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Very Basic Help

V

Viaticus

Yearling
Hi, Ill be honest from the start. I am very average at math and I have the attention span of a child.

I have been betting on horses recreationally for many years however with the various ups and down. The issue is that the amount of information is huge and even looking at a normal days racing I find myself overwhelmed.

Moving forward I thought I would cut out all the noise and focus purely on a on small sub section. I need some help choosing the correct criteria. And if anyone else does similar that would be a great help.

So lets say for instant I want to focus on flat racing and horses that run a mile.

How far either side of 1Mile would you go? would you purely pay attention to horses that ran 7f up to 1m1f or a wider gap?
Secondly would focussing on C6 through to Group 1 be far too much to handle would you only focus on say C3 and above. Would you go as far as just to focus on certain courses.
Would you exclude fillies
And so on.

I don't want to spend a huge amount of time per day scouring the form as I already run a small business. I just want to have a nice easy section to focus on and try to become a semi expert in that area.

with such a small sub section being followed I am guessing that finding a "good value bet" will be few and far between. Im guessing maybe only 1 or 2 bets per week maybe less I don't know. SO with this low betting frequency would you even bother with a staking plan?

This is more for fun than trying to give up my job so im looking for a fairly low maintenance type thing that doesnt require huge math and several bets a day.

Any help would be appreciated and sorry for the newbie questions.

Id like to be that guy that only places one bet per month but when he does HE goes HARD :_)
 
Hi V Viaticus , and welcome to the forum.
I can empathise with your comments about the information overload out there, and I have taken the route of specialisation myself with reasonable success over the years, so far so good.
However I feel a bit uneasy about your choice of starting point, as it seems a bit random.
I may well be wrong, and there could well be an angle in just looking at one particular distance (indeed I have seen it mentioned that 7f is quite a specialist distance) , but my own way of working is by noticing patterns , or coming up with logical scenarios and then checking back to see if the facts bear out my thoughts. Coming up with a starting point and then fitting past results to show a profit is what we call 'backfitting', and is almost a swearword here , as it's almost certainly going to end in tears.
The other point I feel I should make from years of experience is that there are quite a few on here who make regular profits, but I'm not aware of anyone who has such a high strike rate with their selections that they have as few bets as you mention. I've just checked my results over the past rolling year and I have had 609 bets with 218 winners for a profit of 382 points, which I am more than happy with, but that includes periods where I have had long (double figure) losing runs, and we have at least one guy here for whom this is his sole income - (he proofs all his bets to us and has done for several years) , so I know he goes through similar losing runs. We have another respected poster who has a system with a 90%+ strike rate (again proofed to us here), but as you may imagine the odds are fairly low, so he employs a staking plan to make it pay, and even then there are losing runs.
I think my best advice would be to surf the forum for a while, ask questions and contribute ideas - there's lots of very knowledgeable posters on here who are only to willing to help you out.
 
dave58 said:
Hi V Viaticus , and welcome to the forum.
I can empathise with your comments about the information overload out there, and I have taken the route of specialisation myself with reasonable success over the years, so far so good.
However I feel a bit uneasy about your choice of starting point, as it seems a bit random.
I may well be wrong, and there could well be an angle in just looking at one particular distance (indeed I have seen it mentioned that 7f is quite a specialist distance) , but my own way of working is by noticing patterns , or coming up with logical scenarios and then checking back to see if the facts bear out my thoughts. Coming up with a starting point and then fitting past results to show a profit is what we call 'backfitting', and is almost a swearword here , as it's almost certainly going to end in tears.
The other point I feel I should make from years of experience is that there are quite a few on here who make regular profits, but I'm not aware of anyone who has such a high strike rate with their selections that they have as few bets as you mention. I've just checked my results over the past rolling year and I have had 609 bets with 218 winners for a profit of 382 points, which I am more than happy with, but that includes periods where I have had long (double figure) losing runs, and we have at least one guy here for whom this is his sole income - (he proofs all his bets to us and has done for several years) , so I know he goes through similar losing runs. We have another respected poster who has a system with a 90%+ strike rate (again proofed to us here), but as you may imagine the odds are fairly low, so he employs a staking plan to make it pay, and even then there are losing runs.
I think my best advice would be to surf the forum for a while, ask questions and contribute ideas - there's lots of very knowledgeable posters on here who are only to willing to help you out.
Click to expand...
Thanks so much for the response.

My worry is that I don't want to get bogged down in a long winded mathematical system. I have read so many forums over the years and half of what is discussed re ratings, speed figures etc goes way over my head. Ive tried to run a few systems and its just not for me. Im not interested in making a living from betting. Its more to minimise my losses lol

My thoughts are very simple. I was thinking - If I just focussed on horses over a particular distance and in a particular grade then I would get to know those horses, remember their results their runs and id see what horse needs to step up/down, follow the grade etc.

Im really just trying to find an area where I can maybe place a small slecetion of bets per week and become a bot of an niche guy
 
If it helps, I don't personally look at ratings or speed figures either.
I have to admit that your idea of getting to know individual horses could be a plan, maybe if you combine that idea with the way the trainer has placed similar horses in the past it might throw up some interesting ideas.
 
Viaticus said:
Im really just trying to find an area where I can maybe place a small slecetion of bets per week and become a bot of an niche guy
Click to expand...

What area interests you most? Why not start there.
Do you prefer flat or jumps racing, turf or all weather? sprints, middle distance or long distance races?
You say you have been doing this for quite some time, do you notice you tend to gravitate towards shorter price or longer price horses?
Larger or smaller fields.

Narrow it down to those races you like to study and go from there.

Personally I prefer all-weather sprint distance handicaps 5f, 6f, 7f from class 4 and below. But everyone should find a niche they are not going to get bored of easily.
 
pete said:
What area interests you most? Why not start there.
Do you prefer flat or jumps racing, turf or all weather? sprints, middle distance or long distance races?
You say you have been doing this for quite some time, do you notice you tend to gravitate towards shorter price or longer price horses?
Larger or smaller fields.

Narrow it down to those races you like to study and go from there.

Personally I prefer all-weather sprint distance handicaps 5f, 6f, 7f from class 4 and below. But everyone should find a niche they are not going to get bored of easily.
Click to expand...
That’s great. This is exactly what I’m after.

So I prefer turf. For distance I was going to concentrate around the 1 mile to 1m3f maybe?

I tend to prefer fields of say between 5 and 9 maybe ?

I have no idea what grade to follow. I actually like the group races but I’ve often heard there’s no value and there are not many group races during the week lol

You mentioned price. I have never thought about this - sometimes I’m betting each way 10-1 next time it’s 7-4
I never bet below evens though.

Any ideas how I can improve this criteria would be great
 
pete said:
What area interests you most? Why not start there.
Do you prefer flat or jumps racing, turf or all weather? sprints, middle distance or long distance races?
You say you have been doing this for quite some time, do you notice you tend to gravitate towards shorter price or longer price horses?
Larger or smaller fields.

Narrow it down to those races you like to study and go from there.

Personally I prefer all-weather sprint distance handicaps 5f, 6f, 7f from class 4 and below. But everyone should find a niche they are not going to get bored of easily.
Click to expand...
And why class 4 and below? That’s interesting ?
 
Viaticus said:
I actually like the group races but I’ve often heard there’s no value and there are not many group races during the week lol
Click to expand...

Higher class horses tend to run to form more reliably, The higher class races do tend to cluster around weekends, if you concentrate on the front end of the market, your losing runs should be shorter ... I find races that are class three and above tend to have more horses that are open to improvement on past runs, the lower class races tend to have horses that are somewhat limited in ability, the lower class horses tend to run well in cycles ... so what I do is try and spot those that appear to be coming to the boil with a decent run last time out or within the past couple of races.

Things I would add to your consideration : handicap or non handicap - you will tend to get better prices but more competitive races if you go with handicaps.
Age of horses competing : 2yo, 3yo, 3yo+, 4yo+ .. obviously the older the horses that compete, the more likely you have older form to look at. 2 and 3 year olds will be open to improvement as the career progresses ...

The best thing you can do is start writing down the horses that you bet on, then look back .. and see where you have most success. Once you figure out if you are better spotting improving younger horses or reading form, orlow or high class races ... you will be able to move in the direction that the results point you towards.
 
pete said:
Higher class horses tend to run to form more reliably, The higher class races do tend to cluster around weekends, if you concentrate on the front end of the market, your losing runs should be shorter ... I find races that are class three and above tend to have more horses that are open to improvement on past runs, the lower class races tend to have horses that are somewhat limited in ability, the lower class horses tend to run well in cycles ... so what I do is try and spot those that appear to be coming to the boil with a decent run last time out or within the past couple of races.

Things I would add to your consideration : handicap or non handicap - you will tend to get better prices but more competitive races if you go with handicaps.
Age of horses competing : 2yo, 3yo, 3yo+, 4yo+ .. obviously the older the horses that compete, the more likely you have older form to look at. 2 and 3 year olds will be open to improvement as the career progresses ...

The best thing you can do is start writing down the horses that you bet on, then look back .. and see where you have most success. Once you figure out if you are better spotting improving younger horses or reading form, orlow or high class races ... you will be able to move in the direction that the results point you towards.
Click to expand...
Ok.

So can we say for example.

All weather and turf
Class 3 or better
1m - 1m4f distance
No maidens or novices
Handicaps only maybe listed?
All ages


Would that be too big of a job to focus on. Should the sample be even smaller ?
 
I guess it would be given your area of interest. The advantage of just one race is that you can look at the whole field and a variety of factors that you feel may be not be fully assessed by the betting public....then you would have an edge😀
 
V Viaticus you have already received some excellent advice above but the bottom line (for us all) being it will only be your own effort and investigations which make the most from it. Imo your use of available study time via attempting to learn more about less is a positive starting point. My own chosen area is flat racing all aged hcaps 5 - 10fur. I could explain in detail the reasons for this but i think best find your own and know why is the way forward for any backer.
 
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mick said:
V Viaticus you have already received some excellent advice above but the bottom line (for us all) being it will only be your own effort and investigations which make the most from it. Imo your use of available study time via attempting to learn more about less is a positive starting point. My own chosen area is flat racing all aged hcaps 5 - 10fur. I could explain in detail the reasons for this but i think best find your own and know why is the way forward for any backer.
Click to expand...
Absolutely agree - this is my area of interest so I’m happy to go with what I detailed above for a few months and see how I get on.

Thanks guys
 
Viaticus said:
Guys I’m not done with you yet.

If I do choose to only work the above criteria - then the 3.20 Haydock today would be the only race I look at.

Now I just look for value/edge in that race ?
Click to expand...
I worked this race and concluded nothing of interest for myself, and knowing when not to bet is an edge. Given different contenders then imo this race could have contained another big edge.........the soft ground.
 
V Viaticus - it's worth mentioning here that a lot of the guys on this forum have automated software that does the searching for them (HRB for instance)... that's why they are able to focus on quite specific areas of racing, because they have identified that through various lines of research and trends as a profitable angle. Their search engines are drawing on huge banks of historical data to offer their results from, which you just won't be able to compete with if you are just relying on checking form from the racing cards yourself.
The best piece of advice I would give you at this early stage is to record every bet you make, with many of the specifics of the race at the same time, and over time you'll maybe spot some trends that make the difference... find that edge. And paper-test any new ideas until you are comfortable with it's effectiveness before throwing money at it. Usually a minimum of 100 results give a good idea of any system's effectiveness (and more importantly) profitability, as well as a decent base to experiment with filters to see where you can improve the system.
 
V Viaticus - seems to me you're looking for a quickfire system that is already to go... look at the attached which was something I downloaded a while ago which might be something of interest to you. It's a couple of years old, and probably isn't accurate now, but the system itself could be utilised, and with a bit of monitoring and results-recording, you could amend it to your own purposes.
 

Attachments

  • Flat-Flyers.pdf
    1.9 MB · Views: 33
There you go... apart from 1 year with an ROI in the minus (and a small minus at that), the other years going back 8 years look very good. A quick look suggests that backing only horses with odds no higher than 25.0 should improve it further.

Perhaps now that AR has an alert set up for the system, he can post the results every day in a thread for us to follow ? :D

(perhaps it's about time I got HRB !!)
 
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