Posts Tagged horse racing
Madness and wisdom
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on March 12th, 2010
Are the racing markets becoming more or less volatile?
I can answer that with a definite YES. Yes they are becoming more and less volatile. Let me explain.
A few years ago I could pop an order in the market and wait for it to get filled. Now, if I go into a weaker than average race, like many this week, that doesn’t happen in the same manner anymore. If I get my staking wrong, the market takes one look at my order and runs away from it. I can almost sense the panic in the market when my order sits there. On a macro basis the market is jumpier, more volatile, than it used to be. It is the madness of crowds, people reacting too much to a short term situation. However, that shouldn’t stop you from trading effectively, you may just have to change your tack a little. Like everything on the exchanges if you spot something or suffer due to something, you can simply invert it. Exchanges markets are beautiful, if temperamental, beasts.
Longer term the markets are getting more efficient at pricing risk. Each year that passes, it gets ever so slightly more efficient. We have also noticed that the long term volatility in the markets is narrowing slightly. This would appear to be a reflection on the wisdom of crowds.
So there you have it, the markets are more volatile, but less. This appears to reflect the dual, or should I say duel, madness and wisdom of this particular crowd. When you look at it from a broad perspective, wisdom is winning.
When a negative is a postive
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on March 3rd, 2010
No this isn’t a maths questions, it’s about horses ! See a horse playing up and most people will lay it, feeling that it’s chances of winning the race are decling. That’s probably correct, as a horse that is not behaving itself before the start is unlikely to perform better during the race. That re-adjustment of opinion though is a huge opportunity for the astute trader. Look at the following graph from a race at Southwell last week. As they tried to load the horse it reared not just once but twice, throwing the jockey into the dirt. Anybody trading this without pictures probably wondered what on earth was going on.
Snow fun anymore
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 13th, 2010
We all love a bit of snow, especially if you have children. But this morning I woke up to yet another dumping of the white stuff on the lawn and my heart sank. I also had to laugh as yesterday the local authority finally cleared our road and we were able to use the car again, albeit for one evening!! Today the road is treacherous again.
I fired up my iPhone racing post app and sure enough, what looked a promising three card day on the horses is possibly heading for a one card day at Southwell. It’s a bummer as I moved my hospital appointment this week so I could be around for what looked like a better day. Now that’s blown out the water. Currently, excluding oddities, I think this could well be my quietest month on the horses for some time. I’d have to go a fair way back to match it.
Never thought I would be asking for rain, but hopefully it looks like some will arrive on Saturday and hopefully restore some normality to proceedings.
Wacky Wolves
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on December 5th, 2009
This evening Wolverhampton provided a really interesting finish to my week. In several races the prices were all over the place and there were some huge drifters and steamers. As a result of this and a generally positive day, I managed the unusual feat of eclipsing all the other days of the week put together. Can’t complain, but it’s just very unusual.
The action started early when High Constable moved in from 3’s to 1.50 before the off. That’s a 30% move on book value which is absolutely enormous! Probably one of the biggest gambles of the year in book % terms. It was a gamble that ultimately failed though as the horse was well beaten. That lit up the evening though and was followed by a lot of action in subsequent races. I have put up a couple of the more interesting charts from this evening, a paradise for swing traders.
Just remarkable
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 25th, 2009
Just watched a horse throw its jockey, break through the barriers from the all weather to the National Hunt course, run the entire length of that course, smash through the barriers on it’s return, continue bolting to the start and guess what? It STILL started a 5f race! If finished 5th out of 7 runners.
I can’t believe they still let this horse run. It’s remarkable that they didn’t really care that much for the horses welfare. I know the vet checked it over and all that and that it’s down to connections whether it runs. But when a horse has done that it’s just not fair on the horse or the punters to let it run. Especially in a 5f race.
It threw up a great trading opportunity but I’d rather it be withdrawn and not bag a bit of profit from it staying in the race. Just astonished it was not withdrawn.
So close for Kauto
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 21st, 2009
Well, what a race that was. I really though Kauto Star had lost it, but it was always going to be a bob of the head that got it ultimately. The market got the photo finish wrong for once, but I must admit I also thought Kauto Star had lost it.
Benefit of form and horse related knowledge made this a good trade opportunity today. This morning I phoned around a couple of horse racing types and talked to them about the race. One thing came across and that was that Kauto liked soft ground and it seemed to be a race well set up for the horse. You can see the market thought so also.
I managed to equal my total on the race from last year, on what turned out to be a good day. But I should have done better to be honest. With plenty in the bank I kept trying to catch a bounce out, but it never happened. I wasted a lot of money doing that. Sometimes it works very well and it was worth a go. Made more on other races, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
In reaction to this race I laid Kauto Star for the King George VI. Will hold the position for a little while, but it looks like I have made a mistake there as well. I don’t trade Ante Post much unless I have a good reason to do so, so I am not well practiced but it seemed an opportunity. Denman runs next week so I guess that will define how the Gold Cup ante post looks between these two.
At the adverts..
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 10th, 2009
Hmm, a distinctly poor week ahead by the look of it and today we are ‘treated’ to a day on ‘At the adverts’, err.. ‘At the races’ I mean. At least we can use the red button to watch the build up a bit better, but we are never over the moon when faced with a winter card all on this channel.
On a close look the card doesn’t look terrible but with small fields and long races I doubt it is going to be easy. This is where you earn your money for sure. The thing we have noticed lately is that there isn’t enough ‘real’ money in the markets. You can put an order in to fill and it simply doesn’t. If anything, everybody runs away from it! I’ve dropped stakes in response but the markets are so weak at this time of the year that even that doesn’t seem to be having any great effect. It will be probably less noticeable for people using smaller stakes but for those using bigger stakes, it’s a right pain!
It’s not all bad, with extra time on my hands in the winter, today I completed some work that has been two years in the making. More about that another time.
No fireworks
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 8th, 2009
Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of fireworks around yesterday. We are very lucky to live just across from a field where a big annual display takes place, very useful. But at the Breeders Cup last night it felt like I’d only been given a couple of sparklers in the back garden.
For some reason while this meeting is a decent betting heat it never really seems to catch fire from a trading perspective. I did just fine last night, but for such a big meeting it just never seems to really take off spectaculary and I would expect more from it.
We collected some data from the meeting so will have a good look to understand why, C’est la vie. Despite not getting a great deal of pleasure of out last night the end result is that it will drive me forward again. I love exploring the markets and trying to learn why things happen and how. If I’m honest, that’s what I enjoy the most; the exploration of new territory. I am sure if I was born in the 15th centry I’d be on some wooden ship discovering the new world. As it is, while I still travel a lot, I’ll have to settle for something more mundane.
Breeders cup
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 6th, 2009
There are not many races I tend to do in the US, but the Breeders Cup is one of them. I’ve often looked at key races in the US but there just doesn’t seem to be enough interest in them. Even the Kentucky Derby barely registers on the trading Richter scale from a volume perspective.
However, the Breeders Cup is different and is worth a look. One of the problems you will have is that the key races tend to take place near midnight, so it’s definately one for the night Owls. Fridays have never done much for me on the Breeders Cup and last year neither day produce a decent result, despite doing well in prior years. I think that is the problem with infrequent events, you just never now quite how they will behave until you arrive at them. Based on last years efforts, I don’t have any immediate recommendations for this year.
This year, all I am hoping to do is better than last years effort. The only special thing I remember from last year is that it was snowing in the UK.
Horse genome unlocked
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 6th, 2009
Link to the full article below. So this begs the question, could we be on the verge of extra nighttime racing when scientists produce horses that glow in the dark?
Some interesting charts
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 5th, 2009
In these very dull UK markets excitement is hard to come by, but here are some interesting charts for you.
First a weird one from Fairyhouse yesterday. It’s fairly obvious that the Irish racing is quite likely to be more volatile than the UK racing, this race in particular was always going to see the odds move around a fair bit. But I didn’t expect to see what happened here.
This next chart was certainly more readable. Tons of money appeared when Northern Bolt hit it’s low price and forced the price to drift. When the drift hit it’s high price, nobody wanted to lay anymore and it came right back in again. Where Fairyhouse was a rollercoaster ride, Catterick was a gentle punt down the river, stopping off for a pint along the way. Two interesting graphs anyhow.
Shocking winner in Melbourne cup
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on November 3rd, 2009
Well that went well! I hadn’t expected anything given my failure in previous years to get a decent sum from this race. So it was a pleasant surprise to do well on this race, just a shame you only see this sort of liquidity on one Australian race a year. Even then, just about everything went right this morning. So I definitely feel lucky to have got such a flattering result.
Congratulations to those that joined me in the early hours and also profited on the race. I think it was a success for the betting community as well. £2.7m was matched on Betfair, well above the previous year, but that is nothing compared to the $76m that was put into the Australian pools in Victoria when I last checked. Nationwide, I am informed, this total would have been nearer $200m!
No fairytale win for “Alcopop” but congrats to ‘Shocking’ who edged out the field. Looks like I will be back next year.
Big backer back
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 28th, 2009
I’m sure you have seen this from time to time, but it appears a big backer is back in the market. Southwell was subject to some unusual moves yesterday but it was at Catterick that the unusual activity stuck out like a sore thumb. Despite studying the moves yesterday, I couldn’t really see a pattern. You can see in the chart below the two big volumes spikes that occurred when the price was smashed in.
Whether you trade the favourite or not this can be very frustrating as the entire book will react to such sharp moves. It’s very difficult to predict, so I just accept that it happens. Sometimes I will be on the wrong side and sometimes on the right side. But it tends to even out in time.
The one in blue is going to win
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 27th, 2009
It’s not very often you can say this, but you could yesterday when it was assured. The 15:00 at Kempton was a four runner field and each of the jockeys had blue silks on! OK there were some distinguishing marks between them, but I can think of a better construction for people trying to trade in-running.
In the end the possibility of fun and games in running came true. Tactic traded as low as 1.37, Copperbeach 1.40, Ezdiyaad 2.89 and Once more Dubai 1.01 as the winner. This is a race where laying the field would have produced excellent results.
Sure fire winner
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 20th, 2009
Good ole Curley leisure. Whenever I see that hat with red stripes I know we are in for a fun time. Sometimes unpredictable, but always fun. These horses have the potential to throw up some really good trades. Yesterday the horse ‘Sure fire’ that was the big gamble for the Curley yard. Its chance of winning the race improved a ‘theoretical’ 20%+ over the afternoon session. You could have either backed this horses or laid the original favourite for a tidy sum. I know several Bet Angel users did, well done. Always one to keep your eye out for.
So close….
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 13th, 2009
Almost a blockbuster start on Saturday when Lady Jinks, priced at 1000, almost won the first race at Chepstow.
If I make something on a race, I’ll often put a little on the outsiders, generally in the jumps season, in the hope of catching a big one. In this race Lady Jinks put in a great show and surprised everybody by shortening to as little as 5’s before fluffing the last fence. It was agonising to watch as she just fell short of overhauling 11/8 favourite Tito Bustillo, it was a very close call. The bookies had her priced up at 200/1.
If you want to have a pop at catching a big outsider do the following. Set up Bet Angel to back a horse at 1000 with offsetting set at 140, use ‘with greening’ and if you are doing this before the race, turn the bet into a Keep bet. Make sure you check your stake, you don’t want to dump a load of money on this horse, it’s better if you use the minimum stake of £2. With that set up, you could turn that £2 stake into £200 if it shortens to 10’s in running. Of course, your skill now switches to trying to find at least 1 in 100 races where this could happen. If you can, you will be profitable in the long term.
Commerçant de dix livres
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 5th, 2009
Ten pound trader joined me for the Arc yesterday and shuffled in with a £2.23 profit, so his stakes go up to £17.81 today.
It was a very impressive run by ‘Sea the stars’. I think each sport needs its highlights and I racing appears to have found a new hero. It should add more interest to the racing markets. Unfortunately we are about to go head long into the jumps season, but at least we have the Denman / Kauto star battle to look forward to. I had a reasonable Arc and the volume on the race has huge, thanks mainly to the short priced favourite and interest in the market. The card for this weeks looks much more tricky!
Ten pound trader – Day two
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 4th, 2009
Using maximum stakes of £11.76, ten pound trader managed to make £3.73 yesterday. That’s represents a 31.72% return on stake size on the day. Sounds impressive! Well it is, but it isn’t, but I hope my point will come across over the course of this post.
If I asked if you could return the same percentage on the day, you would probably be hesitant. But if I asked you if you could make 11p a race you would probably have a go. The fact is that in this case, both are one and the same thing. The reason for the higher return today is that I simply did more races. Such is the wonder of instant settlement and short term events on betting exchanges that its possible to recycle the money through the market very quickly, which produces these sorts of results.
Early on Saturday morning I was doing a dry run for the Melbourne cup, so ten pound trader joined me for the Aussie racing and the UK racing. In total I did 36 races on the day averaging just over 10p a race. If you look at the prior day I did 17 races, averaging a similar amount per race. So you could argue I did worse today as I had a larger stake size to work with.
With yesterdays result added in, the maximum stake for today will be £15.49. This is now more than 50% higher than we started with. Despite only making an average of just over 10p per race we are already moving up the stakes nicely. I will be active today as we have the Prix De L’arc. I’ll see if I can get get ten pound traders bank up a little but he will probably have a rest on Monday and Tuesday.
Ten pound trader – Day one
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on October 2nd, 2009
After a great September I had considered posting up the P&L for last month and also the last three months in total as they are absolute stonkers. But as I went to prepare the image for upload I paused for thought.
I guess they show what is possible, but having been around for so long you would suspect that I should be able to pull in something special, especially with bigger amounts of capital to hand. So I had another idea, what would happen if I took my bank right back to something that somebody starting out would have? I think this may be more interesting to a lot of blog followers?
So, today I funded a new account with £100 and started trading at £10 stake sizes. Of course, I can’t forgo my normal trading so Mr Ten Pound trader is going to have to run alongside my existing activity. It’s going to be quite a task to manage both so I am expecting the odd mess up and bad day but then, if I was starting out from new, that would probably be a similar story.
I know I am very experienced and don’t want to set false expectations, but I do believe that with the right approach it’s perfectly possible to squeeze something out of the market. I also believe that it’s definitely easier to use smaller stakes than big ones. With big stakes you have to gamble on getting filled, that’s not a problem using tiny stakes.
Each day, in line with sensible money management strategies, I will increment or decrement my stake by the prior days profit (or loss!). I’ll take Mr Ten Pound trader up to a notional value and then stop. I could go on forever but I just want to show that even from small amounts your bank can grow quite quickly. When finished I’m going to donate the profits to the injured jockey’s fund.
It could be a miserable failure and prove impossible to trade two accounts at once, but here goes anyway!
Racing wants more cash
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 30th, 2009
Really very interesting piece on the racing industry yesterday on the BBC web site. You can view the article here: -
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8280227.stm
You can download the entire Deloitte report by clicking this text, it’s a 7Mb file.
I won’t attempt to summarise or make an opinion on the report but I do think they are slightly off with their figures. Amounts wagered and the levy amount can’t really be compared across such different markets, but I do concede that racing could do with more money but this needs to be tied into modernisation. A big part of the gambling industry is utterly reliant on racing, but then again, the opposite is true also! I think a small increase in funding would surely help the industry which is seeing prize money fall away. But I also think they need to do more to encourage more people into the sport and through the turnstiles.
When I first started on Betfair I knew nothing about horse racing, now I quite enjoy it. That may not have happened if it were not for new technologies. I am sure if they invest in modernising the sport and the structure of the sport, it would pay rewards.
That was weird
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on September 29th, 2009
Some odd betting patterns at Warwick today, Abhainn was unexpectedly backed before the off from 8’s into 3’s. You can see from the price chart that the price asked was very definite. At the time I thought, ‘That was weird’. But you are never going to get upset at laying something for much less than you expected. That was only half the story, in running £10k was matched at 2.36. It won!
Make hay
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 25th, 2009
Never was a phrase so true as in the horse racing markets than, ‘Make hay while the sun shines’ literally. During the summer we have wall to wall racing and a lot of quality then as we transition through to late August into September that just falls away.
The evening racing grinds to a halt and a card that could provide a top up to a good day or a serve you a get out of jail card, suddenly isn’t there. For new traders it can be a tough adjustment, but for us old hats we come to accept the territory. Seasonality is inevitable and ends up as part of your performance.
The summer is the time to push the boat out and try and set some records but the nearer we get to deep winter my focus changes to try to squeeze what I can out of each market but it a safe manner. I don’t have many races to turn things around if I make a crass error. I also shift my focus to football where there are a number of opportunties available at times that are complementary to racing, they can also be very low risk.
While there is less on the table it also has an upside, you get your life back! Evenings are suddenly free and there is less pressure on to achieve what can be daunting figures. While the flat racing is winding down, there are still plenty of decent meetings left and it’s not impossible pull out decent results, even from intermittment days. So there is still plenty of hay to be harvested. Here is my best effort today, nothing special but one of a number of decent results to make for a moral boosting day.
Quiet end to Ebor
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on August 21st, 2009
The Ebor meeting closed with a quiet day, no fireworks or anything particularly special, but it’s been a good meeting.
I made a couple of cock ups today. Went too aggressive on one market and couldn’t turn it around when it went against me, but I did manage to restrict the loss to only -£50. Then I completely messed up the last and lost £120, not the ideal way to end, but the other races were OK. I managed to get a fair bit out of Chester today for some reason so I am hoping that continues into tomorrow. On the same day last year I didn’t do well so I am hoping to put that to rest tomorrow.
Subject to how tomorrow goes I could grab by fourth best ever week and depending on how next week goes I could be on target to set my highest ever strike rate for one month. About eight weeks ago I decided to do some analysis as I noticed my strike rate was gently slipping during the year. I narrowed this down to its cause and put in corrective action.
Just goes to show that no matter how experienced you are, there is always room to improve. It also shows you the importance of keeping good records. If I didn’t have such good records I may not have seen the gentle slope down or been able to identify the cause and put in corrective action.
There is a really useful spreadsheet on the forum for keeping track of your results. It’s worth investing some time to use it start keeping track of your results. It will quickly highlight your strengths and weaknesses.
Being contrary
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on February 3rd, 2009
Steamer at Lingfield
I often look at these moves and do the opposite. It’s easy to get sucked into such a move and follow it. You can see that it has come in a long way, the market likes it, but also it has accounted for a disproportionate amount of volume, £239k out of £284k for the total market! But of course it can’t go all the way into 1.01, that would be impossible. So at some point people have to stop backing it and the price will rebound. That’s exactly what happened today. Catching this move also benefits you in another way. When the price rebounds, it tends to do so with a lot of vigour as most people in the market can’t help but follow the trend. When the trend breaks, everybody heads for the door and there lies your opportunity.
Bet Angel - One click screen
Hoovering
Posted by Peter Webb in Bet Angel on January 27th, 2009
Nope, I’m not referring to that Queen video with Freddie Mercury. I am talking about this months edition of Racing Ahead magazine. This month I discuss this controversial tactic and its impact on how you trade in play. Racing Ahead is available at all good news agents.
I am also in Gambling on line magazine this month but with a much smaller article, a guide to the basics of horse racing.