More or less everything I know about betting on Horse Racing

[Kotkijet]

Here is a stream of consciousness. Please don’t talk to me about the grammatical, structural, spelling errors etc. It is a stream of consciousness after all.

There are truths… facts about traits that will always lead to success in horse racing, and success is measured by whether ones performance exceeds that of ones rivals.

That is the universal premise. The extent to, and context within which one succeeds, is entirely within ones own discretion; and it is the exercise of choice which determines success according to means. Just because you don’t have Ricci, McManus, Magnier, Tabor, Munir, oil money etc to win at the game. You just have to be better than most people at something. If you were to do a copious amount of research into areas where few others have tread, you will be ahead of the game enough to make a return on your investment of time, energy, resources, skills and passion.

This positive return is VALUE

Cannot stress that term enough.

Whether this means a young jockey establishing contacts with the right trainers and peers so that they can learn enough and get the race riding experience necessary for a career. A career which brings fulfilment, incredible memories and enough money to support themselves and their dependents for now and the future.

Whether this means an up and coming trainer who is adept at attracting good owners by keeping horses sound, making astute purchases and ensuring they are able to perform to the best of their potential in optimal circumstances. Enough to build memories and mortgages etc.

Whether this means a breeder with the foresight to use genetic principles to suit the future. Mating plans based on that which is learned from the past to inform the future. Git good at this and you and your fruits will be immortalised, as are Federico Tesio and Nearco.

They find an area of the market which is not being suitably fulfilled… Somewhere it is clear that there is an underrepresentation and not an abundance.

There are transferable principles that always hold true for GAMBLING

You need three things to succeed at any form of gambling.

Understanding of the thing you are betting on Understanding of the market you are betting in Discipline

The market is based on judgement and nothing else. Gambling’s most basic form, coin toss, is won or lost on judgement.

Assuming the coin and game are fair… If someone offers you a £19 return on a £10 stake for heads, you do not take the bet. If someone offers you a £21 return for your £10 on tails, you get on. Even if heads wins, you have gone backwards because you took a deal which will lose you an indefinite amount of money in the long run. Had you backed tails, you might have lost the battle, but the war stretches over an indefinite amount of battles.

It is the exact same for horse racing. And if you do not understand and adhere to this fundamental operation, there is a greater than 99% chance you will lose. The 1% are people who are so good at researching horse racing that they can get away with being blind to the market. YOU ARE NOT ONE OF THESE PEOPLE

The market is based on the opinions of everybody who has made an investment on the race’s outcome. ALWAYS. If you think you are beating the bookies, you never are. You are only ever beating other punters.

You NEED to have opinions. If you just follow the market or the opinion of others, you’re effectively tossing your coin in the air and betting that coin on whether or not you catch it. You are not remotely assured of long term success, but you could lose at least one coin. The only people who ever EVER profit when betting on horse racing are those who do their own research. Even if it is researching who has the best inside information. They don’t give that kind of information out in public.

In racing, there is a cuntload of information, data, variables etc. It is impossible for any one person or organisation to scrape and successfully interpret all of it more effectively than everybody else. As such, while the odds are stacked against the average punter, (overrounds, account closures etc) there is always enough unexplored data for ANYBODY to exploit; IF they are willing to work very hard on it.

If a successful tipster exists (there would be a vanishingly small amount), they either do so on the basis of ORIGINAL research, are going through a statistical peak/bubble, or are ripping you off. Unless a tipster can prove their research, they are mugging you off and you are letting them. Which makes it follow that even if you are not going to do your own research, you still have to research tipsters… so you may as well just cut out the middle-man… **** (most) tipsters, basically.

BECOME FAMILIAR WITH AS MANY ASPECTS OF RACING AS YOU CAN… EVEN IF YOU DON’T FIND THEM INTERESTING. If you teach an engineer Philosophy, it won’t make them better at engineering, but it will make them a better engineer.

Get feedback from other researchers. Most will not give their work away for free, but they might exchange ideas and act as sounding boards for one another. This is often much more valuable than a 3/1 coup or £500… in the long run.

Say you find a niche/angle that consistently returns a profit. If you want to continue making a profit, SHUT THE **** UP ABOUT IT. Otherwise, you will lose the value of your research. Sectionals, pace, going, dosage index, targeted races… All of these were enough to make a killing on their own. Now they are known by the market.

Most people will not take heed to ALL of this. Which is a shame knowing that someone is telling them the literal truth about their hobby. The most pervasive and deleterious element of gambling is the denial. A denial that damages lives. Destroys families. Kills people.

If you do not do your own research, unless you can afford to, and are happy to pay a weekly subscription to the betting market, stop gambling right now until you do. If you do not have discipline, please never EVER gamble.

[Kevloaf]

Disappointed if we don't have some good discussion around these points... more interesting than whether Horse X is going over fences or staying over hurdles anyway...

[Redbridge]

Here is a stream of consciousness. Please don’t talk to me about the grammatical, structural, spelling errors etc. It is a stream of consciousness after all.

There are truths… facts about traits that will always lead to success in horse racing, and success is measured by whether ones performance exceeds that of ones rivals.

That is the universal premise. The extent to, and context within which one succeeds, is entirely within ones own discretion; and it is the exercise of choice which determines success according to means. Just because you don’t have Ricci, McManus, Magnier, Tabor, Munir, oil money etc to win at the game. You just have to be better than most people at something. If you were to do a copious amount of research into areas where few others have tread, you will be ahead of the game enough to make a return on your investment of time, energy, resources, skills and passion.

This positive return is VALUE

Cannot stress that term enough.

Whether this means a young jockey establishing contacts with the right trainers and peers so that they can learn enough and get the race riding experience necessary for a career. A career which brings fulfilment, incredible memories and enough money to support themselves and their dependents for now and the future.

Whether this means an up and coming trainer who is adept at attracting good owners by keeping horses sound, making astute purchases and ensuring they are able to perform to the best of their potential in optimal circumstances. Enough to build memories and mortgages etc.

Whether this means a breeder with the foresight to use genetic principles to suit the future. Mating plans based on that which is learned from the past to inform the future. Git good at this and you and your fruits will be immortalised, as are Federico Tesio and Nearco.

They find an area of the market which is not being suitably fulfilled… Somewhere it is clear that there is an underrepresentation and not an abundance.

There are transferable principles that always hold true for GAMBLING

You need three things to succeed at any form of gambling.

Understanding of the thing you are betting on Understanding of the market you are betting in Discipline

The market is based on judgement and nothing else. Gambling’s most basic form, coin toss, is won or lost on judgement.

Assuming the coin and game are fair… If someone offers you a £19 return on a £10 stake for heads, you do not take the bet. If someone offers you a £21 return for your £10 on tails, you get on. Even if heads wins, you have gone backwards because you took a deal which will lose you an indefinite amount of money in the long run. Had you backed tails, you might have lost the battle, but the war stretches over an indefinite amount of battles.

It is the exact same for horse racing. And if you do not understand and adhere to this fundamental operation, there is a greater than 99% chance you will lose. The 1% are people who are so good at researching horse racing that they can get away with being blind to the market. YOU ARE NOT ONE OF THESE PEOPLE

The market is based on the opinions of everybody who has made an investment on the race’s outcome. ALWAYS. If you think you are beating the bookies, you never are. You are only ever beating other punters.

You NEED to have opinions. If you just follow the market or the opinion of others, you’re effectively tossing your coin in the air and betting that coin on whether or not you catch it. You are not remotely assured of long term success, but you could lose at least one coin. The only people who ever EVER profit when betting on horse racing are those who do their own research. Even if it is researching who has the best inside information. They don’t give that kind of information out in public.

In racing, there is a cuntload of information, data, variables etc. It is impossible for any one person or organisation to scrape and successfully interpret all of it more effectively than everybody else. As such, while the odds are stacked against the average punter, (overrounds, account closures etc) there is always enough unexplored data for ANYBODY to exploit; IF they are willing to work very hard on it.

If a successful tipster exists (there would be a vanishingly small amount), they either do so on the basis of ORIGINAL research, are going through a statistical peak/bubble, or are ripping you off. Unless a tipster can prove their research, they are mugging you off and you are letting them. Which makes it follow that even if you are not going to do your own research, you still have to research tipsters… so you may as well just cut out the middle-man… **** (most) tipsters, basically.

BECOME FAMILIAR WITH AS MANY ASPECTS OF RACING AS YOU CAN… EVEN IF YOU DON’T FIND THEM INTERESTING. If you teach an engineer Philosophy, it won’t make them better at engineering, but it will make them a better engineer.

Get feedback from other researchers. Most will not give their work away for free, but they might exchange ideas and act as sounding boards for one another. This is often much more valuable than a 3/1 coup or £500… in the long run.

Say you find a niche/angle that consistently returns a profit. If you want to continue making a profit, SHUT THE **** UP ABOUT IT. Otherwise, you will lose the value of your research. Sectionals, pace, going, dosage index, targeted races… All of these were enough to make a killing on their own. Now they are known by the market.

Most people will not take heed to ALL of this. Which is a shame knowing that someone is telling them the literal truth about their hobby. The most pervasive and deleterious element of gambling is the denial. A denial that damages lives. Destroys families. Kills people.

If you do not do your own research, unless you can afford to, and are happy to pay a weekly subscription to the betting market, stop gambling right now until you do. If you do not have discipline, please never EVER gamble.

Thanks for taking the time to share.

[Quevega]

Top stuff Kotkijet.

Sadly as you refer to, most will read this and not even understand it, or even worse, not want to understand it.

We live in an era where stupidity and ignorance and believing in personal truths and alternative facts is more important to many than the actual truth and facts.
I'm sure some don't even see their own reflection in the mirror.

Being nice is not always being kind.
Telling the truth is not always nice or comfortable. Neither is hearing it.


So to sum up what Kotkijet said.......IMO

Stop spaffing your money away you bunch of lazy fucking FOMO losers (unless you can really afford it)

And stop believing in God and tipsters, as neither will pay your fucking mortgage or repair a relationship, or bring back the dead.

And if anyone ever refers to you as a follower, stop following them blindly and open your eyes.

[Birds Nest]

Completely agree about the niche angle,. We all need one. Something that puts us in a car with no other passengers.
the problem being if you share a niche angle then it instantly ceases to be what you shared.

[Istabraq]

Fantastic to see you back Kotkijet and with such a apt opener after the festival week.

The point around tipsters is a modern one, people now make money from the number of followers and likes they get so it makes little difference if they aren't successful or just steal someone elses research, they'll have the ability to profit from their posts anyway....

[BagOfHammers]

Couldn’t disagree with much in there despite being a small time punter myself. Only thing I would add is you can improve on some areas you mention rather than black or white. Discipline for example can be a continual improvement. I heard once that being a successful punter is not so much having more winning bets but cutting out the losing ones which I often think about. Hence I’ve mainly stopped flat punting, I’m just not good at it.

[Odin]

Assuming the coin and game are fair… If someone offers you a £19 return on a £10 stake for heads, you do not take the bet. If someone offers you a £21 return for your £10 on tails, you get on. Even if heads wins, you have gone backwards because you took a deal which will lose you an indefinite amount of money in the long run. Had you backed tails, you might have lost the battle, but the war stretches over an indefinite amount of battles.

I've always wondered about this specific point. Not that the £21 for £10 on a fair coin toss is value - it is - but whether the concept provides enough value within horse racing (or other sports).

In the specific example where you are just betting heads vs tails and the chance is truly random, it's clear you should go down this route.
I just wonder in situations like sport where there is an element that is not random (e.g. horse ability) does the situation still hold true? Furthermore, does it still hold to be true when you consider that you only see one representation of this race within this specific set of circumstances.

I ask because in any situation where there is not a catastrophe, Frankel wins a 1m race against Santini - so if we back Santini above the odds of that catastrophe, yes we are ahead of the market, but how likely are we to return within the lifetime of individual races that we see? We have to get this right across multiple different races in multiple different situations, across a lifetime, which isn't as likely as knowing that £21 for £10 is value within a random coin toss, where the odds are fixed at 50-50 throughout.

So I guess my point is - should we be adding a buffer beyond the "true" value within horse racing to allow for limitations in our ability to consistently identify the "true value" in different races? (e.g. we think a horse should be 3/1, should we only be betting if the horse is 4/1?)

[Quevega]

I've always wondered about this specific point. Not that the £21 for £10 on a fair coin toss is value - it is - but whether the concept provides enough value within horse racing (or other sports).

In the specific example where you are just betting heads vs tails and the chance is truly random, it's clear you should go down this route.
I just wonder in situations like sport where there is an element that is not random (e.g. horse ability) does the situation still hold true? Furthermore, does it still hold to be true when you consider that you only see one representation of this race within this specific set of circumstances.

I ask because in any situation where there is not a catastrophe, Frankel wins a 1m race against Santini - so if we back Santini above the odds of that catastrophe, yes we are ahead of the market, but how likely are we to return within the lifetime of individual races that we see? We have to get this right across multiple different races in multiple different situations, across a lifetime, which isn't as likely as knowing that £21 for £10 is value within a random coin toss, where the odds are fixed at 50-50 throughout.

So I guess my point is - should we be adding a buffer beyond the "true" value within horse racing to allow for limitations in our ability to consistently identify the "true value" in different races? (e.g. we think a horse should be 3/1, should we only be betting if the horse is 4/1?)

It's the assessment of the perceived value that is the difficult part. And the "true" value is the holy grail.
As this will differ from individual to individual. Like opinions.

With the coin toss example it is obvious to all. And it is following this basic premise/example that over the long term obtaining value with your bets will help.
If you ignore this analogy and do not bet with discipline and bet on under priced horses regularly then it is almost impossible to profit. This includes roll ups where one of the elements is under priced.

In short, if you personally don't think a price is good value based on your research and all the evidence in front of you, then you should not back it. If you stick to this in the long term this should help the overall return. The book builders may have to do this from time to time for the bigger picture, but even then they should ideally be as patient as possible. Basically don't jump on under priced horses ante-post as they might not run or win anyhow.

And vice versa again, if you think a price is higher than the "true" value, you should probably back it and put more on (increased stakes) the more the perceived value exists.

Adding a buffer in would be a good idea, as you will undoubtedly be wrong in a lot of cases, so this would provide an extra element of long term value.

With the Frankel vs Santini example it all depends on the prices, and being in it for the long term for all the other "Frankel vs Santini" races. It won't be the same horses but similar instances will crop up. But you'd have to be very patient with race outcomes with such contrasting odds. And I'd suggest that this example is extreme enough to be something most would leave alone as impossible to judge. Although I'd have a pound on at 100000-1.


An easy example similar to a coin toss - of value without even needing your own opinion is betfair exchange (most of the time)

If an established exchange market in a big race (very close to the race off time) has a horse at 6/4 and an online bookmaker has the same horse priced at 2-1, then this is clearly value.
This can obviously be locked in for a guaranteed profit, by laying at shorter.

But if you didn't lay and backed at 2-1 every time this situation cropped up then there is a good chance in the long term that you will profit.

Switch it around and you as a punter only have skybet account for example and back the same horse at 6-4 with them, and the price on betfair is 2-1 then you'll likely lose in the long term for sure.

[TigerRolllllll]

I agree value is the critical thing ….and I think best definition of this is horses that shorten up

For those that like to back several horses with more of a book, then u don’t need to get every horse like this. Once you have one or two good ones in, it can allow u to add others you fear nearer day

You also have to accept in ante-post that some races will work beautifully and others might be a disaster…,but trust ur judgement and that of others on here

As an example this year for me ….the Supreme was a nightmare as chopped and changed so many times with no clear best horses ….i got out ok in end, but more as a result of my love of all things Henry/Rachael in big races than great picks during season

The Arkle tho was fab….i had FAF at 50s, Hunters at 33s and even GW at over 30s (I often do back up races on best horses to navigate bingo…another tip)…,this easily allowed couple ew adds near time ….and a relaxed race to watch

The key to remember is u won’t know which races will play out well when u bet….seasons can go in all sorts of directions …..trust the process

Couple other things that work for me …..my motto is if u think u spot something (or a FJ does), don’t be afraid to go hard …..this year that has made my festival ….i flagged up weeks ago I thought CH & Sir Gino were worth taking on …even b4 Hendo issues (tho went in again)…..so particularly in Triumph I went hard on best Mullins ones. You won’t always be right, but when u have an edge take it

Also, I think some trainers (and to lesser extent jockeys) offer opps …..Mullins obviously (but first string!)…..but I think GE is over-bet and rarely delivers these days at festival. Henry on other hand is unbelievably good at peaking horses for March….arguably the best of all. …I will also be taking much more interest in Skelton going forwards … he is v ambitious !!! Have met him & he never hides that

Jockeys a bit less so ….but I still believe the festival favours specific types of jockeys to over-perform ….ones who are good in finish (Barry prob best I’ve seen)…..and tactically-aware (Rachael maybe weaker in finish but rarely has a horse in wrong place)….Henrys festival success has shot up since she joined him.

I rate Jack highest of all year round, but he still makes few mistakes in March….and much as I diss Skelton, he has improved & is v strong in finish ! And Patrick……amateur races & bumper only !!!!

And Paul T rarely ever messes up …..winning is a habit that builds confidence…..I’ll be watching Hcaps more going forwards as to which few he rides

Hope that helps ….last year was pretty marginal for me (made only be Honeysuckle), but this year thankfully one of my best ….so huge thanks to everyone on here as I read this forum more this season & I suspect that explains a lot

Last tip therefore - read the forum a lot !!!!

[Istabraq]

One of the clever angles I like (can't play though) is when an event/news creates a strong possibility of a horse shortening for their ante post target, so you back a horse at a price knowing there'll be crash and you have the ability to trade out, you need a mature exchange market for this.
Many of the serious punters I know get to a position for an event/race/festival where they've traded a position of no loss/small profit on a specific horse and have a decent free bet running, this is another strategy that requires unrestricted accounts though....

[TigerRolllllll]

One of the clever angles I like (can't play though) is when an event/news creates a strong possibility of a horse shortening for their ante post target, so you back a horse at a price knowing there'll be crash and you have the ability to trade out, you need a mature exchange market for this.
Many of the serious punters I know get to a position for an event/race/festival where they've traded a position of no loss/small profit on a specific horse and have a decent free bet running, this is another strategy that requires unrestricted accounts though....

I don’t trade personally - but love the point re news ….horses shortening so important

[Odin]

Switch it around and you as a punter only have skybet account for example and back the same horse at 6-4 with them, and the price on betfair is 2-1 then you'll likely lose in the long term for sure.

Agree with all of the points except this one, which seems simplistic unless the underlying assumption is that Betfair has the true value price (in which case it works) but also seems simplistic if that makes sense? Or was it meant to be simplistic to keep the example easy to understand - if so I'll stand down

[Odin]

One of the clever angles I like (can't play though) is when an event/news creates a strong possibility of a horse shortening for their ante post target, so you back a horse at a price knowing there'll be crash and you have the ability to trade out, you need a mature exchange market for this.
Many of the serious punters I know get to a position for an event/race/festival where they've traded a position of no loss/small profit on a specific horse and have a decent free bet running, this is another strategy that requires unrestricted accounts though....

Yeah, I like this angle as well although I don't use it with specific news for free bets - I can definitely see how it would be useful for value as well as having a decent free ebt running

[Quevega]

Agree with all of the points except this one, which seems simplistic unless the underlying assumption is that Betfair has the true value price (in which case it works) but also seems simplistic if that makes sense? Or was it meant to be simplistic to keep the example easy to understand - if so I'll stand down

It is definitely simplistic
It's based on the premise that in general the betfair SP is as close as anything to the true odds vs the outcome.

On the theory that all the knowledge and expertise has been brought together to form a consensus of opinion.
And that the consensus is "more often" right than wrong.

The closer to the off, and the more people and money involved then the more likely it is an accurate reflection of the true odds.

It's the "more often" bit that is the important factor of course, as many within the gamblers world seem to want certainty. And that's Absurde