Tag: racing
£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.
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, …
Dogs
Had a quick go at the televised Greyhound racing last night. Nothing special but a satisfactory result. There are lots of greyhound races on each day and if you have never tried it, it is worth giving it a go. Volumes can reach £10-20k per race and the markets are a little illiquid, but they are a decent supplement to horse racing for smaller users.
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 …
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 …
Going grey
With the weather hitting the horse racing, I’ve been playing around in Greyhound markets a lot more. Greyhound markets are a different beast from horse racing for sure, but they are viable as a market. I don’t think they are viable on the scale of other markets but they certainly can produce the goods. I can’t afford to spend too much time on these markets but I think they should be of interest to many others.
In this P&L you …
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 …
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 …
An ill wind….
Tis an Ill win that blows no good, so they say. With an ill wind blowing down from the artic it looks like racing is going to suffer badly over the next week. Saturday is pretty much a wipe out by the look of it.
So….. Hopefully you can now see the context of this blog entry back in the summer.
I know it seemed odd to some that you would put trading first in these situations. But that week …
There was a little girl
You may have heard this poem before: –
There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.
The market can feel like that at times and it can be the very thing that throws you off balance. But you have to believe that just as the market can be horrid she can be very good …
Cheltenham
Nice to see Chelt’s back on the card and some decent jump racing. I am hoping to get something out of the open meeting and it has worked well in previous years. Looks like we have finally arrived in the jumps season proper.
With it’s arrival we also have some bad weather on the doorstep but also Christmas decorations in the shop. It’s put me in a festive mood and looking forward to the upcoming holidays.
I tend to be …
Zenyatta – History not made
A real disappointment to see Zenyatta not make history this evening. But an odd ride by the jockey who was trailing by some distance for most of the race and only produced Zenyatta on the last bend. While I can’t claim to be a jockey or understand racing that well, with such a huge prize on offer, it seems odd to have ridden the race like that.
Pretty liberal use of the whip late on as well as it was …
Jockey title opportunties
Another close Jockey championship draws to a close this weekend and it’s going to the wire by the look of it.
https://www.thepja.co.uk/champ_flat.aspx
The battle is throwing up some interesting trading opporunties as people start to discount the prospect of a jockey change bringing a change of fortune for individual horses. Certainly there is a big incentive to win races that may have been over looked earlier in the season. Keep your eyes open for racing with either of the …
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