HORSE RACING

This page will contain some articles based on my observations from my ratings and turf investment activity. I hope that these will provide some food for thought.

Betting The Exotics

Quite a few punters make a reasonable living backing the exotics. So I decided to see if I could use my ratings for the same purpose without breaking the bank. One of the aspects I note is that quite often I can pick up a Quinella in my top 3 picks (1st and 2nd). I therefore figured that I could use my top three picks for the 1st and 2nd selections in a Trifecta (1st, 2nd & 3rd in order)and use the top 5 selections for the 3rd position in a Trifecta. This will cost $18 or $9 for a 50% collect. In some states in Australia you are able to place a flexi bets which simply means that you can nominate how much you want to spend and you will receive a percentage of the win based on your outlay. So $4.50 would gain you a 25% share if you use my formula as follows: 123/123/12345. These being the order of my ratings not the horse numbers.

The Last Two Days

Friday night 3rd February 2012 had a night meeting at Moonee Valley, Canterbury and the Sunshine Coast. The fields were fairly weak at the latter venue and therefore I had no selections there. I also had no selections at Canterbury because of the state of the track a Heavy 10. That left Moonee Valley. The first race I rated was Race 2, a Restricted 72 class for Mares over 1000M. There were only 7 starters and I figured that the Trifecta would not pay a great deal. It ended up paying $86, however I left the race alone as I prefer 8 or more starters to give some value should the Trifecta come in. I did get the winner which only paid$2.60.

The next race I had rated was Race 6 – a Restricted 78 Class race over 2040M. Nine starters were engaged after scratchings. My selections in order were 4,6,1, 8, & 7. The result was No 6 Sidecar Won at $2.30 with No 4 Richoman 2nd and No 8 The Night’s Hot filling the third spot. As I normally back 2 selections per race I was of course hoping that No 4 would win as it started at $7.00. Not to be. The third placed horse was the second favourite so I won the Trifecta which paid $29.80 for my outlay of $18. Not a great start but at least I did not lose.

The next race I missed the winner, the Quinella and of course the Trifecta. Not a good start so far. That left the last race for the night a RestrictedRB68 for Filly and Mares. Not a race to inspire confidence.  The ratings in order came up with No 6 Equal Rights, No 2 Besant, No 10 Queen For Ninedays, No 8 Golden Ascent and No 4 Dolmabache. So my Trifecta for $18 looked like this:-  6-2-10/6-2-10/6-2-10-8-4. No 6 Equal Rights Won and paid $20.80 for the win, No 10 Queen For Ninedays ran second and started at just under $6.00 while our fifth pick No 4 filled the third slot. The Trifecta paid $1052.10 while the Quinella paid $63. All in all a good nights racing, four races for two Trifectas, an outlay of $54 for a total return of $1089.90. Plus I picked up two Quinellas and of course the dividends for three winners.

The Saturday Activity

I continued on Saturday buoyed by Fridays Nights results. I rated 10 races for the day. Managed to pick up 5 winners from the twenty horses I backed for a slight profit. However I managed to also pick up two Trifecta collects. For an outlay of $180 I collected $605.80. Encouraging results if you combine the two days. I will see how it fares over the long haul.

Sunday came and went and I had 10 races. Tasmania was the highlight in that they had a number of feature race. Excellent day because I manged to snag two 20/1 winners in my top two ratings plus a number of lesser priced winners. As to the exotic side I only got one Quinella and Trifecta up. The latter paid $336.00 so for an outlay of $180 I had a return of odds on; $360 return would be evens. I came very close to getting a couple of others but missed out in the photo for 2nd and 3rd. So its still an encouraging venture. We will see what next weekend has to bring. I will keep you posted.

The Second Weekend Update (10-12Feb12)

Friday Night - The second weekend has just passed and the results continued. Friday afternoon and night produced 8 races for no Trifectas, 1 Quinella which paid $21.80 and six winners including one at $14.50, another at $9,80 and another one at $8.70. So I made a return from  the straight win punting at $10 per horse of $304 for an outlay of $160. To wrap it all up I lost $1 after taking into account my outlay for Quinellas and Trifectas. The easy way out of that is to up the bets on the win betting to say $20 a horse, but I want to keep it within reach of the average punter. The alternate is to take the Trifectas for half which would cost $9 a time. Which would have meant a profit $71 for the Friday.

Saturday – The day’s activities started with Sydney Race 3. I missed out on the winner because it was my 3rd pick that won. However I still got the Quinella and the Trifecta as my top pick ran 2nd and my 5th pick filled the third placing. That gave me the Quinella which paid $18 plus the Trifecta at $358.80. My outlay on the race was as before $10 each on the two top picks, $3 for the Quinella and $18 for the Trifecta. A total of $41.00 with a return of $376.80 without backing the winner. Made up for the Friday in one hit. Sometimes I do have a saver on the third rated pick if its at double figure odds and mainly to cover my bets. In this I did not as I rarely have a collect on those. In all Saturday produced 15 bettable races in all calling for a total investment of $300 for Win bets, $45 for the Quinellas and $270 for the Trifectas. A sizable investment but doable if you get collects on the way. The first race ensured that I would be able to go for awhile before having to dig into my hard earned. In short I made a profit of $462.20 on the Win bets picking up the winner in ten of the races. Some with juicy odds. Cracked it for only 3 Trifectas with a return of $1036 so there is a profit of $766 and I only managed 6 Quinellas for a return of $244.60 which gave a profit of a neat $200.60. So in all Saturday produced a profit of $1437.20. Certainly made up for the $1 I lost on Friday.

Sunday – That  then leaves Sunday which saw 8 playable races from 8 venues. So I am selective with the races I invest on as I tend to limit it to races where there is a heap of exposed form, which limits me to Open Handicaps, Black type races, etc. Hobart had a Listed race and a Group 3 to invest on. The win component made a Profit of $120 getting six winners from the eight races for a return of $280 with an outlay of $160. Some were at fairly skinny odds such as Youthful Jack in Hobart. Managed to sneak in 3 Quinellas for a return of $53.50 giving a profit of $29.50 on the $24 outlay. The Trifectas saw an investment of $144 ($18×8) with 2 Trifectas saluting for a return of $194.2 which again provided a profit of $50.20. So Sunday provided a total return of $199.70 ($120+$29.50+$50.20). Added to Saturdays effort and the disappointing result for Friday it was a nice weekend spent on the punt.

Summary

I think I have proved to myself that adding some exotics to my punting venture is doable, enjoyable and profitable. I do normally limit my betting activity to the weekend but just broke the rule and today Monday 13Feb12 had a flutter on the feature race in Warrnambool in Victoria and my top 2 selection ran 1st and 2nd but unfortunately I did not have the 3rd pick. The winner paid $7.40, the Quinella $15.80. A total collect of $89.80 for my $41 invest. One day I will crack it for a decent Trifecta such as the one on Friday night at Moonee Valley which paid over a thousand. I did a check back on some of my result and late last year I would have cracked it for a $12330 Trifecta. That makes up for a lot of $18 invests. So you can see that you do not have to have a big bank to start, you could simply start with the Quinellas along with the win component, build up a bank and then go for the Trifectas starting at a 50c unit which would cost $9.00 for half the Trifecta payout. One word however, I have my own ratings, if you do not do your own you may have to buy some. Whether their results are similar to mine I do not know because I seem to able to get a good smattering of double figure winners. Also avoid races where there is an odds on pick and its one of the selections. The return would be minimal and not worth investing in. See the next article about Odds On Look On.

Arnold Vee

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Odds On Look On

I have always wondered why some people back horses at odds on. That simply means that for every dollar you put on the horse you will win less than a dollar. So at odds of $1.40 an outlay of $10 dollar would return $14.00 which is a $4.00 win. The reason why the horse is at odds on is simply because the horse is considered to be the favorite because of its past ability and winning history. Over a period of time the favorites will win about 30% to 50% of races depending on odds. The shorter the odds the higher the winning percentage. If the winning percentage is at the higher end you would need at least evens (1/1) which is a win of $1 for an outlay of $1 to just cut square over a period of time. Not a profitable proposition by any stretch. The bookmakers I used to pencil for were more than happy to stand a horse over the gap at odds on as they knew the percentages were well and truly in their favor.

Horse Analysis

Some will say you can apply several factors to reduce the chance of losing on favorites through analysis. This would be based on  class, allotted weight, barrier,  jockey, race distance, track preference, trainer, state of the track and the capability of the other runners. In fact many of the factors that a good rating system would take into account. But at the price given out it has obviously been analyzed by a number of experts and backed in by the smarties before you get a chance to get your money on at the shortened price.

Eddie The Fireman

Some years ago in Australia there was a fearless punter known as “The Fireman” who bet up on short priced favorites. He had bets up $200,000 back in the seventies and eighties. He was fearless but unfortunately the short prices caught up to him. His real name is Edward Albert Granville Birchley (Eddie to his friends). Eddie was a fascinating character not just for his punting but also his boxing ability (won 13 professional fights) and fitness regime. He swam just about every day even in his seventies. The Fireman tag came from his days as a fireman.

Avoid the Temptation

My philosophy is that there are more races than the one with the odds on horse. Be patient. In fact I have on occasions backed my selections against an odds on horse and won and got great odds. Having said all that I did at one stage back an odds on favorite. I was at the trots (harness races) and the favorite was odds on at 1/2 on ($1.50) but was showing $1.60 the place on the tote. I figured that as everyone was backing it to win at that price then if it was to miss it should still be able to run a place. So I had three chances of collecting. It actually won and I picked up more money than those who had backed it with the bookmakers. I do not advocate each way betting either and prefer betting to win only – but that’s for another article. Personally its a far greater thrill to collect on a horse at say 20/1 than odds on and it makes up for quite a few losses on the way.

Arnold Vee

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Following the Ratings

I realized from a bitter lesson many years ago that you must have faith in your ratings. Now that makes for some interesting days and certainly tests the resolve on occasions. Yet over a period of time the ratings come out in front. I did the ratings on the Tramway Handicap back in 1991 which is  black listed race. In rating order I came up with Moville Peter, Majestic Boy and Livistona Lane. It was run at Royal Randwick. The Bookmakers had Moville Peters at 133/1 and Majestic Boy at 50/1. Our third selection Livistona Lane started as the 7/4 favorite. So I checked our ratings again because I was skeptical. Moville Peter had recently run 9th in a country race and I thought that I had obviously done something wrong. In those days we did the ratings manually and the ratings were based on the best run from the last 6 to 9 starts. Its recent form did not seem to back up its rating figure nor did the ratings for Majestic Boy. hence the odds offered.

The Bets

My son and I were putting about $100 a win on each of the top 2 selections and also taking the Quinella for $5 (first 2  in any order) and boxed the top three for the Trifecta (Top three in order of 1st, 2nd and 3rd). At this stage of proceedings we were already up a bit over $1000 so the amount of the bet was not a problem. Still we dithered. Rechecked the calculations and decided that we were obviously wrong. So instead of our usual bet we put on $10 the win on the top 2 and decided to leave it at that because we were already nicely in front. We would have no hope at those odds on the Quinella or Trifecta.

The Result

You guessed it; our selections ran 1st , 2nd and 3rd in order of our ratings. Moville Peter paid $158.00 the win so we picked up $1580 for our $10 instead of $15,800. The Quinella paid $4764 and we would have had it 5 times, or $23820. The Trifecta paid $36236.70. An outlay of $1 would have netted us the Trifecta. We should have collected well over $70000. It might have been a bit less because we would have had a share of the Trifecta pool but it would still have been a sizable collect. We slunk off the course with a little over $2500, a good win by any standard yet we felt like absolute losers. Neither of us punted for about 4 years. We figured that if we did not have faith in our ratings then we shouldn’t be there.

The Moral

If you are doing ratings you must have faith in them. Presumably you have done a fair bit of research and tweaked them to your satisfaction before you put on the hard earned, Your research should also have highlighted that there will be days when everything goes pear shaped and other days where everything you touch will be gold. The trick is to have more days of gold so that over a period of time you know you will win and win well. This is where the psychology comes in and its a hard battle to get over that hurdle. I now have faith in my selections and its paid dividends. I also bet a lesser amount these days and enjoy the game – to Hell with the psychology. I have had a couple of 100/1 winners since Moville Peter and was on them for the right amount. Lesson learnt!

Arnold Vee

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Jumping Up In Distance

I have always had my doubts when a horse jumps sharply in distance from its previous start. Is it still a worthwhile betting proposition or do I rely on my instincts and let the race pass? Last Weekend Race 1 in Ipswich (Australia) was run over a distance of 1666M race. My ratings came up with two selections “Red Ferments” and “Gold Rating”.  “Red Ferments” is a 6 year old gelding who had previously won up to 1300M out of 54 starts and this was its 10th start from a spell. Its last start was at 1200M and it was jumping up 466M from its last start. There was no history of it starting close to this distance in its entire career. I dismissed it as a selection for the event. It ran accordingly.

Which brings me to the the other rating selection “Gold Rating”. It was second up and went up 566M from its first start in this preparation which was at 1100M. It had won first up that day at 14/1 and had been its first up win from 6 first up starts. This was its 2nd start in this preparation. Its a 5 year old gelding and has previously had four second up runs. Its second up record was 4 starts for 1 win, 1 second, and 1 third. The other aspect is that it had won over 1600M on four occasions.  The horse has had 23 starts for 6 wins and is gradually climbing through its classes. It was a Benchmark 89 (BM89) race which I would rate as being equivalent to a 1 Metro win in the last year (LY1). Some will argue this class level but I will leave this as a discussion for an article for another day. So the quandary is do I back it or not? I erred on the side of caution and let the race go. “Gold Rating” won at $5.00 Starting Price (4/1) and the best on the Tote was $4.70. Did I go the wrong way?

I have on numerous occasions come up with selections which I assessed as iffy over the distance either stepping up steeply in distance or attempting a much longer distance for the first time and many of them still came out and won. Do we trust the trainer or was he just experimenting? Or do we trust the ratings? It is a difficult one. I had another 11 races for last Saturday in which I assessed that there were better betting propositions. I won on the day but its always hard in hindsight to know I left a 4/1 winner out of the equation.

Arnold Vee

OTHER RATING FACTORS

Barrier Draws

Most racing enthusiasts will have come up with a selection that has drawn a wide barrier. Do you scrub the horse or back it? It really depends on the horse. If it is a speedster it may well be used up early in getting out and across to the front of the field. This early effort may tell at the end of the race. Some horses are happy to sit back in the field and come home with a withering run. A wide barrier can suit this type of horse as it will incur little interference when it goes to make its run. If it was locked up in the pack it may not be able to navigate its way out in time to make its final dash. Barrier number 1 can be a killer barrier for horses that do not jump out of the barrier quickly. It can be fenced in and not get a crack at the leaders.

Racecourse

Another factor in all of this is the racecourse. If it has a long straight giving all horses a chance, particularly the back markers who can get out of the pack and come home. In a course with a short straight you are normally looking for front runners with a favorable barrier draw. If they jump quickly any barrier from 1 through to 8 or so will suit them. Moonee Vally is a prime example of a track with a short straight while Sandown and Rosehill have long straights. Flemington allows for straight races up to 1200M so every horse is conceivably in with a show. At Flemington it sometimes becomes a question of which side of the track has the better going. Is it an even track or is the going near the inside fence slower than in the middle of the field or near the outer fence?.

Running Style

Generally I do not attach as much emphasis to a horse’s barrier draw as many others would. Its a judgement more related to the horse’s style of running, today’s track and the state of the track’s going. The style of running played and to some extent the barrier combined to take a part in last Saturday’s selections (25 June 2011). Morphettville is the metropolitan track in South Australia in Adelaide. Generally it is a track where many front runners are run down by the back markers. The ratings for Race 8 came up with “Full Metal Jacket” ,  “Exalted Brother” and the third pick “Ace or Joku”.

“Full Metal Jacket” rated on top and based on its past two wins verified its selection. It did not run a place, it was stepping up from 1200M to 1600M but had previously won over 2015M so the step should not have mattered. Exalted Brother started from Barrier 11 in a field of 12. Its an on pace horse and tries to lead in most of its races. I figured that it would use up quite a bit of energy to get across to the front from the jump. It carried top weight with 58.5KG, has failed at both starts at today’s distance so I scrubbed it accordingly surmising that it would be over-hauled by the backmarkers in the straight when the going counts. So I did not simply rely on only one factor to scrub the horse from my selections. The third pick generally races mid field and if it can get out comes home with a burst near the end of the race. It became my second selection. It won and paid $9.30 as the best tote price but only started at $6.00 with the books. It was $7.00 at one stage of the market.

You may think this is a brave call and if so the prices on offer on all three were $3.50 “Full Metal Jacket”, $8.50 “Exalted Brother” and $9.20 “Ace or Joku”.  An outlay of say 2 units on the favorite and 1 unit on each of the others would still have provided a nice return for the race. A form guide such as the Sportsman provides each horse with its last 9 starts so the form for analysis is readily available to the public. You can also look up the full form on www.ozform.com or www.racingandsports.com.au. Both sites are free and provide the full history of race horses in Australia.

Arnold Vee

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