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It strikes me the sport lends itself to a massive amount of guesswork unless of course you have access to some sort of reliable inside information. How many punters are lucky enough to be in that situation?
You may spend hours pouring over pedigrees but more often than not you will still get relatively mediocre results from what might look exceptional breeding. See Frankel’s brother as a recent example. Yes, the likes of O’Brien will always be winning decent races with these sorts of horses but many more will never ever live up to expectations.
The propensity for jockeys to mess up (and not have the chance to put it right) is that much greater for Flat racing. Blow the stalls or have a bad draw and almost immediately it can effectively be money down the drain. Jump the first hurdle or fence badly and there is still a chance to recover. A green horse on the Flat and you can be dead and buried after a few yards.
So many more handicaps these days and so often it just a case of who turns up on the day. Often you can throw a blanket over much of the field. If a leading trainer throws in an unexposed type it will either blow out/be priced up very short.
Then you have the added complication of guessing which horses are able transfer their ability from all-weather to turf and vice-versa.
There are of course NH Flat races but these (if you have a little pedigree knowledge) actually provide a very good betting medium because the pool of trainers who win these races on a regular basis is relatively small. There are that many more races for unraced horses on the Flat and an increasing number of Flat trainers who can pop one in first time.
Occasionally, the obstacles do get in the way (Virak and Emerging Force for me last season) but that doesn’t happen very often and such frustrations are far less than you can reasonably expect to encounter on the Flat.
There is enough summer jumping of a good enough standard to keep me occupied for a while and other than the Festivals and Classics more than happy to give Flat racing a wide berth.
All betting is difficult, it doesn’t really matter what you bet on.
You need to be disciplined and have a staking plan (like most punters I find this rather difficult)
You are betting against the odds. The “book” is skewered against you, so every time you bet you are losing a percentage. Then you are betting against the bookies, who employ teams of professionals to price up every market.
It’s like the equivalent of walking in off the street and playing a grandmaster at piece odds and expecting to win.
Increasingly I think the only way to is to research every race very thoroughly. Some people might find that obvious but I guess most punters (and I’d include myself in this) probably look at races on a superficial level.
To really know what you are doing you probably have to spend hours on each race and look at every runner. The majority of punters will walk into a betting shop, have a look at a race and pick out the one tipped in the racing post. Have several bets a day.
Even those who tend to take it more seriously don’t take it seriously enough. For example yesterday I backed some horse in the 4.50 at Newbury, Against the odds, that had come off the all-weather (going back to your point about it being difficult to translate the form)
it duly got stuffed as did pretty much everything in the race, by the winner primitivo.
I guess my point is that I did some basic research in that race and looked at 2-3 runners closely, but I didn’t look at every runner so how could I have possibly picked out the winner?
And that is the point why the bookies win, because they simply work much harder than the average punter.
but if you find a bias, a draw bias for example or a statistical trend, you can easily cut a large field handicap to just a handful of runners with realistic chances
I only watch flat racing, so would never bet on anything else, but I’m a terrible punter anyway.
There is one major positive about the flat turf season, the constant cheltenham yawn is put to bed for about 6 months.
Another way of asking this question might be, ”Why has national hunt / steeplechase / hurdle racing generated significantly less betting interest throughout the world in comparison to flat racing”
The reason why I might prefer steeplechasing is that you can watch the whole race.
Let’s face it, when we watch video replays of flat races, we all fast forward to the finish don’t we? A lot of the early part of these flat races are quite boring.
I agree with Stilvi for pretty much all the reasons stated, but especially the lack of a clear run you so often witness.
Also, NH racing allows you to learn about individuals in-depth, an important part of my approach to betting
The Flat creatures are wonderful to look at, and a fine mover is a thing of beauty, but I mostly leave it at watching these days.
The worst aspect of flat racing for me is when a jockey tries to go up the inside, when it is clear that all he is going to face there is a wall of horses. It seems that they have this child-like faith that somehow a gap will appear.
The horse never has a chance thereafter and the jockey gets off and tells anyone willing to listen that the horse was unlucky.
Yes, the horse was unlucky that it had a pilot without an ounce of nous.
The thing that then compounds it is the Channel 4 team drawing our attention to the “unlucky” horse in the race.
I prefer the flat but that’s probably because I mainly back 2yo and 3yo horses and I am interested in the breeding and the potential improvement. I only bet small on the big handicaps and tend to avoid draw bias when ever possible.
There are certain trainers I never back and only a few I used to trust with a big bet back in the days when I was punting more seriously. I tend to have a lot of tiny bets at huge odds anre-post these days and the old scatter gun hasn’t been too bad in the classics this year, with a 40/1 winner and a 40/1 third in the mix.
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
Increasingly I think the only way to is to research every race very thoroughly. Some people might find that obvious but I guess most punters (and I’d include myself in this) probably look at races on a superficial level.
To really know what you are doing you probably have to spend hours on each race and look at every runner. The majority of punters will walk into a betting shop, have a look at a race and pick out the one tipped in the racing post. Have several bets a day.
You’re right Judge.
Many punters think they “research”/”study form”, but although there are some short cuts a lot don’t realise – or don’t want to know – how much work/knowledge is truly involved in making a good profit. Possibly because they want to believe their way will show a profit.Both codes are profitable for me, but most years I find Jumps slightly easier than Flat. That’s just me though, am sure many punters find Flat racing easier.
Value Is Everything
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