York Ebor or Ebore?
We are at another key point on our journey through the year, as we head just south of the North York moors to York Racecourse.
The Ebor Festival starts on Wednesday and runs through to Saturday with the big race at the weekend. It’s by far the biggest meeting at York during the year and is packed with big prize money and some decent racing.
I like big meetings because of the amount of money that these bigger meetings and races generate. You also have the bookies and their desire to create a customer offer (terms and conditions apply). Both these things tends to lift the general level of activity in the markets.
You tend to find that when pre-race volume rises, so does in-play betting. The two are joined at the hip with about 80% of money being matched before the off and the remainder during the race. While this is no grand national, it’s a nice boost to the late summer card.
On the opening day, we have the Juddmonte international stakes and a decent chunk of prize money. Compare this with the tiny sums available at the lesser horse racing meetings. You should be able to see the appeal of this meeting.
Betfair Trading conditions
I’ve traditionally done OK at this festival each year, so I am looking for something above average this week. The Ebor meeting can yield some good results, but nothing is ever guaranteed and this meeting can be a bit random at times, so it’s probably not going to be all plain sailing. But it should be better than what we have been seeing recently though.
Traditionally, the space between two big meetings in racing can be pretty disappointing and that’s pretty much what we’ve seen since Goodwood. So I approach this week with raised hopes and it usually delivers.
As with other meetings of this nature you get some smaller races that lead up to the feature and then it tapers off againt towards the end of the day. So be prepared for rapdially changing conditions. Your options are to change strategies to reflect the shift in race types or avoid the ones you don’t like.
As always I’ll be trading them all and hope that York gives us a nice boost to the week and month.