Forum Replies Created
- Posts
I’ve seen those photos of races in the Australian papers and they are quite good. They show them just after the start, at halfway and at the line. Online video replays have made them look very old fashioned but they are still useful.
As for digital form, in Scandinavia they have large screens like plasma TVs on the walls with the cards and form – very little paper is involved. I guess that will happen here in the next few years.Have to say I am a little bit baffled by the new look Post.
The extra stats are excellent – they could go a bit further and add Class of race to the other stats like left-handed and right-handed records. Would also like to see the recent form of jockeys and trainers on the cards somewhere too. It’s also good to see the number of CD wins on the racecards. So pat on the back for that.
However, this is a major missed opportunity to make the Post much more user-friendly. The cards and form are still arranged as if the paper only had limited colour pages.
As one option, a form and stats pull-out would now be possible – on a Saturday it would be approx 48 pages with all the form and signposts etc in it. This would save a lot of page-turning looking for the form when studying a race.
The many weekend readers who don’t necessarily look at the form would also have a much more manageable paper once the form pull-out was discarded. I know from experience that readers really like this pull-out idea.
If that’s considered too radical, why are the card pages for each meeting still interspersed with pages of form?
All pages are colour now so, at the very least, run the racecards for each meeting, then run the form afterwards.
Look at the way Stratford has been presented in today’s paper as an example – it doesn’t make sense to have two columns of form, then two pages of cards, then a page of form, then three-quarters of a page of ratings, then the final race, then more form.
Why not put the cards on consecutive pages, followed by the form? It would make life much, much easier. The bookies have the betting shop display now, so it wouldn’t cause them problems putting the paper on the walls.
Or as another option, put the form immediately after each card – ie: 2.10 race, form; 2.40 race, form; and so on. None of those changes would require more staff or resources – in fact the pull-out would make the paper a lot easier to produce.
Hello Billion
I have not been following the racing too closely for the past couple of weeks – how has the system been doing recently?The system I suggested uses the betting forecast in the Mail itself. That is just for convenience, it may be better to use a live show.
Apologies – the system above should say horses that are NOT in the first three of the betting. A subtle but important difference!!
One decent little system uses the Daily Mail. You look at handicap races only and note any horse top-rated by formcast (denoted by a black spot) that is NOT in the first three of the betting forecast.
Then you do them in each-way doubles – simple as that. A good rule to cut down the selections is just to back horses that are also distance winners.If the same person who told the writer that sales of the printed paper are hovering around 100,000 also said the online subs are approaching five figures then a substantial pinch of salt is required.
Latest ABC certified print figure for the Post: 60,363
You’d think the Independent media writer would look this up.
I know one red top (Sun) where that categorically doesn’t happen. That leaves the other two – which red top tipster makes his tips in longer in the betting forecast?
Take away the at least two copies for each of the nation’s 8,000 or so betting shops and factor in that they reportedly sell around 150,000 or so on a Saturday. You’d also expect an above average sale on a Friday and during Glorious Goodwood which fell a couple days in the month
It makes you wonder how many they sell on a quiet Monday or Tuesday doesn’t it?
If only the other daily had been given a bit more time.I also had the great ‘pleasure’ of working for Stanleys in the early 90s while at college and we had the same off-slip procedure.
We had a rule of thumb that you could get your bet on until the horse had jumped the first or passed the first furlong on a middle/long-distance flat race. I never ceased to be amazed by the number of people who loitered until the off before putting their bet on – and most of these people were not asking for prices.I wonder if the number of non-triers in Irish jumps racing has anything to do with the way the handicapper seems to work. Horses are regularly put up 10lb+ for narrow wins in poor races and even modest placed form seems to result in a large rise in the handicap.
The rises in the weights for wins/places seem a lot higher than in the UK.There’s always the excellent bet settler at the betting mad website – has NRs, dead-heats etc covered for all the multiple bets
I would agree with the comments about specialising. My best time as a serious punter was when I concentrated solely on 7f races on the flat of Class 4 (in today’s money) or better.
I picked that distance because I think it’s a specialist trip and it dramatically cut down the number of races I had to study each day. Thinking about it now, I don’t know whether it was the specialising on 7f races or the fact that I only studied a couple of races each day in great detail that led to a profit.
Maybe concentrating on the day’s two or three best races and analysing them in detail, watching past races of all the runners etc is another way to specialise?It was in the Racing Post the other day that Setanta paid RUK £4million a year to be part of the Setanta platform.
If that’s true, it equates to around 16,500 subscribers at £20 per month. I’ve no idea how many subs they had as a standalone channel but it would be a surprise if the subscriptions that were paid for by bookmakers were at the full rate.
And if they had a lot more than £4m-worth then why would you go with Setanta in the first place?
Think it’s going to be tough as people really will resent paying £20 for something that was £12.99 – and ESPN will soon be hawking their Premier League football matches for a fee as well. It all makes watching the telly an expensive business!
I work in the racing industry and am thinking long and hard before signing up and we’ll have to wait and see how much the Post will charge for their website at just the same time.
