Sat Nov 30

A Month to Go

There's an old stock market saying three taps and your through. I'm not sure its any advice in racing but the P/L has knocked 35k two or three times and ended yesterday through. Hoping December is not cruel?

Today there are 16 potential Dutch targets.

 Screen shot shows strike rate at 93% - edge 4.3% and 35,138 return at the standard 486 staking.

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So on the day the Shape of the Market filters narrowed down to just four live bets. That's ok we swerved the Fighting Fifth loss where the 2/13f was turned over by a 42.0 betfair shot in a five runner race.
 

I actually took 3 additional races manually - There are only two justifications for this 

- a better dutch frame earlier say half an four before the off.As per the 17:50 race below which offered a five runner frame early, but tightened down to four runner frame at the off.

- a race where you have put the form study in and really eliminated the opposition outside the dutch frame

 This dashboard shot shows the five runner Dutch Frame at 90.3% Bk value 19 mins before the off. This disappeared later. Note the five runner frame is TWO selections above the min. 82.5% Bk value.

 
The automated Dutch bets are based entirely mathematically on the Shape of the Market, without any consideration of form or strength of opposition.

Sunday 18th August

Catch Up Time!

Time to catch up and get some results up on this blog

I was complaining in the first three months that it had been slow and hopefully the summer would bring more profit.

Well! Until the beginning of June profit accelerated and it looked good for 40k over the 12 months.

Over confident! You can see from the graph below I hit a complete standstill for 10 weeks following the June P/L touching 20k. 
At over 90% strike rate it's hard to accept that volatility remains aggressive enough to overturn the long term edge for 10 weeks?

It's hard to look for explanations when this happens. Here is the split between NH/turf/AW for the 10 weeks.

NH P/L +154
turf P/L +422
AW P/L -349
 

 Here are the YTD figures and below I have split out the contribution from NH selections, turf Selections and AW selections.


You can see overall off the 1002 selections, 70 losing bets and a 4.55% edge.

 YTD breakdown:

NH Selections   P/L 11,174
Selections 382
Losses 22
Strike Rate 94.24%
Edge 6.03%


turf Selections   P/L 5,852
Selections 414
Losses 34
Strike Rate 91.79%
Edge 2.91%

AW Selections   P/L 5,089
Selections 206
Losses 14
Strike Rate 93.2%
Edge 5.09%

So looking for a pick up on the turf through to the end of the season, having patiently ridden out a ten week hiatus.

Sunday 14 April

Hopeful for more action now the Turf is Here!

So a couple of weeks into the turf season and an ok start hitting it running.

Personally I can't wait to leave the winter racing behind this year - it's been a long slow grind for me.

Here is the turf start up. You can see just the 25 live bets so far with 1 loss and 975 P/L.

 Jan - March this year were really slow for me, obviously the close down in February didn't help and reduced field even further in the following weeks.

One really unusual event for me was the Target bets almost catching up the total Live  betting. I have never seen them so close up before.
So basically just taking the favorites below <2.5 price and Targeting the Dutch Bet profit had a better than average three months. 

What's going on? First the Chart.
And that almost 2k drawdown between 28 March - 8 April. Ouch a hit of 9 losing races over 11 days!!1no: Turf loss and 4no; each NH & AW.

During the first three months there were 897 race selections but only producing 371 Live Bet situations. Small fields are problematic!

Of those 897 Race Selections almost 20% - 158 were fields with 5 or less runners.

It's difficult to Dutch these small frames profitably. Even worse of those 158 small fields, only 44% of favorites Won. This is a terrible Stat. for odds on events! The percentages are even worse for NH alone. The usual 12 runner AW races skew the numbers up.
Ave fav price of the 158 races was 1.96, strike rate 44% Not good for punters?

Today was typical of the last few months; 11no: Race Selections with only 1 no: Live opportunity. At least the SoM filters swerved two potential losing situations off the first two races.

I need faster turnover to get back on target for the year.

So at the 14 April likely the lowest number of Live selections over the last ten years. At least the strike rate is ok, holding the 92% 

Role on Summer!

Saturday 12 Jan

Target Bets and my own List to Follow

I'm having my own Target bet today on Joseph O'Briens  - Gardens of Babylon - in the 13;00 race. It's not a bet I'm advising but an opportunity to show some of the additional bets I take.

January is usually a month I'm just glad to get through Dutching. This year the conditions have been good so far and at the moment there is around 850 profit in despite low quality racing. Personally I don't like AW racing when the temperature is well below freezing, although I have no evidence this really affects the market. So far this year v little freezing conditions.

Each year I compile a short list of high speed rated 2yo to follow during the following year. I like to bet these in the better quality races and Grp events through the flat.

Some of these spill over into the winter and a few moving to NH. 

Gardens of Eden was one of these and came good for me on New Years eve at 11/1. Today he is up from a Maiden Hurdle, I'm not going to risk another bet on  the nose, but use the Dutch Target bet.

The payout is 247 to the standard 486 dutch.

I have to place these manually The Automated Target Bets are only on selected favourites.

The list also produced a good winner at Meydan last week with Dream Today going in at 16/1

Later in the month I'll publish the list for 2019 just out of interest it allows me to follow the best of the summer racing and usually produces a good return. Also the simple criteria I use. Pinched from a last century Raceform Van der Wheil  'The missing Link' booklet and updated. It's served me well over the years. 

Here is the Dash for the 13;00 race. On the automated betting its showing a No bet at the moment, if the fav. hardens up a little before the off it will crystalize into a live bet.

Here is the Meydan Entry, I know, I know, just like one of those thousands of tipsters out there, results AFTER the event!!!

Here's the results data sheet up to yesterday, so far so good in January ( I haven't re-based the data from last years yet) 

It's profit in, off racing mostly hardly worth watching, so the occasional Target Bet makes some interest for me until the better meetings come along.

1 Jan 2019

Dutch Frame - Profit distribution 2018 

Here is a breakdown of the overall 2018 profit as distributed across the Dutch Frame size.

 Dutch Frame Configuration:

• The first figure is the No: of runners in the race below the Pivot Price in the market at 12.5.

• The second figure is the number of runners included in the Dutch Frame. Generated off a min. Bk value of 82.5%

• e.g. 4_4 is a race with 4 runners below the 12.5 Pivot price and a total of 4 runners included in the Dutch Frame to achieve the required min. Bk value of 82.5%

You can quickly see that the Shape of Market filters applied keep a strike rate of > 90% across the whole range
The larger Dutch Frames of 5, 6 ,7 are more stable and can take on a larger percentage of them. Unfortunately they are thin on the ground compared with the smaller frames. Reduced field sizes across many N.H. and turf race types have shifted the balance over the years I have been dutching and more of these small Frames/field sizes have to be filtered out.

You could of course focus just on 5, 6 7 runner Frames, but you lose the velocity of turn over and this year take around 40% of the potential profit.

A lot of people like to Dutch 3 runners, its very commonly mentioned across the forums and literature.
But this chart shows how selective I need to be to maintain the strike rate on this size of Dutch bet - only around 36% of the selected races taken live.


Race Types: 
Profit Distribution across turf/ AW / NH.
  
Here is the breakdown of the overall 2018 profit sliced alternatively across the Race type selection on turf, AW and NH.

 

Many people are surprised by the return on Maiden Hurdle races which are generally given a bad reputation. Claiming races may raise an eyebrow too!

Novice chases have always had the highest fav. win + Uplift percentages. 
Unfortunately low field sizes limit how many of these can be played. The above figures are off a minimum field of 4 runners and many novices chases now cut even below this.

Group races are in for my entertainment. They contribute v little to the overall picture each year. I like to Target bet my opinions in the Dutch Frame. Usually having two or three runners with the profit and the others at break even.



If you cross add these charts you may find small discrepancies with the overall figures I put up yesterday. These are very minor and not worth the effort of grinding through the data base for glitches.






















A lot of people like to Dutch 3 runners, its very commonly mentioned across the forums and literature.
But this chart shows how selective I need to be to maintain the strike rate on this size of Dutch bet - only around 36% of the selected races taken live.

Monday 31 Dec

Happy New Year:


Here are the Year End figures and below the breakdown between Turf, A.W. & N.H. selected races.

Over the next few days I will post other breakdown figures - by Dutch Frame size, etc.
And try and outline a revamped blog for 2019.
If you look back through the blog you will see I set a benchmark for the returns of 35k, so another good result

So on the last day there was only 1 no: live selection. 

Columns AE - AQ
There were a couple of loses over the last few days and the final P/L figure of 41,939 (to the standard 486 stake) dropping slightly from a max. 42,326 on the 28th.
You can see from the screen shot below the Edge and strike rate figures there were 1711 live selections taken with114 painful loses.

Columns L - O
This is the inserted additional bets on Targeted favorites.
For inst taking only those returning > 95 to the 486 stake. The addition was 11,616 off 290 live bets placed.



Turf Races Only:
 

 A.W. Races Only:
 

N.H. Races Only:

The turf figures were down compared with most prior years and NH particularly good. There's always a sizeable gap, as would be expected if you go back to the race by race fav. percentage and Uplift percentage figures which have always been stronger for NH racing. (columns I&J int All races top screen shot)

This year the AW edge has outperformed the turf, I find this hard to explain when we had a wonderful summer of good stable going on the turf? 
The introduction of many more Nov. stakes and fewer maidens with revised entry requirements may have an explanation and I'm going to dig into the data on this.

Conversely the fav. Target bets on the AW actually showed a small loss on the >95 return!


So I have to get off and celebrate All the Best and more to come in the New Year.





I missed replying to quite a lot of emails during the summer. Firstly an apology and secondly don't let it put you off getting in contact in the future. I enjoy everyone's thoughts and experience of the racing game. I will try to respond in 2019. Perhaps I need to separate out an email for the blog.
My standard email is bombarded with absolute rubbish daily from the usual suspects, shysters, tipsters, trying to extract funds off punters, offering their opinions, cobbled up methods and bizarre claims to be mathematicians, laying on a hot beach, in the know, the Bookies enemy, etc, rather than being able to actually demonstrate how to beat the book long term.

Sunday 16 Sept

Top Class Curragh Card:

Four Group 1 races down the Curragh card today What a weekends racing its been.

Here is the first ~ 206k 5f sprint. Margin bet pays 65/486 or Target down if you've got your preferences. Yesterday my St Leger pick on the day Dee Ex Bee faded in the final half furlong to 4th place. But I still made money on the race with the Dutch bets ( My tipping is definitely not worth following ~ but then neither is anyone else's long term!)

On the RH Book value chart we see the need for the 5 runner Dutch Frame to clear the minimum 82.5% book. In the Shape of the Market graph LH side we have only 1 no: additional runner in the 'Field Envelope' (those I consider active in the market at the field size) 

The return has jumped a little showing 71 on the margin bet in this screen shot.

Toward the end of last week the YTD return tapped through 30k on the standard bets. Its consolidated over the weekend, hoping there's no draw down on the horizon back below the 30k.

You can see in the YTD figures at the top, the strike rate has clipped 93% with 1,248 bets placed live. In these were included 87 losing bets dumping back 42,282 of loses. If only we could avoid all or more pitfalls!

There were a lot of races eliminated yesterday leaving just seven live bets overall + 2no: additional Target bets. Not optimal live bet selection but did avoid what would have been the one losing bet in the 13;45 Listowel. In this race the Dutch frame was down to 2 no: runners in a strong market, but the 4th in the market just turned over the favorite, Joseph O'brien runner first time hurdling at 16/1.

Saturday 15 Sept

St Ledger Dutch Field

Here is the Six runner Dutch Frame for this years Ledger.
Most of the pundits are describing it as a very average year but personally I think the top six are very competitive this year. Gosden and Frankies late confirmation of a run with Lah Ti Dah has ripped the market.

The six runner dutch pays around 50 to the 485 stake. Screen shot shows my additional Target onto 3 runners against the Gosden favourite. I'm going to have a few quid ew on Dee Ex Bee on course. He was competing above 1 mile with good speed figures as a 2yo + second in the Derby, seems a good value ew punt against a fav. to prove the distance? Perhaps a bit more rain would have helped.   

The six runner Dutch Frame should have the depth in the field covered otherwise.

 

Sunday 2nd Sept

Third Quarter; Results Roundup

The consistent good racing conditions through the summer produced some great monthly returns.
August however reversed the trend with a large drawdown. This was coincidental with the first rainfall and change in going for weeks over the hot summer.
I'm always very loathe to ascribe any specific cause to a bunch of loses - the random variables are always a stronger effect than any other?
The change in going in Autumn would be the signal for many trainers to introduce horses they were saving for autumn campaigns. The York Ebor meeting is full of these every year.

 So the old chestnut Correlation does not imply Causation.

Fact is drawdowns eating profit are hard to bet through. If your not absolutely confident of your edge you will not see it through 99% of punters fail through a combination of lack of bankroll and loss of belief that their edge will return and overcome short term volatility.
Or of course they are simply kidding themselves that they have found a long term edge.


Here is the graph showing monthly returns 2015 to August 2018 and the monthly/cumulative actual figures.

Th end result was not a loss for august and at the beginning of September the losses were recovered.

Here are the results for the weekend 1st + 2nd September.
There were 24 no: potential selected races , but unfortunately they were filtered down to 9 no: live selections. As it turned out all 24No: races would have been wins! Far from always the case.

Five of the filtered races were Group races which are heavily filtered out  - strength in depth often justifies this Sometimes I take these races on placing manual bets after having done more detailed research on the field. Mainly because I like to be involved in the quality races.

P/L at the 2nd of Sept is 29,210 with a strike rate on the live bets of 92.89% So I'm pretty confident of getting through the 35k base target for another year.

 
I'll post some details of the August reverse in fortunes, dates etc. A disappointing April a further hard hit in August but a great summers return between.

Sat 14 April

A wide Open Grand National

I  can't tip the winner but can advise that you can Dutch every runner up to 50/1 and get a return. So a Dutch bet covering over 20 runners, Targeting profit on around 8 to 10 of them is the way I will watch the race!
This gives me a return of 100 to the 486 stake.
 
Still no racing ground for the flat season.........heavy going and no bets so far. 
A good flat card at Leopardstown today - but only 4 runners turn out for the 2000 Guineas Trial. So I'll continue to patiently wait and hope one of my Targeted runners in the National gets there.