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"Thou shall not win" is the first rule of bookmaking. It really is sickening to see so many bookmaker reps being given airtime to promote their fictional odds.
I think we should have a new section on the TRFcalled the Betfair Forum. Exclusively for condemning a jockey for losing a race and giving praise for a good ride when winning. Mind numbing drivel.
The on course business has been dying since about 2002 when Betfair really took off and a huge number of serious punters stopped going racing. The punters who would regularly bet from £100 to £2,000 drifted away to Betfair and left a huge hole in the on course market.
I reentered the on course industry in 2001 after a gap of 20 years running other businesses and soon discovered the game was up. I sold up my pitches at a loss and simply moved my working capital to Betfair.
Most on course bookmakers are actually Betfair traders with a small edge in odds over those based at home. The day is coming when there will be Betfair terminals on the course right alongside the Tote windows and also easy access to WiFi network connection supplied by the courses for a small fee or free from Betfair.
The commission paid by the tote operators (about 8%) is more than the gross profit most bookmakers make from online business and a lot more than Betfair earn from their regular business.
My heart sinks where I read of someone praising Derek Thompson for his work in racing.
David, the people I know who play for big money certainly are value traders but when they have a particularly strong view on a horse it may seem they are prepared to oppose at any price.
Markets are manipulated on a daily basis with spoof trading on Betfair. This is very noticeable on quiet days when horses at the head of the market lengthen in price before contracting suddenly. With so many bots operating purely on the weight of money strategies they can easily be fooled into action.
It only takes one big player to take a position against a horse to cause a drift. I know people who are prepared to stand a horse to lose £20k and when they do the horses drift unless it is a particularly strong market.
Jim McGrath’s commentaries for the BBC at Aintree last year were appalling. He missed lots of fallers and called the wrong horses in the finish a few times.
However the best example of a presenter making a cock up at Aintree goes to Clare Blading when she said a number of jockeys were ejaculated from their horses at the Chair!!!
In the UK we have a small number of quality commentators and far too many people on the gravy train picking up easy money for very poor performances. We also have another group of egotists trying to personalise their commentaries with cliches and Americanisms. Post time, from gate to wire, the clubhouse turn have no place in our racing.
Over the last year or so I have been using the very valuable function of the mute button. Learning to read a race yourself is the best way to avoid the rubbish and improve your understanding of what actually happened during the race.
Some wise person once said; "The flaw of averages states, plans based on assumptions that average conditions will occur are usually wrong."
In my experience averages are only a crude indicator. Lots of really useful data are often hidden by the average.
The performance of Mark’s simple system has been impressive so far and throws up lots of questions as to why the system seems to be beating the market.
Peter Poston made a lot of money out of his rags by sending them up to Scotland for the summer circuit. He had them stabled in a small yard close to Lanark racecourse and picked up the traveling expenses from Newmarket for all runners.
At his stage in life (about the same as me) Francome is entitled to play the grumpy old man role! As others have pointed out, he has been there and done it in the real world of race riding. Unlike most of the other C4 Racing hangers on and parasites he is qualified for the job he does.
He didn’t have a problem jumping hurdles and fences in sunny conditions, unlike the modern day jump wimps!
