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How to profit from 'sweet spots' and 'flat spots'

Why you'll never find a 'sure thing' on the exchanges

Two to watch at Newmarket tomorrow

Get a jump start to the jump season

My 8 out of 10 technique for cashing-in on the 'going'

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31st October 2008

Good afternoon, friends,

In today's Horse Racing Focus...

• 'Sweet spots', 'flat spots' and the route to profit...
  
• Our early season pointers do the business...
  
• When to oppose Brennan and Johnson...

Plenty of winners but no profit...

Ever been daft enough to back a top jockey's every ride over an entire season? No? Glad to hear it. Me neither.

Engaging in such a ludicrous act would demand you place hundreds of bets. Sure, you're going to back your fair share of winners but you're also going to hit a sight more losers. In short - you're going to get plenty of action (maybe more than you need) and a few high spots but, over the course of a season, you're likely to die a slow death and do your money to boot.

To illustrate my point let's take a brief look at the records of the top jump jockeys during the 2007/08 season:

Not a single jockey in the top 10 of the rider's championship produced a profit to a £1 level stake. All the riders rode plenty of individual winners. However, the sheer volume of losing rides engulfed the profits those wins produced - and then some.

Does this mean it's a waste of time betting on the horses any of these jockeys are riding?

No, of course it doesn't. All it means is that it won't generally pay to back all their rides. Just as it won't generally pay to back every horse a trainer saddles. Just as it doesn't pay to back an individual horse every single time a saddle is put on its back.

Discrimination is the key - latching on to situations where wins can be expected and avoiding scenarios where losers are the most likely outcome.

In practice this means delving deep into the individual jockey's (or the trainer's or the horse's) wider record, studying the data in detail and looking at things a little differently than the rest of the market. The objective is to isolate positive micro-trends - specific circumstances, conditions and criteria under which a rider's ratio of winners to losers shifts in our favour. I refer to the process as finding the 'sweet spots'.

An early-season pointer does the business....

The 'sweet spot' strategy has certainly served us well during the early part of the new jumps season.

Earlier this month I highlighted Nigel Twiston-Davies as a trainer well worth following at this time of year. I drew attention to a significant micro-trend within his wider record.... 77 winners from 305 runners in the month of October since 2003 - a strike rate of 25.24%.

Those stats clearly revealed that the early part of the jumps season represents a 'sweet spot' in the Naunton handler's wider record - a time when we can expect the stable to put out a profitable ratio of winners to losers.

And the stats, not to mention Mr Twiston-Davis and his team, have not let us down. During October the yard sent out 72 runners - returning 16 winners at a strike rate of 22% and delivering a profit for backers of £20.43 to a £1 level stake. Good news.

The stable shows no signs of flattening out and I'll be continuing to follow the Twiston-Davies runners until they do show signs of going off the boil. The yard's chasers are of particular interest right now - with 6 winners from 19 runners in October delivering a profit of £24.85 to a £1 level stake.

Emma Lavelle's 'sweet spot' delivers too....

Similarly, on October 14th we sent you a special message which opened by recommending special attention be paid to horses trained by Emma Lavelle during October and November.

This time of year clearly represents a statistical 'sweet spot' in her record. From 2005 she'd had 150 runners and 31 winners in October and November at a strike rate of 20.6%.

And, once again, the stats pointed us towards the profit. During October Lavelle saddled 6 winners from 19 runners at a strike rate of 32% and delivering a £25.00 profit to £1 level stakes.

Like Twiston-Davies, Lavelle is excelling with her chasers right now. In October she sent out 4 chasers and all 4 won - delivering a £33.00 profit to £1 levels stakes. I expect her run of good form to continue throughout November - but until her hurdlers show signs of coming to hand I'd stick with just backing her chasers.

Word to the wise: I hope you got on a few of these winners and have pocketed your share of the profits. But, if not, don't worry. The thing with these 'sweet spots' is that they endure - and there's always next season. Just make a note, put it in your diary, stick it on the fridge door or have it tattooed to the back of your neck - October is a sweet, sweet time to be backing horses from the yards of Nigel Twiston-Davies and Emma Lavelle.

'Flat spots' for the exchange layers....

The opposite of a 'sweet spot' - at least in my lexicon - is a 'flat spot'. A 'flat spot' is a set of specific circumstances, conditions and criteria under which a rider has demonstrated a sustained inability to produce winners.

It takes some work to weed these angles out but the rewards make the effort worthwhile. For one, identification of a 'flat spot' informs you when not to bet and risk your stake. But it's not just about avoiding losses. Identification of a 'flat spot' can also lead to profit - highlighting circumstances when a rider, trainer or horse can be laid on the exchanges.

Of course, it doesn't pay to lay blindly. Every situation needs to be assessed on its own merits. But knowing where a rider's, a trainer's or a horse's 'flat spots' occur is the start of the process of finding a stream of losers to lay over the course of a season.

The 'flat spots' of two top jocks....

Just yesterday I was trawling through the statistical records relating to Richard Johnson and Paddy Brennan - both top flight jockeys who ride plenty of winners and find plenty of support in the market. But, despite their success and their popularity with punters, there are definite micro-trends within their overall records which indicate circumstances when it pays to subject their rides to close scrutiny for laying purposes.

For example, there are 3 courses where Paddy Brennan's performance falls some way below what we might call 'par'. Take a look:

Given that Brennan's strike rate over the last 5 years is 15% it's clear that on these courses he doesn't produce his best returns - they represent a 'flat spot' in his record.

Taking all his rides at these courses together he's produced only 13 winners from 205 rides at a strike rate of 6.3%. Consolidated losses for rides on the three courses amount to -£139.63 - a great result for the layers. Next time Brennan has a runner at any one of these three courses I will be taking a close interest with a view to opposing him on the exchanges.

The same will be true of any rides Richard Johnson takes in Sussex. Don't ask my why but his record when riding on either of the county's jumps tracks is pretty poor - and represents a definite 'flat spot' in his overall record. Take a look:

Johnson's 5-year strike rate stands at 17% and his Sussex rides just don't keep pace. Next time he's up at either Fontwell or Plumpton, I'll be taking a layer's interest in those rides. If the price is right and I like the signs, I'll be opposing him.

Word to the wise: Knowing where a rider's, a trainer's or a horse's 'flat spots' occur is the start of the process of finding a stream of losers to lay over the course of a season.

There's a great weekend of jump racing ahead of us - with good meetings at Wetherby, Ascot and Down Royal. Things are really beginning to hot up as the top horses reappear and get a run under their belts. I bloody well love this time of year, folks!

Until next time, be lucky.

24th October 2008

Good afternoon, friends,

In today's Horse Racing Focus...

• No such thing as a sure thing on the exchanges...

The surefire certainties of yesteryear...

After my first day's work with a major bookmaker - back in late 2002 - I went out for a drink with some of the lads I'd be working alongside. I didn't say too much in the bar but I did tune in to some of the colourful bickering going on around me.

Several younger guys were berating one of my older colleagues. They argued that surefire ways existed to win at the racing - if you knew what you were doing (the subtext being that they did). The older guy was having none of it. He reckoned there was only one certain way of winning on the horses. He reckoned you had to be closely involved with a horse, know when it was definitely NOT going to win and then (discreetly) get the animal laid on the betting exchanges for top money.

At that time betting exchanges were in their infancy. Betfair and Flutter had only very recently merged. Plenty of people in the traditional bookmaking industry had yet to fathom the new technology or come to terms with its implications. The majority of the general public had never even heard of exchanges. But this older colleague was slightly ahead of the game. He'd assimilated and fully digested what others were only starting to realise - that fledgling betting exchanges were a licence to print money for owners, trainers, jockeys, farriers and others prepared to stoop to a little dirty work.

In this new and unregulated environment where anybody could bet on horses to lose, the corrupt, the crooked, the greedy and the bent would have limitless opportunities to pull strokes and make hay. You can see how it might work. Keep the horse unfit enough to deny him a chance of winning. Run one on the wrong track, over the wrong trip on the wrong ground. Make sure the runner has a shoe loose. Drop the anchor out at sea and make sure the horse leaves the stalls late or finds plenty of trouble in running early on. Whatever - just make sure you're laying the horse to lose on the exchanges.

End of the line for the gravy train...

But that was then. For a time I'm pretty sure any number of unscrupulous individuals filled their boots. Some we will have heard about. Others will have got away with it. Some will still be getting away with it now. But this last group should watch themselves.

Exchanges may have unwittingly exposed users to cheats and fraudsters in the early days. However, a subsequent agreement to exchange information about suspicious betting patterns with the racing authorities means that betting exchanges are now at the very forefront of the effort to crackdown on the bad guys. Trainer, Paul Blockley, and jockey Dean McKeown discovered this earlier in the week.

Following a British Horse Racing Authority inquiry into alleged racing corruption
Blockley was 'warned off' for two and a half years, and McKeown 'warned off' for four after both were found guilty of breaching the rules of racing by conspiring to commit a corrupt or fraudulent practice - being involved with others in laying Blockley runners to lose. Evidence against the pair included information disclosed by betting exchanges.

Blockley was found guilty of breaking rules by failing to give McKeown instructions necessary to ensure horses ran on their merits. McKeown was judged by the BHA disciplinary panel to have breached rules by failing to ensure runners in races contested between June 2004 and December 2005 ran on their merits.

Owners Clive Whiting, David Lovatt and Martyn Wakefield were found to be in breach of rules by misleading BHA investigators. So too were Whiting's brother, Vincent, and former owner Marcus Reeder.

The good old bad old days...

Betting exchanges offer fantastic advantages to the racing punter - better value odds, transparent markets and the ability to both back and lay your fancies.

In addition exchange users also have the security of knowing that in instances where fraud is present in the system and clearly identified, then the details see the light of day and the culprits will get the punishment they deserve.

Compare this to situations that have existed in the traditional bookmaking fraternity for years - where 'valued' trainers and connections are offered 'no-lose' betting accounts so that the bookmakers have the low down on which runners are fancied (those they want money on) or not. Such arrangements rarely came into the light and meant punters were often playing against a bookie with an inside line who knew what was 'off' and what wasn't at the races.

Which system is fairest and provides you - the punter - with most protection? Which is unfair and most corrupt? You must make up your own mind but I know where I stand.

For a while it was like a Wild West town on the exchanges. But then the regulators moved in, the sheriffs pinned their badges to their lapels and they set to work cleaning up the town and its image. There are still bandits out there ready to cheat and defraud - prepared to risk livelihood and reputation in the pursuit of seemingly easy cash winnings. If they can get away with it then they will. But the chances are they won't.

For the rest of us, without the 'right' connections and an inside line on a horse, we must seek to profit from our betting in the traditional way. Exchanges offer plenty of profit opportunities and advantages - but in order to capitalise we must continue to do what we have always done.

We must either roll up our sleeves and do the hard graft of finding a steady stream of winners or losers (lays on the exchanges) ourselves. Or we must find somebody prepared to do that work and share the fruits of it with us. There is no other way - at least no other honest way.

Until next time, be lucky.

17th October 2008

Good afternoon, friends,

In today's Horse Racing Focus....

• Solving the 35-runner Cesarewitch....
  
• Get the place value....

Charge of the light brigade....

I'm on my way down to Newmarket for the racing tomorrow. There might be six Group 1 races on the card - including the Champion Stakes and the Dewhurst - but those races are not the main attraction for me. The race that gets my juices flowing is the Cesarewitch Heritage Handicap - the second half of the Autumn double run over 2m2f and due to be contested by 35 runners.

With a field that size the Cesarewitch can look more like the charge of the light brigade than a solvable race for the punter. But there's a strong trend towards good-priced winners and one or two pointers that can take us in the right direction.

The Cesarewitch does not have a recent history of being good to the shortest priced horses. Only one winner of the race from the last ten went off favourite - Detroit City went off the 9/2 jolly in 2006. Over the same period the next shortest price winner was 7/1 - Top Cees back in 1999.

The remaining winners over the last decade have weighed in at prices ranged between 10/1 and 14/1 - so there's plenty of encouragement for those of us who like to find competitive horses at tasty prices.

Splitting the field....

The draw is the place to start. No winner in the last ten years has been drawn below stall 17. And the evidence is that horses drawn in the top third of the field are at a definite advantage. I took a look at the stall position of every runner who made it into the first 5 of a Cesarewitch over the last 7 years. Almost half the horses were drawn in the highest third of the field .

This underlines the importance of waiting for the draw for the Cesarewitch before plunging onto your fancy. A horse might have just about everything going for it but a bad draw in the low third will disadvantage the animal at the very least - maybe even scupper its chances completely.

Breaking my own rules....

Normally I'd wait for the draw before splitting the field and making sense of what remained. This year I broke my own rules and had already formed strong opinions before the draw. Now I needed the draw to go the right way - which made waiting for news of it a pretty tense affair. I was literally begging for top-third stalls for both Mamlook and Liberate. And I was rewarded with the David Pipe and Paul Cole runners being drawn 28 and 24 respectively.

Eight of the last ten Cesarewitch winners were officially rated between 83 and 98. Both Mamlook and Liberate fit the bill running off 84 and 87. But it was their performances in the Ascot Stakes over 2 miles in June that drew my attention to the pair as candidates for the Cesarewitch. Mamlook finished 2nd and Liberate 3rd behind Missoula.

They meet the winner again tomorrow - but Missoula wasn't quite so fortunate with the draw and will run from stall 9. Mamlook and Liberate lost a head and a shoulder respectively at Ascot. Given the draw advantage they'll enjoy tomorrow I'd suggest that defeat can be overturned. Both will also appreciate the easier going at Newmarket tomorrow. The race at Ascot was on firmer ground.

Having Ryan Moore and Jamie Spencer onboard won't hurt either. Both have a track record of landing big-field handicaps like this - their cool heads and seemingly impeccable timing having much to do with that success.

Get the fifth place running for you....

So that's where my mind is right now. Firmly fixed on the 3.50 at Newmarket tomorrow.

No doubt you all have your own opinion in the race. Or you'll be similarly focused on other races. But...! If you are going to punt selections in the Cesarewitch with a bookie - make sure you get the fifth place running for you.

In a big field like the Cesarewitch field - with plenty at nice prices - it makes sense to bet each-way. That way, if your horse runs a big race but doesn't quite make the winner's enclosure, you can drown your sorrows with a place payout.

Now, some bookmakers fight hard for your business- offering incentives to bet with them. Others take a different line and offer no inducements, no concessions, no cherry to tempt you to punt on their book. It always pays to identify and bet with the former whilst ignoring the latter.

So the bookies offering enhanced place terms of 1/4 on the first 5 finishers are of special interest to you. That extra place can make all the difference. bet365, boylesports, totepsort, bluesq, paddy power and 888sport all go 1/4 odds for 1-2-3-4-5 place on the Cesarewitch.

Whatever you do, don't bet each-way with stingy bookies like Coral, Hills, Ladbrokes, VC bet, betfred and skybet who will only paying out on the first 4.

Until next time, be lucky.

10th October 2008

Good afternoon, friends,

In today's Horse Racing Focus...

• Getting the right 'going' report...
• A jump start to your National Hunt season...

Getting the right going report...

You can't always trust the official going as we discussed last week. Human error can produce official going reports that don't reflect the true nature of the ground conditions underfoot. And racecourse officials face continual temptations to 'tweak' their going assessments to ensure trainers and horses don't desert a racecard on the strength of ground being too soft or too firm.

None of this is particularly helpful to us punters. The original error is taken for fact and becomes part of the permanent form record - meaning punters are permanently misled and misinformed about the conditions a specific race was run in. The official going might be returned as soft. We might know from our own observations that the going is actually heavy. But no matter - the formbook will say the race was run on soft ground.

This messes up the information base we have to work from. It can be a real nightmare trying to figure out whether or not a horse goes on soft ground when some of its supposed runs on soft ground were actually run on a heavy surface. How do you sort the wheat from the chaff? How do you figure out what were the horse's true soft-ground runs and which were not?

Faced with this dilemma there are two paths toward certainty...

Embrace that old stick in the mud

The 'going stick' is a relatively new innovation in racing - created in 2000 by Turftrax for the UK Horseracing Regulatory Authority and approved for use in 2003.

It works like this: the stick's 4 inch probe is stuck into the ground to measure penetration and is then pulled back at a 45 degree angle to simulate the shear of a horse's hoof. The stick is used to produce measurements at up to 60 locations on flat courses and up to 80 locations on National Hunt tracks. A measurment or reading of 1 represents the softest ground and a measurement of 14 represents the firmest.

The going stick is now used on all UK racecourses. Its readings form part of the going reports at the Racing Post website and are also recorded as a component part of their race results.

Different readings mean different things at different courses owing to variations in soil types and other circumstances - but the data the going stick produces does appear to provide a basis for some degree of certainty about the state of the ground. Looking back at readings for meetings at Newcastle, for example, a reading of 7.8 would suggest genuine good going. Elsewhere genuine good going might produce a reading of 8.5.

Look back before you get on

There's a little work involved in figuring out what figure means what and where - but this is pretty simple. Go through a few months worth of results from any specific course and you soon get a feel for what ground type lies where on the scale. As an aside it's my belief that racing authorities - assuming they actually want punters to engage with new innovations - should be providing this type of information as a matter of course.

The beauty of the going stick's numerical data is that it provides a great deal more insight than words alone. Official going of 'good' doesn't really tell you much. Was it genuine good ground? Was it slightly on the softer side? Was it almost good to soft? Was it just a little firmer than good? Was it almost good to firm?

The word 'good' doesn't really give you the full picture. An accurate numerical rating tells you much more. If genuine good ground at a specific course is 7.2 then a reading of 7.6 tells you it was a little on the firmer side. A reading of 6.8 tells you it was slightly on the softer side.

There's groundwork (forgive the pun) involved in figuring these things out - but there's a real edge to be gained from taking that work on.

Race times tell us the true story

A quicker way of establishing the accuracy (or not) of the official going at any given meeting on any given day is to check out the results archive at the Racing Post.

Here's what you do. Go to the Racing Post's home page, select the 'Racing' tab, select 'Results' and then select any day's recent results. We're not actually interested in that day's results. We're just taking a shortcut. In the top right hand corner of your screen you can now see a search facility that enables you to check results from the Racing Post archive.

For the purposes of this example we're interested in the results from Brighton on the 8th August this year. So, first of all change the date to 8th August 2008 and then select 'Go'. Now select Brighton from the pull down menu.

This will bring up a table of race results. You'll see that the official going for the meeting that day was returned as Good. However, the times recorded by the race winners that day -when measured against the Post's vast archive of race times - suggest the ground was actually riding Good to Firm.

Now try the same for Haydock on September 16th this year. Here, the official going was returned as Heavy. However, the times recorded by the winners suggest the ground was actually riding good in the early part of the meeting before deteriorating to good to soft as the afternoon wore on.

It's not unusual for time-based ground reports to contradict the official going in this manner. And it often very interesting when looking at the record of an individual horse to substitute official going (as appears in the form book) with this time based going from the RP website. This simple move can paint a very different picture of a horse, what it likes and what it doesn't - giving you a real edge on the rest of the market.

And now for something completely different...

A jump start to the jumps season...

For me the jump season doesn't really feel real until the Open meeting at Cheltenham in mid-November. But that doesn't mean there aren't one or two interesting angles to take advantage of before then.

For example, right now is the traditional time of year to take an interest in the string of Nigel Twiston-Davies. Take a look at the Naunton handler's record during the month of October from 2003 to date:

Twiston-Davies has hit a strike rate of 23% or more in the October of every season since 2003. When it comes to getting a string of racehorses fit enough to hit the ground running and win races early in the season Twiston-Davies takes some beating. Results so far this month suggest this trend is well-set to continue this season. Take a look:

When considering his horses for betting purposes at this time of year, my advice would ordinarily be to stick to the hurdlers and chasers and to forget the bumper horses. The record of his National Hunt flat runners generally doesn't compare so well at this time of year:

However, nothing is black and white in racing and so far this season, Twiston-Davies has sent out 15 NHF runners and notched up 6 wins at a strike rate of 40%. So... use your discretion.

Paddy Brennan and David England take most of the rides for this stable - and ride most of the winners. You'll miss the odd winner avoiding horses ridden by other jockeys but you'll also swerve a lot of losers. Since the beginning of 2007 outside jockeys have taken 87 rides for the stable and produced just 10 winners at a strike rate of just 11%. Stick to the Brennan and England mounts and you won't go far wrong.

Until next time, be lucky.

3rd October 2008

Good morning, friends,

In today's Horse Racing Focus...

• The official going and why you can't always trust it...

The going is key

Whenever you are considering backing a horse - in whatever kind of race - you know there is one question you should be asking yourself ahead of any other: will the horse act on the going?

The state of the ground is absolutely KEY to determining the outcome of races. If your horse has demonstrated in the past that it cannot handle the ground on which it will be racing today then, under no circumstances, should it be carrying your hard-earned cash.

Sticking to this simple rule will mean you miss backing the odd fluke winner. But it will also ensure that you successfully swerve many more losing bets.

When is good ground not good ground?

Now you might think it's a simple matter to establish a horse's preferred ground? Or to identify the type of ground on which it simply won't perform? Surely it's just a matter of examining the horse's record, scrutinising its performances on the various types of going it has encountered and, from there, drawing some conclusions as to what type of ground conditions it handles and those it doesn't?

Now, approximately 8 times out of 10, this approach would serve you very well. But there are odd occasions when this approach will derail your best efforts, lead you to jump to erroneous conclusions and encourage you to make some bad bets.

Why?

Because this approach requires you to take the official going reports returned for every meeting at face value. And there are occasions when to do that is folly. Let me explain...

The official going

The official going at each of the UK racetracks is determined by a race official known as the Clerk of the Course. You've probably seen these guys in action from time to time. They're the guys generally rigged out in tweed suits and green wellies, poking walking sticks into arbitrary parts of the course or digging the heels of their boots into the ground to assess the degree of give underfoot.

From such intricate and scientific techniques of measurement are official going reports born. On the evidence of one man's walking stick and the heel of his boot the official going at any particular course on any particular day will be categorized using one of the following descriptions:

• Hard
• Firm
  
• Good to firm
• Good
  
• Good to soft
  
• Soft
• or Heavy

It will not come as any surprise to learn that the men in tweed and green wellington boots can get it wrong.

When the going gets announced, the smart look closer

We've all, at one time or another, watched an afternoon's racing - either live at the track or on the TV - where what we are seeing with our eyes bears no resemblance to the official going returned for the meeting.

We've all seen races on supposed 'good to soft' ground where the kickback of mud from the horses leaves the jockeys and horses absolutely plastered. At times like these we know from our own observations that 'soft' going would more accurate.

And we've all seen races on supposed 'soft' ground where the horses are literally drowning in mud. Greys look like bays and every jockey appears to be wearing dark brown silks and breeches. The official going says 'soft' but we know in our own minds it is really 'heavy'.

And it's the same on the flat - where the official going might be 'good to firm' but jockeys returning to the enclosure are saying the track is riding as hard as a road. At times like that we conclude the going might actually be better described as 'firm'.

Avoiding the extremes

Given the lack of scientific method involved in calculating the official going such mistakes are inevitable - the product of honest human error. However, we should not forget or ignore that on occasions there are incentives for the Clerk of the Course to get his deliberations a bit wrong.

On extremes of going - when it's heavy or really firm - trainers tend to pull horses from races in bigger numbers than would ordinarily be the case. Many trainers don't want to risk damaging or tearing the backside out of a horse on ground that is physically testing or might jar the horse up.

So, when the going is extreme, there's an obvious temptation for the course officials to disguise the fact. No course wants a lot of non-runners which decimate the card and provide race goers and TV viewers with a diminished spectacle.

When the going is truly heavy it might suit officials to say it is soft. When the going is really hard they might find it more convenient to say it is firm. Understandable perhaps from the course's point of view. But it's not a lot of use to the punter.

When the formbook lies

The problem for punters is that the 'official going' remains the 'official going' whether or not it accurately reflects conditions the race was run in. Viewers watching at home or at the track can see that the course is riding heavy. But if the official going is 'soft' then it is 'soft' that will appear in the next day's records, in the horse's individual record and - crucially - the formbook.

In other words, the formbook will be giving us false information.

So how do we deal with this dilemma? How can we trust what the formbook says? How can we establish whether the reported official going was correct? How can we fathom what the true going was when the official going appears to be wrong?

Fortunately there are methods for dealing with this problem - some little checks and balances we can make to ensure we are always working from information that reflects reality. Given that 99.9% of the market relies wholly on the official version of events they are presented with - our checks and balances can provide us with a real edge.

It involves a little work - but that work is worth the effort. In next week's issue I will reveal two methods I use to ensure I know exactly what the going was on any given day - regardless of the returned official going.

And I'm going to show YOU exactly how you can use that information to get an edge in the betting markets.

Until next time,

Be lucky.