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later days

davejb

davejb

Dam
Well, what else would I call a follow up to 'Early Days'?

I struggled a bit here, figuring out where to put the thread - it might move at some point, who knows? It's not ratings, it's not lots of things, probably more like a chatty diary... so in Chat it goes!

Right, some of the stuff I've been toying with, I'm not going into details of how and where as yet, other than that there's a filtering element producing quite a lot of possibles, and then going through them and doing a bit of analysis. The ones that survive this process go into the possible bets list with the proviso that I don't intend to back very many any one day so some of the 'possibles' will be skipped - the question is whether I can make decent decisions about each one.
For tomorrow I had a list of 18 qualifiers to get through, which is easily double the amount of work I want to handle each night, so I might have to add a bit more filtering at some point.... obviously a main cause of the large number is the amount of racing tomorrow, being a saturday, and that's not going to be a factor during the rest of the week (most weeks).

I picked 6 from the 18:
3.05 Curragh Blackbeard
3.15 Newmarket Sunray Major
4.38 Newcastle Boosala
4.50 Curragh No More Porter
7.15 Lingfield Income
8.45 Lingfield Sun Festival

The four I am considering backing are in bold. I would have preferred no more than 3 but I found it hard enough to reject some of the ones I did. What I was looking for is a horse that is not being asked to do more than they've been asked to do previously, although in the case of handicappers I have considered, where there's a new high OR in place, did the weight rise look reasonable? ie if a runner is rated 67, wins, and goes up 7lb to 74, then was the win 'better than the cost' a 7lb rise for a horse that won by a length in a fairly mundane race would seem a bit harsh, but if the horse had won by a big margin then you can start thinking that this was a horse that, for some reason, was genuinely much improved and that 7lb could well fail to stop a follow on win. The style of the win is the thing.... I'm looking for reasons to object to a horse and cross it off, but if everything seems to be not too much unlike a previous good run then I start to think things might be looking up.

Boosala missed the cut, although I figured he has a decent chance - but currently 6/4 to win a 9 runner 7f handicap? That's not anything like value for money in my book, not least because there are 2 or 3 in the race who are quite capable of winning and Boosala is not at all sure of having a clear run through from the back, which is where I expect him to spend the first 2/3 of the race.

No More Porter is in an 8f handicap where there are 20 runners and probably 5lb between the top 10 - he runs well in these sort of races, and I'm happy he is likely to grab a place and stand a fair chance of winning, unfortunately I don't think he's a strong chance.... maybe 6/1 or something like that, not the current 7/2.

Of the positives, and no surprise to most I'm sure, but Sunray Major was held up right at the back lto, finished really strongly, and as a result was only just beaten by the line arriving a fraction before he did. Not wishing to pile onto the Frankie bashing bus here but he did look like he had a bit more to do than he was likely to manage when he followed the field around from last place for most of the race. typically everyone piles on, the price goes to the basement, and then the horse finishes 8th - I won't back him if he goes much shorter, he's 15/8 just now which looks like a fair but slightly tight fisted price given the opposition.

Blackbeard didn't run badly in the Coventry, and that's still pretty good form - there's an element of faith in this too, as I don't think Aiden O'Brien would be too inclined to follow that run up with another defeat, dropping to group 2 will help. Crispy Cat is an obvious danger, but ought to be held I think... there's always a danger with 2yo's that one will come on better than another for a run, more so than with older horses who we are perhaps more used to, but I don't think any of the others will be a major problem. 6/4 is a reasonable price, I won't go a lot shorter - I'd grimace a lot if I had to take evens.

Income is only just a bet, I think she's improving and stands a good chance of winning, but I also think the price will be tight and the current 13/8 for the favourite in a class 5 sprint handicap is not generous, especially given that there are quite decent runners like Nordic Glory in there - I think Income was treated pretty fairly (4lb) for the Newmarket win a week or so back, and can go in again.

Sun Festival will probably try to make all, which can be a winning tactic at the track, and has run pretty well recently off his current mark, so it's all a case of him doing what he's already done - I think he has a pretty good chance in fact, as is becoming a bit of a litany here I am less impressed by his current odds, I know the bookies don't like giving the cash away but the prices of everything I like seem to be pretty short!


Dave
 
davejb davejb i like the new thread title and at least you swerved using End Of Days. :) Not sure if this will help but many years ago RI had a forum with a private section for Subscribers and one member who claimed plenty of success off his own ratings posted the below which was not something i would care to attempt but i did find the idea intriguing.

He had several sets of own ratings and historical evidence to support which set proved best for each individual race type and applied them accordingly. For those who look at many different race types i can see the underlying sense in this as ratings which work well in 4yo + Hcaps might need different thinking, elements and weightings when applied to 3yo condition races.

Re your own ratings a variation of the above might be to investigate if there are race types where the basic ratings perform better, and if so this could provide you with a positive starting point which would reduce the number of possibles for you to focus on. A simular situation was implemented by myself when several years ago i conducted a long term audit of my own ratings. I had long focused on all aged and 4yo + Hcaps over all distances but my audit showed conclusively that my ratings proved less effective in the 11 fur plus contests and so i decided to swerve these and focus on the 5 - 10 fur races exclusively.

I still feel comfortable with this decision because with the increase in meetings anything which reduces the initial work load buys quality use of time for investigating what is left, and swerving a jack of all trades outcome should prove helpful to most punters. Anyway hopefully my waffle will help kick start some additional activity for your new thread. :)
 
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Thanks everyone. mick mick your idea is brilliant, it's so good I've been doing it! :D Well, actually, I've always kept pretty substantial records of the results from every race, I can go back over several years ratings and find see what rating a horse had (and where it rated, ie top, 2nd top, 3rd top and so on), what flags I had set for it (previously won or placed over course, going, track, jockey, distance, class etc) weights,BFSP, position in betting, trainer, jockey, course conditions.... the problem I found with this was that there weren't all that many obviously great combinations - I put some of the course related info into the sheets I posted in the old thread, giving win rates for that race (stakes or handicap) at that particular course, as there were courses where I could see the ratings did much better than others. Although my current efforts don't really allow me to output reams of data like that, due to the last stage being applying the noggin to making the decisions much more, I am still keeping a spreadsheet with data about the race and my thoughts about the runner in question, with the intention of being able to check for any areas where I am clearly struggling or doing well.

I did find that there were good returns in 6 runner races over 8-10f, but the win rates dropped off to either side and as the number of runners increased, to me this is a misleading stat, as whilst I can accept the thought that there's a sweet spot at such and such a distance, logic tells me that if you get say 40% winners at 8f due to your ratings having a special knack for that distance, then as the number of runners change you should see perhaps the win % to reduce as the number of runners increases or decreases in a fairly orderly manner, but I was finding some distances produced 40-50% for a given number of runners but would drop to 20% if you had one more in the field - the change in percentages should not be that dramatic if the basic advantage is legitimate.

I do know that handicaps were always a problem, not surprisingly when there's a chap lumping weight on and off the runners trying to negate any advantage the best horse might have, in that situation you are no longer looking for the best horse but trying to find the one the handicapper is most wrong about.... which I think is a much tougher job .... I'd not bother with handicaps at all were it not for the fact that the odds you get are so much better than they are in many non handicaps. You only have to look at Trueshan today to see the evils of handicapping, Trueshan giving 19 lbs to the jt second top weights, it makes for a 'fairer' race from the handicapping viewpoint but it's a bit of a travesty when all is said and done - can you imagine the Olympic 100m handicap? ....'in lane 1, carrying a bag of sugar, Fred Smith, in lane two, the reigning champion Bert Higgins, carrying a bag of cement....'

I want to rate AW, rather than all the turf racing. There are small but probably quite significant ideas I want to try out, but there would be a pretty huge amount of programming to complete - over the years I've built up a couple of dozen programs to do different things, one of those things has been to increase the amount of time it takes to produce more and more analysed data for inclusion in the info I have to hand for future races. I will initially be looking at taking my rather large and complex programs that do the actual rating side of things, and cutting them down to a simpler form. A good number of programs are used to do things like keep track win percentages and so on, I will be looking at which of them I really need, I could simply run them weekly for example, and just doing this for the AW tracks instead of all racing there's another lump of time back. I also want, if at all possible, to make it all work happily without HAVING to be done daily, I can collect several days results, shove them through in sequence, and be back up to date - it's only the evening card that suffers, but if I'm not going to bet the next day due to being off on a break or something that doesn't matter, does it?

I'm not going to post lots of analysis each day - I put up a few for today in the opener, but I'm not doing that daily as it's just the sort of job that I'm trying to get out of! I need to be able to post about the odd one, not necessarily those I consider the best hopes, I think it might be quite good to run through how I analysed some runner that I decided wasn't a good bet .... I don't think I'm A1 at this sort of thing, but I am sure a lot of us end up like I did with a list (18 for today) that is way too long to bet on sensibly, whether we are just taking the top RPR runner in a race, the top one from Timeform, or Proform, or whoever they've been sourced from. What we struggle with isn't finding winners, anybody can do that with a pin eventually, what we struggle with is knowing which of those in our list are most likely to show a profit if we bet on them. I know this is one aspect of your own betting that features quite strongly, it's finding a horse that is at better odds than his chance of winning, and as you put it swerving the ones that, even if you like their win chances, are too short in price to make backing them profitable over time.

As for my bets above, I've got Blackbeard at 11/8 - just a tiny bit shorter than I wanted, Sunray Major 2/1 so he went out a smidge, Income 7/4 is better, Sun Festival 11/4 is okay.... none of them are at great prices, but at least they haven't all shortened to silly values.

Dave
 
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A day of seconds is what it felt like today - I did actually have a winner, obviously I keep my eyes open while I'm doing racing stuff and I've found a few horses to back elsewhere - as these are not my own work at all and I contribute nothing to the analysis I won't be posting those on here, but I've had a couple of useful winners in the short time I've been looking at them and one at 5/1 today has, luckily, offset the pain of my own picks losing. (I'm not too proud to use someone else's work if it's worth having :D) .As it stands I have a free bet, effectively, on Sun Festival as if that one goes down as well then I'll be exactly to the penny level on the day... which is better than losing!

Wasn't Westover good in the Irish Derby? He's been a bit overshadowed by Trueshan of course - Trueshan's weight carrying run was simply epic, what a wonderful succession of long distance runners we've had over the last few years with Trueshan and Stradivarius leading the pack. Westover looked marvellous I thought, I'd love to see him in the King George next month.

Damn - Sun Festival 2nd by a short head - that's two short head seconds today. Obviously I can argue that I'm not doing it all wrong, as things could - and will one day soon - go the other way and my runners will by winning by a short head in a photo, but as we all know it's damned frustrating to have this happen once let alone twice in 4 bets. Results for the day 3 seconds and a third.

I'll be looking at tomorrow, at least there ought not to be anything like 18 in the list this time round.... may be back in a bit.

Dave
ps Having taken a look, and there were a good few to scan through somewhat annoyingly, I've again got a list that is too big. this time I've decided that I'll go with 2 of them only, the pair that I think combine a decent chance with not awful odds -
Alqamar is currently 4/1 at Cartmel in the 13 runner class 2 handicap 2.20 hurdle over 2m 1f. Unbeaten as yet at the track - I don't believe in putting too much emphasis on this point, to me it just says 'finds the track comfortable to race on', ticks the boxes I think and clearly runs well for his rider.
Off to Windsor for the class 4 handicap at 3.15 over 1m 3.5f give or take, True Courage is around 9/2 - this guy hasn't scored this year but won 3 times last year and looked like winning last time out at Ripon. Unfortunately the jockey, who I doubt will do the same again (crossed fingers) let him go a good 3f from the post and he pulled 4 or 5 lengths clear, only to be swallowed up in the final furlong having pounded away all no his own for the past quarter mile or more. If the jockey can do the same sort of thing but a bit nearer the finish he could score here. True Courage has run, and won over 1m 6f (twice) and 1m 4f so he can certainly be expected to have the puff left at the business end to do what he attempted last time with a touch more success.
 
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Hit the damn post again! This is becoming tedious - I had three bets today, the two noted above and one of 'the other' ones, and all three lost. Alqamar was stone last at 4/1, so that is definitely the unbeaten round Cartmel record up the spout, True Courage was second by 1.25l at 5/1 - he did mount his challenge rather later this time round at least, and plugged away gamely for a good furlong or two, unfortunately he hasn't got much of a finish so he needed the winner to get tired and it didn't really happen. Not a bad run though, 5/1 was a good price considering how he ran. My third bet didn't do very much either!

Well, this is a pretty poor start to the new thread, nothing has won yet! I'll do tomorrow's racing and see if I can find something worth going with and add it to the bottom of this post. See you later,

Dave

Selection time again - same process, just working away until I start developing some small degree of discernment when form reading. I still focus on a number of areas - I was going to note them here, but I'll do another post, probably a few posts, over time to explain what I'm looking for/at for a race and how I'm judging what I see. That way anyone who is even worse than me may get a hand up, and hopefully somebody who is better at this than me will pop in and call me a muppet and tell me heavier weights slow you down, it'ds nothing at all to do with the jockey being so confident he brought a picnic with him.

Tomorrow then, both at the jumps meeting at Southwell :
1.30 The Vollan - he won here two races back early in June, at this class but only 4 in it. The follow up run was a bit unlucky, similar race at Hexham a week ago, he was lucky not to be brought down or unseat halfway through when another horse badly hampered him. That probably took a little out of him, and the race winner (Prince Dundee) got first run - the pair left the others for dead, The Vollan couldn't rein PD back in and went down by just under 2 lengths. Off the same mark tomorrow, and although there are 10 runners none of them look likely to provide as tough a race as last time, so he ought to do well provided he's happy after than near miss, I'd call him a 2/1 chance.

3.30 Do Ya Feel Lucky - a mares' class 4 handicap over the same 3m 60y as The Vollan's race. She ran a few stinkers last year, but had a breathing op 3 months ago, and on her first run back at Worcester a week ago she made all and flattened them. rated 100+ prior to the form loss, so her current 99 is fair - the one downside is perhaps that she's running here in class 4, rather than 5, but she looks to have a few lbs in hand frankly and she's probably going to run well over 3m, as she did last year. She looks like she's back enjoying things - not an unusual occurrence if you've needed a breathing op - so provided nothing goes backward about her she must have a good chance. Can be a bit ragged jumping I'm afraid - not wildly so but does add a small element of risk. Again I'd be looking for 2/1 here - not sure I'll get it, but I don't want to go much shorter as there are a couple of factors (class and jumping) that might hamper the effort. (I still things she's got a good bit in hand, and don't see any big dangers amongst the rest).

(edited to add a badly needed space!)
 
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Okay, factors I'm looking at when I've got my list of possibles and am looking to cut into them to find a bet or two.
Wins/Places, OR, going, class, distance - these four are very important.
Run style, jockey, stable - not quite as go/no go for me, but not to be ignored either usually.

Wins/places - when I look at the horse, and an easy way to do this is of course to call up a Racing Post racecard and click on the horse's name, at which point a window will open and you'll see the horse's racing career.
There's a bit of a quick look section that can highlight, quickly, anything amiss - or almost immediately tell you all is well.....

1656271607109.png

This is Do Ya Fell Lucky by the way - in a 3m chase, and we immediately see that she has only run in 2 chases, and has finished 2nd and zero in them. Not a high class type obviously enough, 19 runs to win 12.5 grand isn't setting the world alight, but we can see 3/17 wins in hurdles, and this eases my mind a bit. The reason is this, some horses are like some racing greyhounds, they like to be in the pack. They can be in 5th or 6th place and run on well but not quite get there, because once they get near the front they think 'whoops, fade back emily, you're getting too far forward' - you can see a lightly raced runner pull off a storming last furlong, back it next time out, and it places again, and again, and again..... so the fact that this runner has won three times tells you she's happy to do so. That's worth knowing, you needn't worry your horse will give up trying to win, if given a chance to do so.

Next bit below -
1656271952747.png

A bit long, but it's important. Look down the lines - what I pull out quickly are distance, going, position, OR - it may be I pick each item up separately, or I might check position against OR (I do this often), but what I want to know is how the horse responded as they went on different going, over different trips, and how in general their OR's are/have been changing. So let's look at them for a moment - ignore the top line for now, it is radically different to the lines below it. 4 bad to indifferent runs preceded by a 7 week break over Oct/Nov/Dec time. That was after a fall at Newton Abbot, before which there'd been a win at Worcester. Going down the list the horse seems to run once or twice then take a break - on moving to David Pipe they got in 2 runs (5/7 and PU) before trying a wind Op. This obviously didn't do a huge amount with a midfield 7/14 finish and another 53 days off, then a win as noted but followed by another 60 days off.... this is the record of a horse who is deemed unsound when training, and I'd not be amazed to hear that some work rider was telling Mr Pipe that the horse was making funny noises sometimes when worked harder. there's a strong element of head scratching trying to sort this kind of thing, and a variety of wind operations that can be tried, so it's not unusual to see the first op fail to get the runner back in form, but a later op having more of an effect. It is, I think, illuminating to see her back out after a week, look at the dates of previous races and they're all a month or more apart - again I view this as a strong hint that the horse has not been all that sound in training, but the stable are reasonably happy that they think they have perhaps solved the problem. If she runs a stinker tomorrow it'll be back to the drawing board.

So, now I have a story for the horse, for a more normal set of form lines I'd be looking to see if the wins and 2nds all seem to occur when the horse is running on similar going, or over similar distances. I look at the distances, where are the ones similar to today? How did the horse place? We've a win lto over 2m 4f, but we have a win and a 2nd over 2m 7f - in older form lines we can see the horse is clearly able to handle 3m. What about going? Those three wins/2nd runs were on G/S, G and S going, so versatile for going, tomorrow's good going should not be a problem. All we have left is the OR - 107 dropping to 92 when the win (which I am ascribing to a breathing op allowing the horse to run up to her form) kicks in - tomorrow's 99 is in the middle of the range just about so she could be anything up to 8 lbs well in frankly. The OR is unlikely to stop her, at least.

Jockey/trainer combo is just fine.
Run style - there are a couple here who have shown a tendency to attempt to lead, the selection who made all last time, and Jubilympics who ran prominently last time but doesn't tend to have much pace and is now 12yo,, so I think the selection is likely to get a largely unopposed lead and has every chance of stealing this from the front again.
I suppose what I want for run style is a horse that is a hold up type if there are several front runners, as the plan here is the leaders run each other ragged until they have empty tanks over the last fence or two, which then let's the backmarkers trot up past them having had a relatively undramatic bimble round up to that point, or I want to have a front runner where all or most of the others prefer to hang back - that way my horse sets a pace to suit themselves, provided the jockey is sensible, and when something decides to challenge from 2 out my chap has had a breather in front and pulls away again.
Of course you don't always get what you want.

Jockey/Stable - if I know the jockey or stable are losing more than they should be, or has a lousy win rate at the track, or anything of that nature then I want everything else about my pick to be better than usual. Today's jockey, Tom Scudamore, won 8 days back on this horse, and has had 1 other winner, 3 seconds and a third in the same time, from 9 rides, His runners haven't been short priced, his RTF% (running to form) rating is a bit over 55% so that's not a bonus but neither is it a problem. For David Pipe's stable, they've been banging in a few winners and placed runners over the same period, and the RTF% is a bit higher at a touch over 58, so that's starting to get into the 'stable in good form' area - so again no problem.

That all took far longer to explain than to do - in action as you scan down the form lines the numbers just sort of accumulate, you see patterns form sometimes, but it's all really just a case of finding the decent runs and seeing if they occurred in similar race conditions to the race being contested - sometimes it is really obvious, you get 12 runs, 10 on soft or heavy and the horse runs at the back, then two runs on good going and it places or wins, doesn't take Einstein to figure out the horse needs good going to perform.

That's enough for tonight.

Dave
 
As we are all feeling so warm and fuzzy then, anyone who would like to add a bit about some aspect of form reading is heartily encouraged to join in :D (That isn't aimed at those who've kicked in with a bit of much appreciated support I should add, but a general request). I think most of the people on here who actually want to improve their form reading will have something worth saying - whether it's just a couple of lines saying 'I am always a little wary if the jockey hasn't ridden the horse before' or an in depth analysis showing the best AW tracks to front run sprints at.

For example - if you fancy a horse and see they're putting an amateur rider or an apprentice up, what sort of decisions and investigations do you make/carry out to decide whether this is a plus or a negative for your horse's chance? For those who like to compile a tissue or maybe just set a price that they think reflects the horse's chance in a race, how do you decide the price(s) for each runner you've priced up?

There are loads and loads of aspects to analysis - I'm keen to get a discussion going rather than a lecture program, not least because then I'll get to pick some good brains for ideas!

Dave
 
I have Do Ya Feel Lucky top rated on the adjusted ratings I use but I note that the trainer is zero from 23 HCP hurdle runs at Southwell over the last 5 seasons,he has the horse entered up 3 times in the next week including a CL5 at Worcester on Wednesday where he has an 18 % win rate in HCP hurdles over the past 5 seasons,that may be the target race.
 
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I liked davejb davejb description above of telling a story for a horse. When the horse in question appears to be inform and ticking plenty of boxes then this becomes an easier ask but this will also be reflected in the market. Whatever the recent or less so situation there will always be three versions our own based on our interpretation's of all the info which is publicly available, other backers use of same and the Trainers version.

If we label the above 1 2 3 then the ideal situation is when we can disagree with the majority views of 2, but feel we are inline with some of the less obvious thoughts of 3. I have spent many years attempting to tell the story and experience of same can count for plenty but for myself there are seldom any easy answers indeed i tend to feel suspicious of these when i find them.

If you show me an odds on shot running today while i might agree that it should win i bet i could also find form reasons why it may not, and when we transfer this thinking to what the market is calling a 10/1 chance then the complications increase accordingly. Telling the story is a version of profiling and regardless of how well treated a horse appears off whatever ratings we use the former will always prove the straightener.

I feel some positive envy for those who make it pay via implementing KISS principles because for myself it remains a highly complicated task which can do your nut in, with the only fall back positive i can offer being at least its seldom boring. :)

I would say one of the elements well worth considering is learning to understand why a horse may have under performed in a recent or past race. I call these VEs Valid Excuses. I once started to list them and stopped at 35 not because i had run out of ideas but rather because i was frightening myself. :eek:
 
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davejb said:
This is Do Ya Feel Lucky by the way - in a 3m chase, and we immediately see that she has only run in 2 chases, and has finished 2nd and zero in them. Not a high class type obviously enough
Click to expand...
Do You Feel Lucky - 3:30 Southwell

Do You Feel Lucky earned a speed figure LTO of 79 running off an OR of 92, running my handicap adjustment (+28) she ran to a mark of 107, today she runs off 99 (7lb ex) which sees her +8lbs well in today?

So in a nutshell, all I do is add 28lbs to the speed figure and then check the OR they are running off, quick and simple.


DYFL.PNG

Mike.
 
TheBluesBrother TheBluesBrother I'm a bit wary of being too positive before a run, build things up too much and you find it hard to reason it out if they don't go the way you predicted, but I do think there's that sort of amount in hand in this case. Basically I'm looking back at good form in the past and the rating at the time, and figuring that the wind op is the probable cause for a return to form, and I can therefore expect something close to, or better than, the previous high spot. which was 107. If there's no miracle cure then that's that, but if the reasoning is correct then a run in the mid 100's should at least be quite likely.

I got 7/4 which I think is a fair reflection of the slight doubt about her jumping - I don't expect major blunders but she is capable of clipping the odd one or two on the way round - and the chance that the problem all along has been breathing, which has now been cured. We can see, off and on in her race record, flashes of her true ability.

But I could be wrong.

2/1 exactly on The Vollan, both my picks today seem to be well fancied unfortunately.

nicksar nicksar yes, unfortunately we cannot overlook the devious trainer aspect of it all! I suspect that if she runs then this will be the target, as she ran only 8 days back and I think a run today followed by another on Wednesday would be likely to have her off the boil by the time Weds arrives - it does add another factor to the equation though doesn't it? I suppose if she runs down the field today and DOES reappear on Wednesday we all ought to absolutely pile on!

mick mick I cannot actually understand how anyone manages to make a really simple process of selection work, whether it's a 'simple' method like one of the many published systems or one where you just take the top rated using one of the rating sets available like RPR and Timeform - they just don't produce enough of a win rate as far as I can tell, and as we all know (hopefully) a staking plan won't turn a losing process at level stakes into a winner over any length of time.... but it will often hide that fact for a while. I always said my speed ratings had to be just the start point of selection and the same goes for every variation I've tried along the way. Valid excuses - I'd say this is half the battle, when combined with 'why it won't win'. You look through past results and for the most part they don't jump out at you and tell you anything at first glance, With luck and patience there will be tendency or habit almost appearing - the placings are worse as we go outside the range 7-9f, or whenever the word soft appears in the going, or similar. We have to be careful not to ascribe poor results too readily to a distance or going or whatever, we need to check other things out that might have caused the run to fail - maybe a bad draw, you wouldn't want to be on a hold up horse at Chester with a bad draw in a big field after all - but if there's a fairly regular pairing of a poorer run, or a better one, with a type of going or a distance or whatever then we can start thing we've spotted the ideal conditions for a good run and compare them to today.

Longer odds can be difficult, as I tend to think these are runners where the stable is desperately trying to get a moderate horse to earn enough prize money, if only by getting lots of 5th places on the AW, and the very occasional win or optimism inducing place in the frame, to keep an owner paying the stable fees. I do try to think what the trainer sees when he looks at a particular horse - if the horse runs down the field endlessly then the owner is getting nothing back from paying 25 grand a year or whatever to have it at the stables, if the owner decides the trainer is not going to get a win, or at least a couple of decent places, so the owner can pop to the track and proudly stand in the winner's enclosure after the race, then the horse will be moved, sold, or otherwise disposed of. With a moderate horse that means running in handicaps, and to win handicaps you need to run the horse in conditions it is not ideally suited by to get the OR reduced, and then tip the owner off when you carefully place the horse for a long unexpected win.... complete with a biggish bet that will cover the year's fees with any luck, or at least a few months. Just having a jockey sit on your jumper costs (last time I checked) £180 or so, it was about £120 on the flat, throw in all the other expenses and you are probably paying 2-3000 a race for the average runner over a year's racing. For the big trainers the pressures are different, but for those populating the AW tracks and minor meetings, for all those trainers who aren't running big strings supplied by the Arab royal houses, this secretive jiggery pokery is a necessary daily activity - and as punters we have to try to guess who is up to what!

Trainer and Jockey form are yet another area therefore - and figuring out what a trainer is up to in a class 5 at Wolverhampton is enough to give Sigmund Freud a nervous breakdown.

Thanks for the input - lots of factors to consider, and whilst how much weight we place on a form factor is usually a sliding scale and impossible to quantify exactly we also need to know how much we should allow something to affect our choice, To give one real world example, nicksar nicksar has given us a stat, 0-23 for this type of race at this track, so do we decide that is a stopper, no bet, or do we say that it is a big factor and any more negatives and we'll not bet, or perhaps we say 'right. that's a negative, so I want a better price for a bet to be worth taking'? My own view is that the trainer won't run on Wednesday, the horse has seldom put two runs together a month apart, and even if they're now 'cured' I don't see why David Pipe would run here if planning a coup on Wednesday.... a bad run today would make Wednesday's price a lot better of course, but against that I don't see the horse feeling A1 on Wednesday if they do that. I CAN see leaving the entry open just in case - suppose DYFL unseats at the first and is therefore able to run Wednesday without being too knackered, or they pull the horse out due to going, or whatever. There is a significant chance here that I am making reasons up to support my bet, rather than it being sensible assessment of what is before us! I don't know, to me this would be a moment for thinking 'I want better odds' so that the value of the bet isn't compromised - if my odds are a true reflection of chance I will break even over time, even if today's bets go down. If I can pick good value bets I will be in profit, I think this is a largish factor in how mick mick picks his bets?

I need to keep away from here for a bit, walls of text are becoming my existence. Peace is descending for much of the next 2 weeks - wimbledon is on and my wife will countenance no distractions for the duration, she will also, based on past form, spend about 50p a day betting on matches and end up making a tenner by the end. I really ought to just match her bets, but with larger amounts, if the aim were simply to make money.

Dave
 
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