A tale of two Cambridgeshire's
We are treated to plenty of good horse racing this weekend and the highlight will be the Newmarket Cambridgeshire meeting. I’ve picked off a few good Betfair trading results by from the Cambridgeshire in the past and hope to this weekend.
But I remember this race for several reasons. Big wins, a big loss and a public appearance.
The Newmarket Cambridgeshire
The Cambridgeshire is a notoriously competitive large-field handicap, featuring a packed lineup of horses battling it out at the Newmarket Rowley Mile. It’s a highlight of the racing calendar, closely followed by the Cesarewitch. In such high-stakes races, the market can be unpredictable, with price movements typically limited due to the strong competition.
From a trading perspective, it’s a challenging event. Picking a winner is tough, making lay betting an option, but it comes with high risk due to the larger odds. Dutching—placing multiple bets—can be useful in such a market. Personally, I enjoy these big races as they allow me to trade with significant stakes, though the sheer volume of money in the market can slow down order fills, increasing trade risk.
Despite the challenges, I prefer to trade pre-race on the betting exchange using software, which usually secures me a profit. These races often bring solid results, though I’ll never forget the disaster I faced in 2011!
Cambridgeshire Calamity
Back in 2011, as we approached the key race of the day people started posting in the forum about performance issues with Betfair, we have a specific thread for this.
Having done well on this race in the past, I was keen to press on but should have heeded the warnings as Betfair ground to an almost complete halt during the run-up to the race and stopped completely in-play. I was left hopelessly exposed. Needless to say, the right horse didn’t win and I took a bit of a thumping. It was one of my biggest losses ever, I can’t remember exactly how much it was but it was a whopper. However, when you are a full-time trader you need to prepare for anything and while it wasn’t pleasant I dealt with it and even despite this I finished up on the week!
I went back to see if I had a screen-shot of the loss, but it looks like I didn’t archive it! Nothing like a bit of denial to overcome a thumping loss is there?
On reflection, it appeared to be a heavy schedule of football and a big field/betting race that kicked off the crash. So I always keep an eye on these things now and will be well prepared. Hopefully, I can replicate some positive results from years prior, but this is one time I am not hoping for a repeat of a previous year, necessarily what happened in 2011!
The World money show – London
However, I did find some pictures and images from the same race from other years. It turns out that during this meeting in 2006, I attended the World Money show, a financial markets exhibition. I was there to talk about trading sports on Betting exchanges. I had half-forgotten about this. I remember doing it but had no idea it was during this meeting.
It was a joy to talk positively about my experience in sports markets, it is just such a shame that this sort of thing rarely happens now.
