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Interesting snippet today from Graham Cunningham during Ch4 covergae. Graham suggested, as a jokey conversational aside, that finding winners gets harder as you get older.
What d you think? Does it get harder, or easier, the older you get? And why would that be? We know young people are less risk averse, could it be that this has an influence. Do we play too safe, in betting terms, the older we get?
Not necessarily easier to find winners, but in my younger days it was easier to make a profit if you were prepared to work at it. Less information commonly avaiable so those prepared to graft had an advantage.
Way, way easier than when I was young.
The more race-watching I do the more intricacies and character traits I have the chance of picking up. In theory, you should get better and better at race reading as you age, and that’s a huge contributor to the way I bet.
As oldies we probably think so. But it’s easier to remember the big wins than the losses from years gone by.
For me the answer is yes.When I was younger my stamina was an asset,I could work and or study for hours longer that I can now.I cannot concentrate for as long now.Although I had form books years ago my memory was such that I could remember horses formlines without checking the formbook.Now I have to double check everything,so studying a race takes so much more time.
If you go to back a certainty always buy a return ticket.
Personally I think it is easier now. More knowledge and the internet and easier access to form stats and even replays of races makes it easier to analyse races.
I used to be more of a instinct punter but now am more considered. Some would say too considered but very rarely will I go to the races now and NOT back a winner whereas I can remember numerous occasions in my youth of blank days at the races!!
And to cap it all I have smaller bets now than I used to!! But I think five hundred on Arzanni at 5/2 in the 1991 Ascot Gold Cup getting beaten a neck by a 25/1 shot cured me of BIG bets !! Maybe it is age that has made me more careful and less reckless or maybe it is more knowledge. personally I think it is the latter.
Definitely. On an associated topic I once wrote to Claire Rayner:
Dear Claire
As a young man, I found that when I got an erection it was rock solid. Nowadays however, when I get an erection I find I can bend it quite easily any which way.
My question is: Am I getting stronger?
Yours etc,
Mike
I’ve learn’t a lot more as I’ve got older (but not always wiser).
I don’t bet as much as I used to and am more selective.
Certainly don’t follow newspaper tipsters, prefer to make my own mind up.
I don’t bet over the jumps, mainly because I hate seeing horses fall and injure themselves, I watch the replays once I know they are home sound and safe.
Would rather be at the races and see my horses in the paddock before I place a bet nowadays. Horses are such strange and beautiful beings and they almost tell you when they don’t feel like racing. Have got better at noticing the signs both in the paddock and going to post.
I do tend to bet with my heart and will follow an old favourite off the edge of a cliff.
Now it’s all the progeny of Frankel so make that cliff the face of the K2 LOL.
I have certainly taken more of an interest in the breeding of horses and their Pedigrees and this sometimes helps when backing 2yo’s and horses running over a certain distance.
I’ve enjoyed the learning experience and don’t expect to win every time I bet, but I do expect to learn a little about why my horse lost. Also never chase my losses just take what I’ve learnt and try to use it to my advantage next time I place a bet. Like Raymo so much available now for analysing a race and the replays are without doubt a great help when I can access them on ATR as I don’t have Racing UK.
Luckily I don’t have to worry about Betlarge’s problem…wonder what Claire’s answer was
JacThings turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...Mike’s reminded me of the man in the small village I grew up in. One of our gang had gone to Canada and came back many years later for a holiday. He met this notorious man who was now well over 80 – saw him sitting in the pub and hurried over smiling to say. ‘You were the man who used to bend iron bars over your willie, weren’t you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Ha! Bet you can’t do that any more!’
‘You’re right. I can’t…wrists have gone.’As someone who is yet to reach 30 I bloody well hope it doesn’t get harder as you get older (finding the winners that is…), think I’ll get out while I can if it does!
Speaking purely anecdotally as a former six year inmate/employee of a bookies there seems to come a point in most punters lives where they gradually start to give up and move towards nothing but favourites.
Personally I think it is easier now. More knowledge and the internet and easier access to form stats and even replays of races makes it easier to analyse races.
…and there’s the rub. A wealth of third-party information available at the click of a mouse might make it easier and quicker to analyse a race but if it’s simpler for Joe Punter it’s also simpler for Lucifer Layer. Therefore the markets are more efficient now than they’ve ever been and finding value – if that is your raison de pari – has become more difficult
Ally this to the numerous anecdotal reports here and elsewhere of bookmakers now being loath to lay a cold potato to a hot potato then the profit motive that’s the target of the serious punter has never been so difficult to hit
So for those whose objective is finding winners today is a golden age, whatever your age and experience; but for those whose objective is profit, today is a leaden age
There you go Gingertipster: the hare’s running, I’ve squeezed your orchids, get out of that trap pronto
A direct reply to the thread’s title: for my part betting was twenty years of schooling, twenty years perception scraping wedge on eternal double shifts, and what I hope will be at least twenty years retirement recovering and ruminating on what was a worthwhile if wearying rollercoaster ride: the stamina has gone and the love lost. If you’ve lost either or both what is the point in continuing?
Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
’Cause the vandals took the handlesI don’t know about in relation to gambling but certainly you could argue that if you’re not a winner by 30, or even younger than that, then you’re unlikely to start winning once you reach an older age
Actually this is a topic you could apply in a wider sense- for example people who have done great things when they are younger but struggle with age
obviously that is the case with a lot of sportspeople for obvious reasons but you could also apply it to scientists, writers, directors etc
einstein just to name one example did most of his best stuff when he was younger. And would you run out to buy a stephen king novel now? or a phil collins cd?
Take your point, Judge (Always thought Vincent O’Brien a good example of what you’re saying) but in defence of Stephen King, some of his best work, imo, has been done in the past five years
Well that’s a debatable one, I happen to disagree (dr sleep not being in the same class as the shining, and mr mercedes descending into sentimental mush by the end) but the point is still the same.
I could name probably dozens of examples of creative people who have excelled when they are younger but aren’t hitting the same heights now, and yet very few examples of how it happens in reverse.
george lucas, steven spielberg, oliver stone, francis ford coppola to name a few directors.
sting, phil collins, oasis, prince, madonna in music.
no doubt motivation + your relevance to the times plays a part in those examples but there’s no doubt you lose some “brilliance” as you get older. And I always thought “experience” was an overrated term.
this is a topic you could apply in a wider sense- for example people who have done great things when they are younger but struggle with age
einstein just to name one example did most of his best stuff when he was younger. And would you run out to buy a stephen king novel now? or a phil collins cd?
The author Joseph Heller’s first novel was Catch-22, which he started writing in his early 20s. Chided by a critic in later years for not having written anything near as good since, he replied:
“No. Nor has anyone else.”
Mike
Phil Collins…..
Yes he was on the One Show the other night. It was so sad to hear that he had come out of retirement
Jac
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