Assessing a race

[davidbrady]

That’s pretty much what I do too steve.

[Bosranic]

* less than 10 runners – better chance of winning and less time studying the form.
*extreme ground preferences – less than good-firm, no more than soft. Good ground throws up varied results, as does heavy.
*NO apprentice races. I’m also not fond of maidens, selling, claiming, nurseries etc etc. These consist of improvers, poor and inconsistent horses.

I like having a bet on big, feature race fields ie Royal Ascot h’caps, John Smiths, Cambridgeshire etc etc. I tend to go more on form figures, conditions, draw, trainer form etc etc than overall form, which takes forever.

Well, there’s my advice…those who have read this will owe me £2.99. Make a cheque payable to…

Fair enough, but you owe me £5 for pointing out that it’s “fewer than 10 runners”, not “less than”.

So, please send me £2.01.

Steve

Wait…I’ll see if I got some change…dammit! I’ll get back to you…

[alan1]

I agree with David Johnson. The work and time is in assessing races after they are run to identify anything out of the ordinary, not only improvers but when there has been a strong bias of some kind, and then waiting for those particular horses to run again. To back or lay them accordingly.

[Prufrock]

My method is to apply the problem solving model used in criminology, eliminating those horses that should not win under today’s conditions and being left with as few ‘suspects’ as possible.

Each to their own, but I would say this is an inappropriate approach, its only real advantage being that it is less time-consuming than many of the alternatives.

Criminology seeks to establish the perpetrator of a crime that has occurred – it’s a simple question of “whodunnit” – whereas profitable betting is about identifying value bets rather than the likeliest winner(s) of an uncertain event yet to take place.

Most advocates of the “elimination method” – not necessarily you or others on this board – also seem to regard each filter as being of equal significance to the others. They would have you believe that a small/negligible “trend”, such as weight carried, is of equal significance to a strong one, such as the draw on certain courses. A potential winner either passes or doesn’t pass these criteria, and that is it.

There also seems to be little appreciation that if a trend exists it should affect losing horses as well as winning ones, and the degree to which they lose and win and not just whether they lose or win. We have Craig Thake to thank in no small part for this particular piece of numbskullery.

I see no better way of dealing with the issue than coming up with an odds line for all the runners in the field and not just some and betting around that. Anything else is just cutting corners, surely?

[onefurlongout]

gg.com also do an email reminder service and you can filter you selection.

Thanks for the advice DJ, I suppose in some fashion I already look at after the race but I never really use it to any advantage the next time. Mainly becuse I cant track every single horse that I watch (if that makes sense)

I tend to do well in non handicap races so might try and focus my energies on this area. I can spend a couple of hours looking at form on a saturday but to no avail.

I think I need to work a lot smarter and choose carefully

[Formath]

I don’t often venture on to the main board as I usually get a good kicking from somebody for my input . All I am going to say is that you could do worse than follow VDW’s advice for selecting races to consider:

"Starting with the principal meeting the agenda is:
1. Select the most valuable race on the card.
2. Consider the next most valuable.
3. Select the most valuable race from other cards."

The only factor I would add is to use the above races when several of the runners in a race have winning form in their past few outings.

[davidbrady]

Prufock – elimating horses due to certain "conditions" is not necessarily without subjectivity. For me, the most important aspect for each race is to check through each horse’s lifetime form to ascertain whether or not they have the ability to win a race at this level. If a horse hasn’t shown this ability, then I will rarely consider it – if it is near the head of the betting without having showing this level of ability, I would have a second look at the form to see why it’s so fancied. After that, I would check to see if they are suited by the going and the distance. At the top level of racing (Gr1 & Gr2), this method is often sufficient to find suitable bets.

[Anonymous]

Purely out of interest how long do you all spend checking out the runners for a races, my girlfriend has told me that I spend to much time looking at the form.

Your girlfriend is almost certainly correct.
If nothing smacks you in the eye within about 10 minutes study, then you are looking at the wrong race.
Almost every decent bet I can recall came to me within this timespan and, though I might spend another 15/20 minutes eliminating doubts, if it’s more complicated than that, it isn’t a bet.
I never could see the point of scratching around forever for a couple of lbs advantage, when ‘rub of the green’ can wipe out such a small margin in almost any race.

[dave jay]

I see no better way of dealing with the issue than coming up with an odds line for all the runners in the field and not just some and betting around that. Anything else is just cutting corners, surely?

.. not neccessarily Pru, well not in my opinion. If I price up a race, I tend to allot a percentage of runners a chance as a group (outsiders) because none of them singly have a chance but collectively have some chance.

[Prufrock]

because none of them singly have a chance but collectively have some chance.

You might want to reconsider that.

0*N=0.

[dave jay]

Probably not .. if 40% of the field have 70% of the chances and 60% has 30%, I’ve cut down the amount of horses I have to look at without coming up with a meaningless tissue.

I take your point about making a line and betting against it, the only way to go really.

[carvillshill]

I find my bets mostly in races that interest me- good quality jumps contests and mainly Festival or big weekend stuff on the flat. Unless I had more time I couldn’t follow all the racing during the week and I have no interest in doing so. That doesn’t mean that profits can’t be made from the lower division stuff and I intend to follow our new AW track here in Ireland closely in the hope that I might have an edge for a while till people here get used to this new fangled stuff .
I agree totally that once you follow your chosen group of horses bets tend to leap off the page with further study merely confirming an initial impresssion- I probably spend more time hunting down the best odds than studying individual races. What all of us successful punters on here do without fail however is dedicated research- I’m preparing for Galway at the moment and will lose track of the hours I spend bringing my ten-year trends, draw analysis and so on up to date before I go. Once you’ve done the preparatory work, finding the bets gets much quicker and easier. You need to be able just to react to the odds-line on the day with all the work done.
If I could advise you succintly, you need to get to know as much as you can about a limited group of horses and races until you know more than the majority of other punters betting against you.

[Andrew Hughes]

This talk of tissues has reminded me of something I read in Dave Nevison’s column a couple of years back. I forget the name of the horse he backed, but he felt it should have been 33-1 and backed it at 100-1. In terms of probability, 33-1 is around 3% and 100-1 is 1% – is it really possible to draw up a tissue to such a fine degree of accuracy?

[dave jay]

If he was backing every horse where his price was out by 2% he would be having loads of bets .. if he was looking for a 10% advantage on his tissue, the 1% chance should be 11% for ir to qualify (9/1).

You can make tissues are accurate as that but as the chances get smaller so does the margin of error, IMO.

[Artemis]

Pru,

I mentioned in my post that the odds were an integral part of the investigation. Converting perceived chances into probabilities is a subjective business, so it is difficult to describe it as part of a method or system.

I’m looking for the most likely winner using a prescribed formula, but putting an acceptable price on the main ‘suspects’ is probably more down to feel and experience than anything methodical. The numbers are helpful, but not sufficient to make a tissue.

[Andrew Hughes]

That’s what I thought, Dave. I know he backs more than one in most races, but you would surely have to be very confident about your abilities to risk money on such fine margins of probability.

[clivex]

I’ve noticed when people talk about studying form, the majority talk about how long do you spend looking before the race. For me the most important factor is the analysis after the race, assessing at that stage whether the form is likely to prove strong and identifying then which horses are likely to prove of interest next time. I can say without hesitation, that my best results come from these horses that I’ve been ‘waiting for’

Would agree with this from DJ

I do like to go back to the RP comments on races to refresh my memory or get some perspective that goes beyond simple form. The comments will be sub jective of course but so is all judgement

An open mind is important with all selections. We all have factors that we weight acoording to our beliefs but its also like developing a chain of thinking. One factor which may seem unremarkable can quickly tip the balance one way or another

Factors i think are underrated are;

Form (yes….)
Trainer form and preferences
Course preferences (esp on jumps)
Paddock

Overrated

Time ratings
Past stats (without adequate logic)
Systems
Jockeys

None are completely ruled in or out though

[Author]

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