Category: Horse Racing
Ascot day one trading review
Total matched bet turnover at post time was £13.9m vs £15.6m last year, down 11%. But some of this will be due to the fact we didn’t have a really short priced favourite in the field. Today should give us a more representative day.
Yesterday was a little erratic and no clear trading characteristics came out of it. The first day of big meetings I tend to ‘play around’ a little in the market to test things and that went …
The numbers behind Royal Ascot
And so here we are, another year, another Ascot. For me, another declined invitation to attend. While that pains me, in another couple of years it won’t be a problem. But for the moment, I’d still rather be on this side of the desk during one of the busiest weeks of the year.
Wall to wall, quality racing, from now till Saturday, I’m in trading heaven! Let’s see how it all adds up.
Last year Royal Ascot had matched bet turnover at …
Understanding UK Horse Racing
Most people understand most sports on the exchanges, but for some the terminology and structure behind racing can be a bit of a mystery. It took me some time fully graps what racing was all about and I’m no expert, but it helped how I trade the market. People attending my course will know I talk about it a fair bit. So I’ve invited forum racing favourite ‘JollyGreen’ to give you some broader background to racing. Here is the first a …
Derby post mortem
An interesting Derby meeting this year. I don’t often post up analysis after the event but I thought it was worth a few notes this year.
I managed to pull a decent result out of the hat on Saturday, but I think I’d describe it as exactly that, ‘Out of the hat’. It was a bit of an erratic today, where I ended up with quite a bumpy P&L.
For some reason UK racing thought that putting on lots of other …
Derby Day – Trading outlook
An OK week so far. Some of the racing hasn’t been great, but that’s given me more time to work on the French Open. A distinct lack of ‘shocks’ so far but slow and steady wins the race, as they say.
Looking forward to Derby day though and it can produce some big volumes. Last year Epsom produced £12.3m matched bet turnover for the day but that was a bit distorted by Camelot. Just that race alone accounted for around …
The Oaks – Betfair’s first ever market
So today we reach the Oaks and tomorrow the Derby, when the summer racing really starts to step up a gear. The start of June means Royal Ascot is just around the corner.
If you are a Betfair newbie you may not know that the Oaks at Epsom was Betfair’s first market way back when they started in June 2000. But it was a little later that year, on June 11th. Mark Davis reminisced on his blog about it. I …
Racing steps up a gear
Nice looking card today with Newbury, York and Newmarket then Aintree in the evening. So I’m rubbing my hands at the prospect of some more action today.
The better quality racing has been quite good this week, the other stuff in-between not so great. But I’ve managed to pull out the odd decent result while avoiding the worst of things. It’s noticeable recently though, particularly since mid April, that trying to get an order filled on the weaker betting markets …
York Dante meeting
After a successful Chester meeting last week we roll onto York for the Dante meeting this week.
The York card looks OK but the other stuff on the card today looks a little ‘testing’. I’ve never managed to consistently pull out any big totals from this York meeting in the past but I approach each market with a fresh set of eyes, so you never know.
As we move through the early part of the flat turf season the early …
Racing Victoria ups the ante
A statement from Racing Victoria this morning seems to up the ante of fees generated from bookmakers, any higher and you would think it would make sense for them to buy a bookmaker rather than going through the hassle of collecting it from them.
Despite seeing $44m, an increase of 25%, in the amount they are getting for racing, it seems that’s not enough so they are upping the rates again. It seems a dangerous tactic, but as with these …
All set for the Newmarket Guineas
The weather is looking great this weekend for the first real big trading market of the flat season, the Guineas. Good weather on a bank holiday weekend, I must be dreaming!
I’ve always enjoyed the Guineas meeting and have had some fun and game over the years on it. I’m really interested in how it will perform this year as we’ve spotted two major changes in the market between this year and last. So this weekend is turning into an …
Evening all
Tonight sees the return of the ‘I’m not interested in racing, I’m here for the concert’ season.
But seriously, flat turf evening racing starts up again tonight and as we shuffle through the weekend. We also can herald the start of Windsor in the evening, which means we things are about to step up a gear. At least in quantity.
This is a perfect time for part time traders or people who want to try trading but don’t have much …
Flat packed
Nice to see some flat turf racing underway and the weather improving. Things will get busier from here. In April the flat turf season really starts to kick in and the other meeting types decline, see the graphic. 
Aintree was the last chance of a decent total from a jumps meeting and it did oblige but in a grudging manner. I found Aintree much harder than in previous years, but that could have just been me. Markets shift subtly over …
Black Caviar triumphs again
Black Caviar clocked up win number 25 out of 25 this morning at Randwick racecourse in Sydney.
She strode to an easy victory in the Group One TJ Smith Stakes. Her appearance completely overshadowed the running of the $1.5 million Australian Derby. Priced at 1.18 she accounted for £1.74m of £1.76m in matched bets on the race.
More speculation around her possible appearance again at Ascot still hangs in the air, as does the prospect of her meeting up with …
Betfair charts from the Grand National
For your interest, here is the front of the field from the Grand National today. Hopefully this will give some insight into where you went wrong / right today. I flagged up on one of the most likely main moves during an interview I did on Radio early this morning. I’ll post up the interview early next week. Off for a well deserved rest now!…
Aintree grand national meeting
This is a curious meeting for me each year. It’s not on the scale of some of the really large meetings, but is still a decent meeting in it’s own right. The problem I have here, is that I never seem to pull off anything spectacular from it. On a race by race basis I do now and again, just not consistantly.
That feels odd to me because it’s a decent enough meeting to shoot for some big totals. But …
Betdaq go commission free on the Grand National
Betdaq continued their act of throwing down the Gauntlet today, by making the bold move of offering the highest profile betting race of the year completely free of commission. That’s right you heard it here first, the Grand National will be offered at 0%!
I’ve always been an advocate for a competitive market and this sort of thing is a direct result of a more competitive market. This can only be benefical for exchange end users. Whatever your objection for …
Easter Bank holiday moanday
The easter bank holiday is a funny day. I forgive racing for wanting to put on a show for punters, but it’s a mare for us on the other side. Just too much racing!
In total there are 66 races today of which 20 have the same starting time. Of those not clashing they generally start five minutes apart and will clash from that perspective. That means very few races will reach ‘critical mass’ at any point and be suitable fodder. Not …
Flat racing falls at the first hurdle, but…
Hopefully the start of the flat season isn’t a portent to the rest of the season!
I always enjoy the Lincoln handicap this Saturday as it can be a pretty useful day and a kick start to the season proper. But not this year, yet. Hopefully things can return to normal and by next weekend we can really get moving.
While we are missing what would be a normal card, opportunity is always in the market if you look at it. …
Caviar, served on a plate
Tomorrow sees the return of Black Caviar to the racing track.
She will be running in the Group 1 William Reid Stakes at Moonee Valley tonight / tomorrow morning depending on your location on the planet.
Nice little quote from the Adelaide now: -
“”If anybody has backed Black Caviar every start they are obviously a long, long way in front,” TAB’s Matt Jenkins said. “If they had the foresight to put $100 on Black Caviar at her first …
Too much ‘not enough’ racing
It wasn’t really a surprise this morning to hear Newcastle had been abandoned. It seems over the last year they have only had a handful of meetings there. Winter hasn’t been great this year for sure, but it hasn’t been terrible and it’s amazing to see how many meetings have been lost.
But worse than that the number of runners at a lot of these meetings is miserable. Today we have only two races on the afternoon card that have …
From feast to famine
That was a really nice finish to the Festival, I can therefore declare Cheltenham 2013 as a success. Now its back to the grindstone trying to sort the wheat from the chaff; I am findingb lost of chaff.
Cheltenham went well and it was really nice to do that because you tend to measure yourself on prior years and hope you are still moving in the right direction. So it’s reassuring to know you can still do it and in a bit …
The massive gamble that wasn’t
Credit to BETDAQ tips that highlighted the rather unusual situation that developed at Wolverhampton this evening.
Irish trainer, William Murphy, sent four horses to Wolverhampton that hadn’t run for many ages, the least was 832 days ago. All four were backed very heavily causing the bookmakers to run for cover and offer SP only in the races.
Come the races however all four horses performed badly and all finished stone dead last, some by quite a margin. Anybody following the …
Cheltenham – Finishing post is almost in sight!
Gold Cup day is upon us and that means all this weeks fun and games at Cheltenham are almost over.
Yesterday continued the trend of a decline in turnover that we have seen this year. Yesterday was 12% lower than previous years. We also got to add back in the XC chase to the mix and rebasing that back to Tuesday indicated that day declined 7%.
I’m not expecting to break any records this year, to do that needs everything …
Improving conditions at Cheltenham
After a bumpy start on the first day at Cheltenham, day two proved more predictable and productive.
Overall turnover on Betfair was down 10% year on year, which was a surprise. Especially given the incredibly, and completely justified, short price on Sprinter Sacre. It was one hell of a performance and fully justified the price. I wasn’t sure what to the make of the market at first other than it would be almost impossible to trade. But I went for …
Conclusions from Cheltenham day one
And they are off. Sort off, after a delay then a cancelled race.
Hmm, that was a bit of a messy start to Cheltenham but that’s never stopped me in the past and it didn’t yesterday. When I heard that race times were to be put back I wasn’t sure what I would see. Would we get a double surge in volume? No was the in-direct answer to that question, but it obviously did lead to an increase but also …
Ready for the roar?
So here we are, after deleting countless emails in your inbox about the bloody thing, the Cheltenahm festival is right on our doorstep.
The first day looks like it could be a little tricky. Only two cards on today and Cheltenham is being put back one race after a very cold spell overnight. Sometimes this can work quite well as the volumes will be higher come the actual start of the race. But each year has always been slightly different …
Calm before the storm
Just had a glance at the racing card today and it’s a predictably poor one for Cheltenham week. On this day for my entire exchange career I’ve only had one really good result, back in 2009. All the rest have been very ‘missable’.
So today I am tidying up loose ends and checking everything is in order before the ‘Roar’ meets us tomorrow. Again this year I have been offered hospitality, but I’ve had to decline as the opportunity to …
Cheltenham festival preparation
The final entries for Cheltenham final entries were revealed yesterday which revealed that a total of up to 2075 horses will be chasing just short of £3.8m in prize money, in 2012 1991 made the start. The handicap weights were also revealed, meaning the handicappers have started their quest to find a winner at a reasonable price.
Collecting and analysing data
When a major meeting is on the horizon I have already done a lot of work ahead of it. There …
Black Caviar – 23 out of 23
Black Caviar returned to action today after a long break since her narrow victory at Royal Ascot.
Running in the self named, ‘Black Caviar’ Lightning Stakes at Flemington, she started well eased to the front and romped away from the field to win easily with a course record.
The underlying market was really interesting. From a very short price early on she drifted out gently before a bit of panic set in pushing the price right out. It settled back …
1.03, 1.02….1.01
I don’t profess to being a genius when it come to in-play stuff on the racing, but I am currently trying hard! Part of that is watching and gathering data on each race. I just watched a classic at Wincanton.
Leading horse comes up to the last fence, never sure why prices are so short in heavy ground, jumps it then pecks the ground and takes a tumble. There is 1.03 gone!
Second place horse only just about makes it …
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