Tag: horse
Fab Friday
Today, we have a decent looking day ahead of us on the sporting front.
The Epsom derby meeting kicks off today and the Oaks is always a reminder of the first race that Betfair took bets on back in June 2000. To be honest I haven’t really ripped through this Friday for a few years. So I’ll be taking things careful until I get a feel for the day.
At the French Open the top four men in the world …
Good day all round
While the afternoon racing yesterday was a complete farce – shame on you racing, the evening card was much more interesting, enjoyable and full of opportunity. On the horses I managed more than double yesterday, which was a good result.
At Roland Garros the tennis was proving brilliant yesterday as well. With the wind howling around the courts it threw up lots of oppotunity. Some high profile slip ups generated some excellent opportunties. Congratulations to the person who backed Rus …
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
£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 …
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.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Betfair widen cross matching again
Betfair have gone for the big one and are going to ‘trial’ cross matching on pre-off horse racing today at Lingfield. Cross matching was initiated to ‘improve’ the fill rate on markets and eliminate the possibility of the book going over broke. As users subsequently found out, the first iteration also improved Betfair’s bottom line.
As you know, I am a keen market watcher and given enough races will be able to see the exact impact that this change …
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 …
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