d be tempted to take a day out of trading just to see this race.
In the race today …
Betfair to continue with Racing in Australia
Reports coming in that despite their loss in the recent high profile court case, Betfair appear to have made the decision to continue to offer racing to Australian customers. Here is a copy of the correspondence.
Dear *****,
Many of you will be aware of a recent decision by the High Court of Australia which upheld Racing NSW’s decision to impose a turnover based fee on wagering operators.
Due to the additional cost to Betfair associated with this decision …
Craving more Craven
Stuck in a pretty good performance on the first day of the Craven meeting and was pretty pleased all round with overall performance. Some of the testing I’ve been doing on new ideas came good as well, so I’m really chuffed. The champions league didn’t really through off a quality opportunity last night, but apart from some stuff before the off I didn’t really get that involved. Second legs should be interesting.
I prefer to know whether I’m in a …
After Aintree – Time for some R&R
With the Aintree meeting now behind us it’s time to take stock and get some R&R ready for the start of the flat season proper.
Aintree meeting
The Aintree meeting was a peach and I had good days most of last week, including the important races at Aintree. The Grand National was pretty eventful overall and lived up to expectations in all respects. We captured extensive data, which we are analysing in the early part of this week. But the …
Grand National 2004 style
Interested in seeing what Betfair looked like in 2004?
While busy preparing for this year’s Grand National I went back through the archives. In it I found a few screenshots that I had taken from way back in 2004, I thought I would share them with you. It was around 2004 that I started doing detailed archives of my work.
It’s interesting to see how some things have changed but some haven’t. I haven’t made a note of when these …
Great start at Aintree meeting
Well that went well.
No matter how experienced you are you can never be sure exactly sure what lies ahead each day. You will always be at the mercy of the market. So it’s nice when you find yourself on the right side of that. It’s a bit of a confidence boost for the weekend. The best result of the day we saw on Betfair, came on the first. The best on Betdaq on the last. But both were useful …
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