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I think Graham Cunningham deserves a mention here – not necessarily for his tipping, but his column is very amusing on a regular basis!
I’d like to congratulate him on nailing the One Thousand Guineas today.
I could also point out – as others have kindly pointed out on my behalf
– that I regard myself as a writer/analyst rather than a tipster, but that would be trying to have my cake and eat it. So I won’t.The ‘Half’ of the Two and A Half Horsemen could take offence if he wasn’t so thick skinned.
What the Racing Post allows is the likes of Pricewise and The Couch etc to search out sometimes just one bookmaker that may have made a ‘rick’ in the evening prices and to claim that price if the selection wins.
However as we all know the bookmakers trim up prices if they stand out too much and by the time the newspaper hits your door mat or the newsagents the following morning the prices they advise some horse at are clearly no longer available and to the majority of the readers and has never been availableto them. The variation on the Pricewise selections some times can be 10 points bigger with 1 bookmaker on what he has given and the price next morning with the same bookmaker once they have ammended the prices.
Of course it does not matter if the horse loses but if it wins the claims of what price was clearly available and what was won to all and sundy are clearly false.
With the newspaper tipsters apart from the Racing Post’s select few have the winnings calculated solely at S.P. So if the Yorkshire Post napped a winner at say 6/1 and it won at a s.p. of 3/1 the 3/1 price is the one they calculate the winnings at.
Surley they should all be calculated on the same terms and that of course is at S.P.
I have in the past provided selections to a tipping line and they always calculated winnings/losses at s.p.
You are either going to win overall or you are not and it would be false to attempt to change from a losing position to a winning one just by claiming to have obtained a price that was available for a few hours by just one or two bookmakers.
I have an ‘odds to service’ at present based mainly on the ‘t4c’ method on the systems part of this website and only get paid on winners and the only way I can operate is to allow calculations at s.p.
Some say the Sleepy Hollow Brotherhood are harmless – just ignore them if you don’t like backing short priced losers they say. However, I think the cult has got a bit too big for its boots. It’s started littering the racecard with it’s own secret code and acronyms where once only useful information, like C&D victories, were recorded. Thus we have the acronym ‘BF’. Much research and reverse look ups has led me to conclude that this stands for Brotherhood Fancy – ie it was tipped up by an ex-TF wallah in Trading Post LTO. Do we really need to know this? These guys should stick to the pullout and throwaway tipping section and leave the racecards alone!
Call me jaded, call me cynical, or call me a cab but I believe the great days of inspirational tipping are behind us. When the inventor of Beat The Book spends his time tipping at even money in 2008, you know the Rubicon has been crossed.
Said Rubicon-crossers have scarcely got their feet dry when value guru Tom Segal today throws up a mundane, layable, 15/8 shot, a tip which made me think he had a hot date last night and his column was in the way.
I could see him race from the building at the stroke of five straight into the snug at the Dog and Duck. A no account cyberbum like my good self pulled that one up with the first cursory scan of the overnights – and then rejected it because selecting the obvious is as tacky as flares.
Is there any need for a Pricewise which tips jollies? I think Mr Millington should be having words:(unless it was a double date).
The last decent information from a tipster was put up by Richard Hoiles when working for RUK at Sandown one night last year. There was a claimer – from the far corners of slow horse hell – and he put up A-One at 50/1.
Not only did he put it up, but he gave a detailed analysis to justify his selection. And he backed it. I was well impressed – and surprised. Most RUK (and worse, much worse) ATR pundits bore their subscribers rigid with an ample slice of the obvious before each race.
But not Mr Hoiles. He was worth his fee for the chutzpah alone. The horse lost, but that’s beside the point. He earned his fee and made the viewer think.
Why pay a pundit to tip favourites? Or a tipster? Why not reduce subscriptions instead? A lobotomised gibbon on ketamine with a whiteboad marker could do, say, Claude Duval’s job of tipping favourite after favourite. Why bother?
Boys, bring the inspiration back. It’s not too late!
Agree wholeheartedly that the spirit of Pricewise lies not in tipping 15/8 shots. There is value in horses at those prices but that is not what the column is about or the area it flourished. In danger of becoming just another run of the mill tipping column rather than the edgy, inspiring and groundbreaking series it used to be.
I can see where Maxilon is coming from, but a word in Tom Segal’s defence is required here.
He has stated on a few occasions since the Spring Mile that he thinks Don’t Panic is a Group 1 quality horse.
If that is the bloke’s opinion then he has to make him a bet at 15-8 today – to tip something at a big price against DP for the sake of it would make him look ridiculous.
The better reason for getting rid of Pricewise is the fact that there are very few prices to be wise about these days.
On an average Saturday ten years ago, there would have been four or five races priced up overnight. Now the poor sap gets just one Listed race with eight runners, which by an astonishing and remarkable coincidence is the only race priced up by thirteen completely and totally independent bookmaking firms!
I wonder on what basis they all decided to ignore the Ch 4 coverage of a £20,000 eighteen runner handicap hurdle at Newbury.
AP
I don’t think you would ever have got 4 or 5 pricewise races on a Saturday of this quality AP.
The Newbury race doesn’t look good enough imo – simple as that.
I don’t see what quality has got to do with it they’re usually happy to price up competitive handicaps with big fields. Donc 4.10 would do
Yes, an open handicap of 18 exposed runners must be soooo tricky to price up. You can’t have had much practice recently, with such races banned from most courses these days.
Is Alan implying that some sort of cartel is in operation?
If you are implying a "cartel" in terms of deciding which races to do for the Pricewise column, then that is quite clearly true to an extent
By the same token – are the Premier League teams a "cartel" for agreeing a fixture list – or should they just turn up at a random ground each week?
The exchanges are to blame for the demise of so many early priced races. Value on the Post’s (or elsewhere’s) tissues are highlighted early. With the ‘effect’ of Pricewise you also have the arbers just trying to steal money.
All the bookies are doing is giving ‘free money’ to the arbers, rather than offering a service to genuine punters.
AP,
Mel Collier used to say that any race with a short priced favourite was a race where you can find the hidden “value”. He saw it as his job to get favourites beaten.
I think the point is that even if Tom Segal felt that Don’t Panic was the likely winner the whole ethos of Pricewise was to find something at juicier odds. Even if, as TDK alludes to, Segal considered the horse an absolute certainty, he is paid to find something tastier for the sporting gentleman.It’s his job.
Professionally, the Pricewise tipster is duty bound to strongly suggest a bigger priced horse whether he has four or five races, or just the one race, to choose from. It’s an automatic play.
Anyone here could write “While Don’t Panic is the most likely winner, 15/8 is short enough for a horse raised in class…” and then go on to select one of the other horses at a bigger price. It isn’t difficult and it’s in the job description of the Pricewise incumbent. It is a price based column, not a winner finding column (in that order, though that sentence looks horrible written down.)
Rather than eliminate Pricewise (a Racing institution) wouldn’t it be more prudent to drop Mr Segal to the bench for a period? He appears to have lost his confidence. Punting at big prices is the horse racing equivalent of defusing bombs and he might need a break (he’s been Pricewise for longer than anyone).
Alternatives? The Valuescope fellow is garnering rave reviews and he has balls of steel. Mel Collier is back. I’m told Sam Turner likes a big priced punt. There are options.
Surely Segal is paid to find value? – and there is no reason that a 15/8 shot can’t represent a good value bet.
Was Don’t Panic value at 15/8? Well – there is of course no definitive answer and it all comes down to opinion.
I don’t think he was, but in fairness to Segal the 100% book on the off on Betfair had the horse shorter than 15/8 so the "market" agreed with Segal that 15/8 was a value bet.
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