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Selection Spotlight - Avoiding Risky
Bets!
Introduction
The purpose of
our new "Selection Spotlight" series is to help you improve your
punting profits by making more effective selection decisions.
The selection strategies presented on our web site provide a
number of good qualifiers each day and take much of the hard
work out of finding profitable bets. However as you will see,
not all qualifiers are worth betting. I manage to dramatically
increase my profit from these strategies each year by simply
avoiding the poor or risky betting propositions amongst them.
For example, consider the table
below, which summarises the record of the 444 rule based
contenders I have consciously made a decision not to bet so far
in 2007. I keep a record of these decisions through the User Horse Flags function in GTX, allocating a different flag for
each of the
various reasons I decide not to bet.
The volume of passed bets in March was lower than
for prior months because of the time I spent away in Las Vegas. One
additional point worth mentioning is that I don't bother reviewing or
flagging those horses that are ranked well down in the betting market
order. There is little challenge in deciding not to bet these horses...
the market takes care of that for me. I only worry about qualifiers that
sit near the top of the betting market.
With an overall loss of 22.5% on turnover,
avoiding these system qualifiers has saved me a fortune and that's just in the
first three months of this year. As you can see, plenty of those I don't
bet still win,
especially the favourites (30% SR), but I know from these type of records over the
last 2 years that I am much better off avoiding them.
Some Guiding Principles
The principles I use to avoid poor and risky
bets are well documented in a number of articles on our site.
Fundamentally they are:
1.
Avoid horses that get back in running:
Regardless of other factors,
"get
back" runners face a natural disadvantage in racing. They are
very difficult to profit from in the long term.
2. Avoid
poor performing jockeys: The Jockey factor is greatly underestimated by
the betting public. Jockeys with a good winning record on horses expected
to run well will help you to make money, whilst jockeys with a poor record
on the same types of horses will cost you money. My article titled
The Jockey Factor discusses the importance of jockeys
in more depth.
3. Focus on
runners near the top of the market:
It's not impossible to profit from longer
priced runners, but their natural return from the market combined with the
high level of variance that comes from a lower strike rate makes the task
somewhat more difficult. The article in this months newsletter titled
The
Impact Of Strike Rate reveals more about this.
There are other reasons why I
might not back a system qualifier such as form, distance,
fitness or track condition concerns, but most of my "no bet"
decisions come from one of the three principles mentioned above.
By taking rule based (system) qualifiers and eliminating horses
with these characteristics you will dramatically increase the
profit a given method produces.
Practical Examples
Following are
three examples that highlight the types of system qualifiers I
avoid betting:
| 21st
March 07 - Eagle Farm R5 1840m - Class 5 ($13,000)
Track: Good #4
Spikes ($1.60 favourite)
Qualified As:
Trakform Favourite selection
Credentials: Top Rated GTX @ $1.50
and clearly has the best ratings / form in the race
after a last start 3rd in a Saturday class 6 race. He was
dropping back to a midweek CL5 race here and stepping up
to what appears a more suitable 1840m On the back of
these credentials he was a clear $1.60 favourite.
My Thoughts: There
are two key risk factors here. Firstly he is an
established back marker, settling in the last few runners
of the field in all of his previous runs (even those before
the form shown here.) Secondly, his jockey T Pannell has
a relatively low winning record, showing just a 17% strike rate
and 33% loss on good market chances ($5.00 and less). His
recent
record in Metro races is particularly low.
The
combination of jockey and running style makes this an easy
"no bet" decision. These are not the type of odds on
horses I want to be backing. Spikes got too far back and
finished 4th beaten 1.5 lengths.
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| 24th
March 07 - Ascot R5 1200m - Qual Hcp ($75,000) Track:
Good #7
Charlie Beau ($2.60 favourite)
Qualified As:
Trakform Gem, Trakform Favourite selection
Credentials:
Has a great overall record, top recent form and qualifies
under the very successful Trakform Gems strategy.
My Thoughts: The
first thing I note is his tendency to race back in the
field. First up he jumped from barrier 7 and was 7th of 11
at the turn. At his next start over 1400m he jumped from
6 and raced 5th in a field of 7. Prior to that he has
generally drawn well, but still raced in the back half of
the field. The widest he drew last preparation was barrier
7 where he was 10th at the turn in a field of 11.
Over 1200m today jumping
from barrier 11 (the widest so far in his career) it's
impossible to see him racing anywhere but back in the
field. In the long-run it's near impossible to make money
backing horses with his running style so for me it's easy
to pass, regardless of how good his other credentials are.
Jockey J Whiting's recent
record on good chances ($5.00 or less) is also not very
inspiring so there is certainly nothing there that would
make me take the risk of betting on a back marker.
Charlie Beau got back and
ran home okay to finish 4th beaten 2.6 lengths. Up to this
day the Trakform Gems strategy is producing a 37.8% strike
rate and 17.5% profit, but you can see that there are
still plenty of horses like Charlie Beau that are easy to
avoid, which will only improve the profit.
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| 7th
April 07 - Eagle Farm R8 1400m - Class 6 ($40,000)
Track: Good #8
Upillio ($2.80 favourite)
Qualified As:
Trakform Favourite selection.
Credentials:
Good recent form including a 1 length win in this class at
this track and distance 2 starts ago. He has strong
recent time ratings that make him a clear top rater on Trakform. That combined with his market
favouritism presents a proven betting edge.
My Thoughts: He
tends to mix his running style a little, settling handy in
some races but well back in others. Much of it appears
related to his barrier draw though so from barrier 1 today
he's likely to sit reasonably handy. There doesn't seem
much risk from a running style perspective.
However when I look at
the jockey riding I see a definite betting risk. D
Peisley's record on good winning chances ($5.00 and less)
certainly fits into the poor category.
Can I expect to make a
long-term profit supporting jockeys with this type of
record? Most probably not so I am happy to pass the bet.
Upillio finished 4th beaten 2.6 lengths.
In my article
The Jockey Factor, you can see that those favourites I pass because of
the jockey still win 27% of the time, but they lose more
than 20% on turnover, which is consistent with the type of
record those jockeys have. It's difficult if not
impossible to profit from them.
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These examples seem
obvious, but that just highlights how easy it can be to improve the profit
from any rule based strategy. It takes no more than a few minutes to
identify qualifiers with these risks and put a line through them.
In saying that,
the biggest challenge is not
necessarily in identifying the horses with risky characteristics, but in
having the courage to say "no" and not back them. This is especially true
when the horse is 'hyped' in the media and well supported in the market. As I mentioned
previously, many of these types of horses still win, especially when
favourite, but in the long run they are losing
propositions.
In future issues I'll
aim to cover some more examples of betting decisions in practice. As you
will see, not all of them turn out to be winning ones, but by sticking to
these proven principles the profit advantage is heavily stacked in your
favour.
Good punting,
Daniel
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