2yo - Decoding The Trip & The Start Of The Race
Welcome to my latest blog. In many ways it could be considered the second part of my Decoding The Going For An Unraced 2yo blog. Although I would hope this blog should be entertaining and informative by itself it may be worth reading that one first if you haven’t already.
Along with many other devotees of the sport I love to watch the 2yo horses run. There is something magic about watching a group of unraced babies break from the stalls, none of which have any clue about what is going on.
We need to know if an unraced 2yo can handle the distance that she will have to run. We can assume the trainer thinks she will and it is a losing strategy to try to outguess the trainer in these matters. His job, is after all, to recognise and release the potential of any given animal. The better the trainer, the more likely they are to have made the correct decision.
In the same way that we looked at the going stats for the parents and the grandsire of the 2yo we need to do the same for the distance. The most useful stats are the form of the sire and the dam (the mother) in this regard. Look at not only the distance's they raced, but how old they were when they performed well at the distance that we are looking for. It’s also a good idea to look at the form of any brothers or sisters by the same dam. Progeny which share the same sire are the most relevant.
The progeny stats can be a little misleading but will give a good guide. The reason they can be a little misleading is that these are the stats for all age groups. A good example of why this is an issue without trying to make things too complicated is that the stats are likely to show a % of winning horses that has run 1m 6f. Try running a 2yo at 1m6f and you will have a very unhappy and tired baby horse.
You can generally tell your fortunes quite quickly in the early stages of the race. The installation and the break are really important. The trainers can only do so much to prepare a horse for competition.
Even the calmest of horses can start to get upset being installed. They have to deal with the new surroundings, the noise of the crowd and the commentary, the parade and the nerves of riding down to the start. When they arrive, they have to deal with the surprise of what happens next.
All flat horses have stalls training and some react to it better than others. Problems can include claustrophobia, a fear of the unknown through to the horse not liking the feel of the stall touching his sides. The latter problem is reasonably easily solved by providing a horse with a blanket to protect her sides from touching the stalls. Nervous horses are sometimes blindfolded at the start. I have seen the blindfold removed too late on more than a few occasions. The phrase headless chicken takes on a whole new meaning.
The draw is likely to be specific to 2yo with variances compared to an older field. For example, a young inexperienced horse may do better when starting near a corner if she can see through the turn. A more experienced horse would be happy to trust the jockey and take the rail.
I hope you enjoyed the read. If you did why not have a look at some of the other blogs on the website. I always appreciate it if my blog is retweeted on Twitter. It encourages me to write and allows more people to read my work.
The ITV7 - Singles
This is the second part of my blog regarding the ITV7. The first part is also in the blogs section of this website.
The intrepid horseplayer will no doubt wish to cover the singles in the ITV7 as they are the most likely bets that will actually win. As an ex-bookie I can see the number of races that they have chosen to present to the consumer is cynical to say the least! The average punter might be able to hit a 20% hit rate. For the purpose of these examples let’s call him Sid. This would suggest the bookie is working on the horseplayer winning 1.4 of the 7 singles that he has placed. This would suggest that the most likely result is 1 winner with 0 on a bad day and 2 on a good day.
Favourites are more likely to win than other horses so imagine Sid scored one favourite the return might be:
1 point at 2/1 = 3 points
7 points – 3 points = -4 points
There is usually an odds on shot so let's say that was a winner too! Now there are two winners and the profit is:
1 point at 4/6 = 1.67
3 points + 1.67 points = 4.67 points
4.67 Points – 7points = -2.33 points
There will be at least one grumpy betting enthusiast (possibly called Sid) looking at this thinking “I would never back at that 4/6 price!”
Excellent! Let's say you picked the second favourite at 3/1.
Two winners and the profit is now:
3 points + 4 points = 7 points
7 points – 7points = 0 points.
Well done you broke even. I bet that still makes you grumpy!
We should investigate the same thing but with bigger prices. It’s a good day for Sid with his 20%-win rate. He’s had his Weetabix and Sid hits a 6/1 shot in the first but waits the rest of the card to discover he has had no more winners to go with it. You guessed it – he broke even.
For a punter of this calibre the most likely horse he would be scoring with in addition to this is again a favourite but we will be generous by looking at the other option and say that he got a 5/1 to go with it.
This happens:
6 points + 7points = 13 points
13 points - 7points = 6 points profit.
All good right!
No, not really. Sid has a poor next round, gets everything placed and is now losing to the bookies! He should have read my previous blog and wagered on the ITV7 placepot!
Whilst it is tempting to back all your ITV7 selections as singles it is better to focus on the runners that you are the most sure about. If you just back the horses you think have a good chance to win you are likely to much better off in the long term. It sounds logical, doesn’t it? The average punter may develop a fear of missing out (FOMO) and is more likely to remember the times he “lost” (zero sum) by not backing a winning horse than the times he won (zero sum) by not taking part. There is no reason not to back a horse EW or to miss a leg if you have decided the selection is a bit dodgy.
I will be writing more about the ITV7 along with many other topics in the future.
I wish you all the best of luck.
The ITV7 - Accumulators
Today I thought I might talk about a free bet that I have a love/hate relationship with - the ITV7.
The ITV7 is a free bet that can be placed on 7 nominated races which may or may not be shown by ITV. Each of the legs has to win and in the event of more than one winner a tie break question based upon the number of winning lengths has to be answered. Many people get great pleasure from this bet.
People often underestimate the difficulty of the task that they face. To pick out 7 horses to win in a row, even in races which you have picked yourself, is an extreme task. To pick out 7 in a row in races nominated by someone else, is even harder. The people behind ITV7 have been very clever as to minimise payouts they have also put in a tie break question of how many lengths one of the selections will win by in a nominated race. This to my mind does seem a little harsh. I feel I would be very annoyed to get it up and lose the tie break.
Often the races are some of the most difficult to pick on the card. After spending so long picking the horses it is only natural the enthusiastic ITV7 picker will want to bet on the horses that they have chosen. This is a clever move by the bookies as it is hard to cover all 7 selections and make profit on what can often be a nightmare collection of races.
An accumulator bet might be required as nobody wants to miss out on the tie break. The average punter will get nervous about the idea of 7 winning and either back it ew by doubling the win stake or by turning the win stake in to an ew stake. Both of these solutions are pleasing to the bookie as a 1-point ew acc will make for overall larger profit margins as it will usually lose and 0.5-point EW reduces the win part to a more manageable amount. No bookie loses sleep over the ew part of a 7-fold.
If cash out is an option, as the returns start to mount the temptation to take the money will grow every time you hit a winner. Imagine you are sat pretty with 6. Are you really going to trust the 7th horse to win you that house or are you going to take the new car...!
If you are going to do a 7-fold cover bet keep the stakes small and back win only. There is a much better way to cover the place option. Many people will have managed to get all 7 placed at least a few times. The Tote runs a ITV7 Placepot based on a new bet type called the placepot7. I have only just discovered this and I feel extremely enthusiastic about the concept as I feel it is very achievable. The minimum bet is 50p on the Tote website and the minimum stake per line is 1p. As the bet becomes more well-known and popular, I hope to see the pools increase which will help boost the dividends. If nobody wins the money in the pool gets rolled over to the next Placepot7.
My advice is to play the IT7 Tote placepot to get a decent return for all to be placed and to just have 0.25 to 1 point on the win 7-fold acc.
Recent Placepot7 results:
1st May: There were 15.18 correct selections each winning £738.90
7th May: There were 0.40 correct selections winning £2,558.40 - Remainder rolled over to next time.
14th May: There were 117.91 correct selections each winning £90.90
21st May: There were 19.36 correct selections each winning £361.70
I will be writing more on this subject in the future. Why not check out some of the other blogs?
The Draw - Crunch Points
Having produced a good few draw guides, I thought I might take the time to explain some of the finer points over the course of a few blogs. The draw can have a massive effect on the chances of a horse winning. Before I go any further, I would like to point out to international readers that I am in fact talking about post position.
The number of runners will affect the draw so it won’t be the same for a 5f 8-runner race compared to a 5f 14-runner race.
One of the reasons which may be less obvious is the crunch point. This is not a technical term; indeed, I have taken the liberty of inventing it. I do however expect there is a highly technical name for the situation which I am not privy to. Tangential impact point, perhaps?
A crunch point is an area where horses are impositioned by the field moving towards the ideal racing position. When you are examining the draw and you see a row of good draws and then a bad one followed by more good ones this is almost guaranteed to be a crunch point. Crunch points are more likely to occur when the race starts near to a corner or where there is a formidable rail bias on a straight course. The shorter the race distance the bigger the effect of the crunch as there is less time to recover.
A jockey riding the crunch point will face an ever-diminishing wedge shape of clear space with the point of the wedge furthest away. The horse will be assuming that it is going to impact another horse and ideally will have a good trusting relationship with the rider. This is where an experienced, knowledgeable jockey is very important. A good jockey will have a feeling he is in a potential crunch point and will try to manage the start of the race accordingly to try to mitigate the effects.
Even if a horse is very fast coming out the stalls, he can still be affected by this. If you back a slow starting horse drawn from a crunch point it is incredibly unlikely that he will recover to win. Horses who require a lead or that race prominently will have their races wrecked unless they are much better than the other competitors. A horse who needs to be held up will also have issues trying to recover both the ground and the composure of the horse and jockey.
The crunch point is a little less likely to be as serious if there is a slow starting animal in the stall next to him that blocks the others coming across as quick.
A horse is more likely to get bumped running out of one of these stalls than any other. 2yo’s hate crunch points as they are not physically big enough to withstand being knocked about especially over a few races. A really big or intimidating horse can sometimes beat a crunch point due the others not knocking him off course on impact or not wanting to come into physical contact.
Hopefully I have helped you understand an important part of the draw and I will be writing more on the subject in the future.
Making My Betworm Handicapping Tool
Traditionally the British seem to be incredibly skeptical of anything that they even remotely perceive to be a system. I’m guessing this was because lots of unscrupulous people tried to sell a load of rubbish in the past and nobody had access to the extreme level of information we have today. Systems range from just backing the ones with the big ears all the way through to complex handicapping algorithms.
Whilst I was watching an American podcast featuring @tomandtomracing I noticed something interesting. Many of the tipsters featured on the show were using an algorithm (a complex mathematical formula) to establish the winners of the races. I was completely taken aback. In Britain this would be seen as very unusual as most tipsters are research and intuition based.
It occurred to me that as an ex-bookmaker with a full understanding of the subject of horse racing I should be able to produce something similar myself.
My idea was to create a formula that thinks like I do!
Because I have never been one to make things easy for myself, I decided to try and design it for National Hunt Jumps racing. I have never heard of anyone designing anything quite like it for jumps racing but I'm very sure I'm not the first judging by some of the unusual betting patterns that I see.
There are many things to consider when making something like this. Which stats to use? In what way do I use them? How do I tie them together. How do account for progression? I wanted to know that the formula would have an answer for all of my questions before I put it to use.
After many mental gymnastics I had a version that I used for Cheltenham races with great success. After Cheltenham I made a modification to deal with novice races and the strike rate improved. I tested Betworm over the course of many races and discovered it was best at handicap chases. There are reasons for this I am not going to go in but I think I know how to modify it to understand stakes races. I am now on version two which takes extra information regarding the ground and the course in to account.
I like that the betworm tool does not know what the odds are when it makes the selection. It has no memory of an enthusiastic trainer saying this was one to watch and it never takes notice of the hyperbole. Betworm looks at the facts. It does not do whimsy, conjecture or procrastination. It is designed to handicap the race it is presented with. The tool looks at the amount a competitor will have to improve to beat the favourite.
I am happy that Betworm has a good enough strike rate to tip and back the horses it recommends.
I am currently running both versions of Betworm together as I know that the original is good at what it does. This allows me to compare the results to firmly establish one is better than the other.
I imagine there will be many more versions over time. I really enjoy working on the Betworm Project.
I will be writing more on this subject so stay tuned.
Why not check out some of my previous blogs and see if anything catches your eye!