Tag: racing
A world cup that is suited to the desert
Saturday sees one of the world’s richest horse races take place at Meydan, the Dubai world cup.
Over the years I’ve moved from dabbling in the Meydan markets to doing them seriously. They often make for a useful addition on a dull Thursday in the UK. Therefore I’d recommend a dabble in these markets if the volume is holding up and there is no clashing with other races. The world cup itself must be one of few where the prize …
Preparing for a major race meeting – Cheltenham
Big meetings are generally mean big opportunities for me, so I take a lot of care to carefully prepare for each one. Cheltenham is one of the biggest.
Last year, the big meetings accounted for just short of 20% of my entire year. That’s why I put so much effort into each one. Not only that, while invites are always gratefully accepted, I’m still politely declining them. I intend to do so for as long as is practicable.
Collecting and …
Hennessy Gold Cup – One of my favourite races
I have fond memories of the Hennessy Gold Cup. I’ve traditionally done well at this race and it’s the race I traded live at the IX Investor show for Betfair in 2006. I know I’ve posted this summary, or something similar, before. But it’s definitely one of the highlights of my trading career so far so it’s worth a reprise for those that haven’t seen it before.
Betfair at a financial market expo
Seeing a betting company at a financial …
A day of racing you shouldn’t miss
Tomorrow we have the finale to the flat turf season and a curtain raiser to the flat turf season. How can you have both? Let me explain.
Ascot champions day
First, we have ‘Champions day’ at Ascot and it promises to be a real feast of racing.
Champions day only came into being in 2011 so it’s relatively new in the scheme of things but it’s a weekend I wouldn’t miss for anything now. It’s the last shot at a …
Seasonality in Horse Racing
Still, plenty of racing to look forward to and the champions meeting still to come followed by the restart of Cheltenham, but what happens as we move into the winter?
There are plenty of highlights around at this time and more as we head into the full on jumps season. For some reason, I know it’s named after a horse, the Tingle Creek meeting at Sandown sounds Christmassy to me, but for sure is an early high point in December. …
Traders of the Prix De L’Arc
At least 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. It’s the time of year that I turn my attention to a few overseas Racing markets.
Overseas racing
On Friday, I traded the ‘evening’ racing at Moonee Valley in Australia and returned in the early hours of this morning to have a look at some of the other group racing …
September Salisbury and it’s importance
Today we have a meeting at Salisbury, that’s not unusual at this time of year. But this meeting has some significance for all traders.
Why it’s an important race
Way back in 2003 Betfair published information on a specific race. Betfair went full disclosure on the race. It listed all the market participants what they did, how much they did, how many accounts were active overall and similar information.
On seeing this publication I just realised that it gave me …
More Moore at Goodwood
Goodwood should have been renamed Greywood at the start of the festival, such was the miserable weather that accompanied what should have been a glorious week on the Sussex downs. But it was notable for one particular day.
The weather had a huge impact on the meeting last week and produced a below par performance from me and from the markets. I’d imagine most attendees on course last week, spent most of their time hiding from the incessant rain and …
Had a good week last week? Here’s why…
You may have seen me post up results or information along the lines of ‘If you did this with £100 you would have managed to achieve this’.
I collect and analyse a lot of data and it’s all with the aim of identifying biases and the structural nature of a market. You would be surprised how many markets exhibit biases. Some have exhibited a structural bias for my entire trading career. I’ve casually dropped hints now and again and it’s …
Betfair trading – Little and often soon adds up
This is a phrase I’ll often quote when advising people on how to trade.
The real objective when trading
It’s really nice to bang in some massive results now and again, but generally, that’s not what trading is about. Most of the time I’m in a market I’m just looking for an opportunity. Something I recognise as having a decent chance of a payoff, with as little downside as possible. Sometimes you just can’t see them and sometimes they are …
Starting out as a sports trader – Scaling up
I was back on my small account on Monday. I was recording a few videos at low stakes (I posted one last week) and also giving instruction to my daughter; she is progressing nicely.
I’m also teaching a new recruit to the team. It’s interesting to watch and learn from newbies and how they look at the market. I feel like It’s a microcosm of the entire market. I ‘feel’ this in the market every day, but experiencing first hand …
Quick Sand – Racing at Laytown
The races
Since 1868 Laytown has hosted the annual race meeting like no other. With no formal race course to host the equine competitors, these horses are raced on the beach. Laytown catches the attention of wide range of racing and non-racing goers each year.
Quite a few years ago I was captivated by the sight of horses running on the beach. It just seemed a bit different and interesting. So I set my sights on visiting this very unique …
Ebor or Ebore?
Summer racing isn’t over quite yet and today kicks of the Ebor meeting at York. I’ve traditionally done OK at this festival each year so I am looking for something above average this week.
The Ebor meeting can yield some good results, but nothing is ever guaranteed and this meeting can be a bit random at times so it’s probably not going to be all plain sailing. It should be better than what we have been seeing recently though.
Traditionally, …
Why Monday’s evenings are great markets
Something snatched my curiosity many years ago about trading the evening racing during the summer.
Anomaly
It always seemed pretty anomalous to me, but I would always feel that I would do well on a Monday evening, But Tuesdays would often be terrible. The rest of the week would vary depending upon the type of races and courses where the evening racing was being held.
Closer examination showed that Windsor was producing consistently above average results. So I came up …
Do Betfair markets reflect true opinion?
OK, for years the exchange mechanism has provided a very useful pricing mechanism. A careful aggregation of demand between people competing on a level playing field and it has provided a beautiful insight into the way free markets can work to mysteriously, accurately, price an event – in this case the prediction that something will win a sports event.
Changes
But we have been watching closely as the market has gradually decoupled from it’s long established core. What do we …
One Bank Holiday you may want to trade
Bank holidays can be a bit of mare. Four billion horses, racing over a thousand meetings. OK, A slight exaggeration there, but you get the picture. Too much racing, too many courses, not enough quality and everything falling over itself.
But today that actually isn’t the case and generally isn’t on this holiday. We have a lot of runners and they are spread many races, but the card is lined up well. That means, even allowing for later starts, it’s …
Trading Horse Racing – Workshop
Why trade horse racing?
Trading horse racing markets pre-off is big business. In 2015 just short of £9bn was matched on horse racing before a single stride in the race had been completed.
That’s more than twice as much as football and nine times the same amount that is matched on Tennis. Racing is the biggest pre-off market on Betfair and provides some unique trading opportunities.
As I write this, today there are eight race meetings, with a total of …
Manic Monday
It’s one of a handful of manic trading sessions you see during the year today.
There are 620 runners on the card today and 54 races. Sounds like heaven, but it can be hell. The markets are just often not strong enough to do anything with. You often get a lot of donkeys out and therefore you end up with some competitive handicaps at the lower end of the scale, but little money and little time to trade them.
If …
How evening racing is different
We have now started the evening racing in earnest and it won’t stop till the end of August. So you have four months to make hay while the sun shines, not forgetting we are in the England, so it won’t shine much.
However, there are at least four different states that you see in racing during this period.
(1) Afternoon racing
This tends to me higher quality than the evening racing and will therefore trade differently.
(2) Evening racing
There …
A day at the races
After many years sat behind the screen. I’ve been making a conscious effort recently, to actually get out and enjoy some of the hard earned. But also I’ve been keen to experience first hand some of the sporting venues I’ve traded.
This was another year when I declined an invite to the Cheltenham Festival, but I made up for it yesterday by attending the racing there. Judging by the weather I picked the right day! I was quite keen to …
Preparing for Cheltenham
We are so close to Cheltenham that I’m now in that final, ‘Have I done everything I can to prepare’ mode.
Cheltenham pretty much makes or breaks March for me. A good meeting and it’s a good March a bad one and it’s a struggle to make the numbers.
Each year I go through the same sort of preparation for big weeks and in this video I explain that process and my thoughts on the run up to a big …
Billy no mates
Nobody has invited us around this Christmas, so yet again today, our family is hosting everybody for lunch, but I wont be there. I guess somebody needs to earn the money to pay for it 😉 I’ll be locked in my study and making the odd appearance to say hello.
New years day is a busy day in the sporting world. At least the footy is occurring on a different day this year! But the racing is on today, as …
Christmas week and trading (or lack thereof)
I noticed that Ayr has been abandoned today and that makes a bit of a mess of the card. So I think that’s me done till Boxing day on the racing.
It’s usually pretty quiet in the run up to Christmas day in the UK and this week is no exception. Because the holidays shift from year to year, this year Boxing day has fallen on a Saturday. That should be an interesting day! So I’m saving my gunpowder till …
Tingle Creek meeting
For some reason, I know it’s named after a horse, the Tingle Creek meeting at Sandown sounds Christmassy to me, but for sure is an early highpoint in December .
The meeting is joined by Aintree and the Welsh Grand National trial on Saturday to make a decent card. It should make up for the dross we have had during the week!
At this time of the year it’s easy to slip into some gloom. Like the weather, the markets …
Laytown races – Laying on the beach
The races
Since 1868 Laytown has hosted the annual race meeting like no other. With no formal race course to host the equine competitors, these horses are raced on the beach. Laytown catches the attention of wide range of racing and non-racing goers each year.
Quite a few years ago I was captivated by the sight of horses running on the beach. It just seemed a bit different and interesting. So I set my sights on visiting this very unique …
Predicting chaotic markets
Took one look at the racing card this morning and was a bit frustrated. Yes, lots of racing on which is great, but just too much. My spreadsheet gave me the following dialogue: –
“There are 587 runners today over 61 races, an average of 9 runners per race.Based upon long term averages today’s racing is likely to exhibit much less volatility against what we would typically expect to see.If all races start on time, then there will be 11 …
Galwood day one
It was a slow but interesting start to the week at Goodwood and Galway.
The Tuesday is always a bit tricky because the racing cards are a little bit weaker on these days. As a case in point, the top races today dwarf the the whole card from yesterday at both courses.
We have a group one race at Goodwood today, the Sussex stakes, that should prove interesting trading fodder and we also have a Galway plate. Both of these …
BETDAQ Royal Ascot promotion
BETDAQ is back with a key promotion at Royal Ascot, well timed if I say so myself!
As I’m sure you’re aware, next week is a huge one for traders with Royal Ascot and the US Open taking place. BETDAQ has traditionally performed well during the big meetings (see the image below), if not better nowadays than Betfair. So it’s an ideal opportunity to give it a try next week. I tend to trade on both exchanges during these key …
Let’s hope the Derby is this exciting
I’ve taken a diversion from just just posting an image of a result to putting some detail into events at the Oaks today. It was such a fascinating market from beginning to end.
The first thing that happened was ‘Legatissimo’ contracted quite heavily, but the pictures showed that it wasn’t enjoying it’s journey to post, so it looked a obvious lay. Slowly but surely the market reacted to it’s behaviour. This generally got worse till the horse cleared the main …
York Dante Metting
After a successful Chester meeting we roll onto York for the Dante meeting this week.
The York card looks OK but the other stuff on the card today looks a little ‘testing’. For a direct comparison look at the prize money. Bath has a grand total of £19.5k, York £185k. I’ll be cautious and use small stakes at Kempton as a result,
As we move through the early part of the flat turf season, the early part of the week …
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.