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Nothing new but I just need to say it

Y

yorick

Journeyman
Joined
Mar 2, 2018
Messages
1,561
I know; it's all been said before.

Last time out I backed Moodofthemoment only to see the jockey sit at the back from the off and simply allow the horse to get further and further behind without the slightest concern. PU: 'Never travelling' As I remarked in a post:

'Haha! The comedy show started at the tapes and just got funnier. Hehe.'

Today, I back Arthur's Key and he gets beaten by none other than Moodofthemoment, who, apparently, rose, Lazarus-like from the ashes. Up with the pace throughout

'Jumped well, raced in second, led 9th, joined but going easily 4 out, good jump 3 out, ridden and clear before last, idled final 110yds, just did enough'

I had no idea that the comedy would provide such a hilarious punchline.

Not an effing peep from the stewards on his last run or today. A bunch of wankers, to be sure.

For 'Never travelling' substitute ' Never trying'

As a nine-bob-note
 
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They will all be off for their lives at Del Mar tonight or tomorrow night.

Or at various other race meetings I could name.

For me, there comes a point where highlighting ongoing integrity concerns isn't enough.

It becomes time to move away from betting on such races entirely.

It would have a dramatic impact if all punters did this.

Levy revenue would be literally zero on a vast swathe of races, bookmakers would be up in arms over zero turnover races, the perpetrators of grubby coups would have no meaningful market to bet into and the BHA would be forced to act decisively.

No one is forced to bet on these races - just focus on races where you'll back losers, for sure, but never get beat because today wasn't the day.
 
Well, you’re absolutely on the button there and, to be honest, that is my approach. I’ve vowed to keep my real interest to races of cl3 and above generally. There are exceptions such as when one of mine to follow is dropped into lower class.

In the case of Moodofthoment, I had a peppercorn bet just for fun so, in truth, I wasn’t tearing my hair out. I did think, though, that it illustrated perfectly a malaise that blights the game and highlights the haplessness of racing stewards.

One more point of relevance is the economics of racing revenue around training costs, betting levy and prize money. I think it’s beyond doubt that trainers and owners need to bet to keep going. While this continues, punters will suffer.
 
I could disagree with you on one point, however, concerning better class races in that they aren’t immune to jiggery pokery.

We only have to look at Mr Skelton’s athletic skullduggery with some of his handicap bigwigs to witness a good number of ‘surprise’ results.
 
yorick said:
I could disagree with you on one point, however, concerning better class races in that they aren’t immune to jiggery pokery.

We only have to look at Mr Skelton’s athletic skullduggery with some of his handicap bigwigs to witness a good number of ‘surprise’ results.
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I don't dispute that and I was discussing this with "Leafy," my main collaborator and most longstanding friend.

He reckons the high-end handicaps are only marginally better on integrity as it's still trainers trying to game the system, but simply dealing with horses with bigger OR numbers.

Still, "marginally" is better than nothing.
 
barjon said:
Don’t bet in handicaps.
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Nice purist idea, sir, but I seem to recall you having a 33/1 winner in a big handicap chase at Newbury in the spring, so I'm not sure if you're practicing what you're preaching there - or whether you ever should, for that was a banging success!
 
Alex Bird (sure you will recall him, Ian) was a friend of my father and when he saw I was interested in racing he wagged his finger and said “Don’t bet handicaps”. He never did except in the Grand National because in those days you could eliminate most of the field because they wouldn’t get round. Can’t say I obeyed, but at least I rarely have a full bet on handicaps.
 
barjon said:
Alex Bird (sure you will recall him, Ian)
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I not only remember him, but referenced him here the other day.

I also remember his mantra about handicaps excluding the then Grand National, where you could indeed discard many for the reasons he stated.

He made a lot of money on photo finishes at the track and I think he also brought the landmark case that established profits from betting are exempt from income tax (his barrister argued if that weren't the case all gambling losses up and down the land should be tax deductible - the HMRC and Treasury didn't like the sound of that and conceded).

Bird was friends with Guardian racing correspondent Richard Baerlein and my only negative about Bird was when Baerlein wrote Bird had lost a lot of money on Dancing Brave at Santa Anita and came back moaning about it being a "dog track."

I'd have expected Bird to have done his research beforehand.

But he was a legend for sure.
 
Many listed and group races have horses who have at some point contested handicaps.

You don't have to bet on them, that's for sure. But if you ignore the showcase handicaps, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage, because you'll miss those horses going up the ranks.
 
Early in my career I worked in an office above Berwick Street market in Soho. I went to get a haircut as Alex was getting out of the chair. We chatted for a bit and the barber couldn’t wait to get me in the chair. “Do you know Alex Bird? Got a tip?”. I didn’t, but the Lincoln was coming up, which I’d been working on and I mentioned Majority Blue. Come the day and I couldn’t get a bet on Majority Blue at the bookie under the office. It seems all the Berwick Street stallholders were aboard. It lost and I never dared get my hair cut there again :ROFLMAO:
 
In all seriousness handicaps are most punters bread and butter. Unless you're like our smart arsed burglar getting an edge in top races is very hard as all eyes are on them.

The argument for saying low grade races are non viable betting propositions because of a bit of skullduggery here and there is utter bollocks. Most of the best punters ive known have made more money on low grade All weather racing than any other sort of racing. You can probably take Giggsy as a shining example of that as its rarer than rocking horse shit that you'd see him putting things up in grp races.

No doubt you will occasionally hit a non jigger that wont be a major contributor to you being a long term loser. The more likely reason that people dont make money betting on whatever grades or type of races they bet on is that they are just bad punters. If you tend to do better on higher grade racing its probably where you place most focus. If all you ever do is focus on low grade racing you'd probably find that you'd understand it better and certainly there will be more value available in those races as the eyes of the world, the media, the bookies and the smart arse burglars aren't always on them.
 
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Well, fair do's if you're able to spot an upcoming gamble in one of those low-class races. Even if you are, the major obstacle is that these horses tend to be very inconsistent and hard to predict because of that.

I wouldn't subscribe to the never bet in handicaps stipulation but, as with all punting, selecting the bet is vital.
 
Yonks ago, to try and get an indicative view of if some races are run 'less true', I looked at the strike rate of the top OR by class, I seem to remember it was only the very top and very bottom that showed any noticeable deviation from the avg. Think I'll have another look at that.

Cos of human nature, where there's money concerned there's always going to be a level of chicanery & dishonesty but it appears that it's relatively minimal, well unless it's completely endemic across the board....

Mind you I still bet hcaps a lot lot less than stakes races.
 
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yorick said:
One more point of relevance is the economics of racing revenue around training costs, betting levy and prize money. I think it’s beyond doubt that trainers and owners need to bet to keep going. While this continues, punters will suffer.
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I believe that you are miles off it here. I stopped backing my own horses nearly 40 years ago, considering it good money after bad. I can't think of any owner at the lower level of racing who is in it for the money and would suggest that it's at the higher levels where most of the tricks are played.
0-105 is so much more competitive than 0-145 which means that you're almost bound to run into one at the lower level so all you can do is to get yours in the best possible place. As we all know, there are several wrinkles for getting a workable handicap mark, including:
- running at an unsuitable distance - legal.
- running at an unsuitable track - legal.
- running on unsuitable going - legal.
- not giving the horse a ride to achieve the best possible finishing position - illegal.
- actively stopping the horse - illegal.

Additionally, it can take a while to get to know what suits a new horse particularly over obstacles. It has taken us two seasons to get to know Orbys River in terms of what track/distance/going is best for her. It meant that her form includes a couple of good wins and some runs that were disappointing but she was never running to get a particular mark. As an aside, she's picked up a season-ending injury after we had mapped her races until January so we have to suck it up and go again next season.

I find it ironic that everyone has a down on the lower grades of racing but betting coups by huge owners and knighted trainers are lauded as close to genius.
 
Thanks for the comments, mate.

Does the horse ever win without the owner being told of his winning chance?
 
archie said:
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0-105 is so much more competitive than 0-145 which means that you're almost bound to run into one at the lower level so all you can do is to get yours in the best possible place.
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I find it ironic that everyone has a down on the lower grades of racing but betting coups by huge owners and knighted trainers are lauded as close to genius.
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Two points, if I may, archie:

1. Why do you say 0-105s are more competitive than 0-145s? In this context, how do you define 'competitive'?

2. I as good as packed in punting on the Flat in the late summer on account of the big handicaps, in particular, being mopped up week in week out by horses for which I struggled to make a case for winning but which ended up being gambled off the boards and a lot of them trained by some of the biggest names in our game. (It was all the more galling because they were beating the ones I was backing a lot of the time.) I for one was most certainly not lauding winning owners and trainers as close to genius. I reckon the words I used would be unprintable. What surprised me is that the industry never, ever, appeared inclined to 'look into' these monster gambles for which there was no evidence in the form book for the horse to have more of a winning chance than its early odds.

In 55 years of punting, I cannot recall being more suspicious of the sport than I am at the moment.
 
archie said:
betting coups by huge owners and knighted trainers are lauded as close to genius.
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Not by me.

Tbh, I don't entirely trust any of it at any level below Pattern grade (where stud values dwarf betting considerations).

And the further down the grades you go, the more my mistrust deepens - I've seen too much over 40+ years to be convinced otherwise.

That said, you get Class 6 horses trying every time and Class 2 horses who aren't busy.

To this day, the most (hilariously) IMO suspect ride I never saw in the flesh in my life was given to a horse that won one of the biggest handicap chases of the year just over a week later.

And all of this said, I don't entirely mistrust racing at all levels either - different horses owned, trained and ridden by different people with a range of agendas, so it's absurd to make generalisations.
 
yorick said:
Thanks for the comments, mate.

Does the horse ever win without the owner being told of his winning chance?
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Different trainers have different 'tells'. An early trainer used to say "you couldn't kick us out of the first three" but, as I said earlier, at the lower levels it is very competitive so all you usually get is things like "it's the right race" or "as fit as I can get him". Orbys started at 22/1 when she won at Ayr so you can probably assume that no-one had much of a bet on her. We did have statements similar to those quoted above and Sam sent her a long way in very dodgy weather but you just can't be any more than hopeful in that sort of race.
 
Desert Orchid said:
Two points, if I may, archie:

1. Why do you say 0-105s are more competitive than 0-145s? In this context, how do you define 'competitive'?
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Generally speaking, there seem to be more horses in the 80-105 range than in 120-145 range, ie. those in the handicap, and the relative marks are generally better established at the higher levels. I suppose that I was using competitive as an indicator of more horses of an unknown ability that you have to account for when assessing your own horses chance.
 
archie said:
Generally speaking, there seem to be more horses in the 80-105 range than in 120-145 range, ie. those in the handicap, and the relative marks are generally better established at the higher levels. I suppose that I was using competitive as an indicator of more horses of an unknown ability that you have to account for when assessing your own horses chance.
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Thanks, archie.

I ask because my view is that as you work up through the ratings the horses tend to become relatively better handicapped because the handicappers undervalue the true worth of the form. By that, I mean that the winner of a race like the Wokingham or Golden Mile can go up just four or five pounds for winning in a fairly tight finish purely because the assumption is that the handicapper had them close to right in the first place. However, I learned early on that these races are actually so competitive that often those that finish just out of the frame have run better than their mark. I'm not convinced that happens further down the food chain.

What I also find tends to happen is that once you get them winning off the likes of 110 (on the Flat) it's the way that the race is run that helps them: anything less than very strongly run plays to their overall class. (Just a working theory for me.)

I think once you're well down the ranks the pickings can be easy for something the trainer realises is a much better horse. For hurdlers, say, they could have one rated 105 but at home it's developing and improving way beyond that so they can pick a nice race for it to win without being hard trained and gradually edge up the ratings to get into the Saturday handicaps off low weights.

Again, a working theory on my part, hence my interest in the opinion of a real owner.

Thanks again.
 

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