Posts Tagged aintree
A Grand day out
Last year’s Grand National will be remembered for Tony McCoy finally winning his first race with Don’t Push It. The pair are ready for battle again this year and the biggest race of the year offers a great chance for traders to profit at Aintree.
Most of what we do means we’ve normally settled up before the race, but that’s not to say there are no opportunities mid-race. We’ve had a look at a few horses in the running tomorrow and uncovered some top trading opportunities for astute race-goers.
Don’t Push It is trading at around 13.0 and will be another popular choice for the Aintree punters. McCoy’s ride will likely go off at a single figured price, so it would pay to back him now and lay off before the race goes off.
Ballybriggs is well suited for this race and is a strong traveller and jumper. A winner at the 2010 Kim Muir at Cheltenham, but showed signs of tiredness towards the end. This offers a great chance to back him at around 15.0 and then lay off as the race develops at a short price.
Midnight Club is likely to go off as favourite and this offers a lay option. His jumping is not the most reliable, while there are concerns about his ability to last the race. At a short price it’s worth taking him on.
Calgary Bay is trading at around the 34.0 mark and performed admirably at last’s years race. The trip might be a problem, but he should start well. This offers another opportunity to back at a large price before looking to lay off as the race progresses.
State of Play and Big Fella Thanks, 32.0 and 19.0 respectively, are both likely to trade shorter in-running than their starting price. Both have run well here before, although stamina is a now slight concern. It might be a good idea to back them at a high price and get out before they run out of steam.
On a broader note, a popular strategy in recent years has been backing the front runners who are left standing after a few fences. I’ve no opinion on this strategy having never tried it myself but it seems logical enough!
A grand grand
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 12th, 2010
Well that is one Grand National that will stick in the memory for a while. McCoy finally landed the one race that had eluded him and I tipped it up! There’s a first and it will probably be the last national tip I’ll ever land. As it is, I think I just created a problem for next year, when all those I told this year return for next years winner. Despite warning them, I am sure they will think there is some skill in it!
I traded the race well and was suprised just how much movement there was on it. There was quite a fuss over the SP returned by the industry which was apparantly the worst for 20 years. A lot of this was put down to the movement in prices just before race, apparantly. But I am sure it was still a massive betting race, I’ve seen a number of estimates as to the amount wagered but it’s safe to say it’s in the hundreds of millions. Betfair achieved turnover of £7.2m which was down on last years £7.8m.
I think I got the tactics just about right for the race and pulled in the decent result, though I think I could have done better. There were a few movers on the day, but that’s not surprising given the opening prices of some of them! I couldn’t quite understand why Mom Mome was at such a short price? It did drift nicely in the end.
With all the fun over, we now enter the start of the evening racing and peak season. Once again I failed to do as much as I wanted in the winter, so I think that this year may be the last where I am full on all the time. Hopefully I will hit some of the few remaining milestones I want this year and next year will be the time when I finally take some long overdue time off. It’s nearly been ten years since I first logged into Betfair so I think I am long overdue a personal reward for my efforts!
Till then my attention is firmly fixed on the summer season ahead.
A busy day
Posted by Peter Webb in Golf on April 9th, 2010
I haven’t chosen a good week to get the flu, it was such a busy day today. I really only performed at a fraction of my true capacity. The football was good last night and the golf but I watched little of either. My golf position will not mature till the end of today’s round so I will have to rise on Saturday morning to close that out. Fantastic to see Tom Watson move from odds of 1000 to just 100 on the first day. Surely we won’t see Turnberry again, it would be amazing; especially on such a tricky course. Tiger has picked up where he left off so his odds now reflect that.
The first day of Aintree was a bit of a let down. There is something weird happening in these markets so we capture a ton of data yesterday and will analyse it today. Hopefully we can learn from yesterday and move forward today, we have to nail it ahead of the Grand national on Saturday.
I’ve cancelled my appointments of today and will take the morning off to try and build up some energy for this afternoon.
Aintree Antics
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on April 2nd, 2009
We just put the biggest jumps meeting behind us with the passing of Cheltenham, but Aintree still ranks up there when it comes to big race meetings. Most people know Aintree for the Grand National, I’m not taking bets on how many people ask me for a tip this week, but during the three day meeting there is plenty to get stuck into. It’s usually a good start to April before we enter the flat season proper. Here’s hoping for a good meeting!
