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Regards

Bob

Week 28 Loss £5,325.00 Detailed Horse Racing Results

Cobham, 11.14 pm Monday 15th Dec

Week 28 – Not Great

 “… but at least we finished with a great 13/2 winner Bob!”

As we had so few bets this week due to the appalling weather I’m adopting a slightly different format and discussing the weeks business in one long essay. With a sting in the tale! I hope you enjoy it!

Well it was bound to happen. We’d enjoyed stunning week after stunning week so we were due a bad one. But as losing weeks go this wasn’t too bad. It always helps when the last bet of the day or the last bet of the week is a good winner doesn’t it? You feel like you’re making progress back.

And it was a heck of a cruel week. The weather was lousy and severely limited betting opportunities. Several meetings were abandoned and we missed some great potential winners especially when Cheltenham was abandoned on Saturday. I had two beauties lined up!

Elkhart Lake was our most costly and definitely the cruelest loser. We were mugged on Wednesday when he was absolutely cruising, but locked away on the rail and boxed in on all sides with nowhere to go. His jockey was virtually standing up in the stirrups looking around for the tiniest gap but he was in prison and there was no escape. He’d barely had a race and looked like he’d had won by a distance had he got out!

Connections were so upset they decided to stay over and take him to Great Leighs for another crack. They figured he’d hardly had a race so he wouldn’t be too tired. And as he seemed a class above his opposition even below par he’d win. So the recovery mission plan was hatched and we backed him again. Once again he was a monster gamble from 100/30 down to 6/4 favourite! That takes some money to move a horse’s odds like that. I think everyone in the country had seen how unlucky he was the night before and latched on to our gamble.

He broke poorly but rapidly made up the lost ground and turning for home was in a good position travelling strongly. I thought the gamble was landed. Suddenly he was treading water and lumbering around, he’d gone from racehorse to packhorse in a stride.

To be honest my immediate reaction was the previous race had taken more out of him that they’d thought. Add to that the long journey travelling over from Ireland on the ferry and the long drive down from Wales and you could see why he could easily be feeling knackered. I understood but felt a bit upset that connections hadn’t spotted the sparkle may have gone out of his eye.

It was unjustified on my part because he came back sore and it turned out he’d pulled a muscle probably due to making up that lost ground too quickly. And maybe at the back of my mind a little voice says perhaps 2 races in 2 days made him more prone to injury. It was annoying because he would have won the first night when we had 7/1 about him. And the second night he would easily have been at least placed (he still finished 4th, just out of the frame). But both night he finished out of the frame. Two big 15 point each way bets down the drain and a massive 60 points in the hole. No chance this week being a winner now I thought.

If that wasn’t bad enough we had a rare odds on bet which ran a shocker. R De Sien Sivola repeatedly jumped badly and in a jump race that ruins your chance. A good hurdler can take 2 lengths out of his field at each hurdle and over 2 miles you have 8 hurdles, that’s 16 lengths! Not only did he give away ground at each hurdle but hitting them wastes valuable energy too.

On the bright side one client rang to say he doesn’t bet odds on so he skipped that bet pretending he was the bookmaker! So he gained 30 points on the profit share system. Good luck to him I say (though I think it’s a dangerous game!)

To be fair there’s no rule that says you have to bet all my selections. I know many of my clients are extremely well informed themselves and have good contacts. So obviously if you have good information in a race that I may not be aware of you must make your own decision. Sometimes that might mean betting your own horse and not mine. Sometimes it might mean betting both. Sometimes you might strike lucky and land the forecast! This is a game of opinion and often mine may be no better than the next man. I like to think it’s good enough to show me a profit over the year but I’m never too proud to listen to what someone else may know about another horse in the race. In this business it pays to be open minded.

And now I’d like to discuss our biggest loser and biggest winner in one breath. 40 Points win on Mangers Hill at 7/4 (punted down to an amazing 4/6!) and our final and only bet on Saturday 10 points each way on Victorias Groom at 13/2 (also a big gamble, punted down to 4/1)

By the way Mangers Hills should have won. But he didn’t. He was the best horse in the race yet didn’t get the prize he (and we) deserved. His jockey rode very confidently (too confidently for my liking). Sometimes I think that when connections tell a jockey “Lad, you’re on a cert! He’ll win” … the jockey gets too confident and thinks he can win from any position and can end up playing too cool to be true, coming from the back of the field with a flying run and just being denied. It looks fantastic when you pull it off. But when my horse is fancied I like to see him in a good position RIGHT FROM THE START! As one of my handicappers always says to me

“Bob, you can give weight away,

… but you can’t give a start”

Breaking slowly he was last and then held up. Half a mile from home he powerfully overtook his field all the way round the outside on a bend ( you and I both know that’s the longest way to travel and means you have to race a good few lengths further) He struck the front a furlong from home and was then worried out of it by a jockey giving his horse a hard ride. Bah!

It was a huge swing because 40 points at 7/4 returns 110 points, yet we lost 40. A 150 point swing for the sake of a stronger ride! How the hell do we make a profit I sometimes wonder. It’s like paying tax at 450% let alone 45%!

Now I know you liked Victorias Groom! For two reasons. She was a BIG price and she always looked like winning!  Her and the 2nd horse finished miles clear of the rest so you knew the win or 2nd was in the bag. It’s great watching those sort of races isn’t it?

Which was the better bet?

Now I have a question for you and I bet I know the answer you’re going to give. The question is which bet was the better one? Magners Hill or Victorias Groom?

Bob are you crazy? I hear you say! One horse won, one lost, obviously the winner is the better bet!

Hey, not so fast … it’s not that simple.

I see my job as twofold. As a kind of coach (if you will let me be so bold)  … to put before you bets which I think represent value and look to be long term profitable. So that you may choose to participate if it suits you and hopefully make yourself some decent money along the way.

But also as a friend. To tell you the truth as I see it. No matter whether you will like it or not. Because friends can tell you the truth. If someone had BO for example you’d like to think one of their friends would tell them! So I’m sharing this even though  I don’t expect you’ll like the conclusion!

Pretend both horses won to make the mental comparison easier

To make it easier to compare the bets may we “pretend” that Magners Hill won?  The question is the same. Is your answer? I suspect you still prefer the Victorias Groom bet. I’ll be honest, I enjoy bets like Victorias Groom more. Because like you I prefer to risk a little to win a lot. But I know that Magners Hill is the better bet. By that I mean the most profitable.

You may be curious as to why I’m even asking this when the “winning” Magners Hill bet wins just 70 points for a risk of 40 and Victorias Groom wins 81.25 for half the risk!

How the heck can the first bet be more profitable than the other?!

The reason is we must look not at the profit. But the profitability. Ie the long term profit one bet will earn compared to the other.

You may already be aware that the SP (Starting Price) is a very good predictor of a horse’s winning chance. It’s what stock market investors call “efficient” So an even money chance wins close to 50% of the time. A 4/6 chance wins almost 60% of the time and a 6/4 chance just under 40%. 4/1 chances win just under 20% and so on.

Bookmakers have a percentage equivalent for every price. guess what it is for evens? 50% and …

4/6 is 60%
6/4 is 40%
4/1 is 20%

If you’d like the formula to calculate the percentage equivalent for any price drop me an email. I’ll send you a table with them all pre-calculated too.

Ok so using the SP as a guide we can estimate how many times we are “entitled” to win the race. Because if you could run the same race over and over again you’d find that horses like Magners Hill would win around 60% of the time. And 4/1 horses like Victorias Groom will win around 20%

So let’s pretend we run each race 10 times. And our selection wins the number of races indicated by his/her SP.

We’ll bet £100 a time to make the maths easy. And for this example we bet WIN only

Victorias Groom

Final SP = 4/1, therefore likely to win 20% of the time ie 2 races out of 10. We took odds of 13/2

So out of 10 bets

• We win twice, £650 a time.   That’s PLUS   £1,300
• We lose 8 times,                  That’s MINUS  -£ 800
•                                                      ——
• Net Profit Equals                                           £500
•                                                      ——

Now we bet ten times, £100 a time so our total investment is 10 x £100 or £1,000. We made £500 profit on this £1,000 so we made 50%

Therefore the expected return from Victorias Groom is 50%

Incidentally that’s a fabulous return especially when it only takes 6 minutes!

Magners Hill

Final SP = 4/6, therefore likely to win 60% of the time ie 6 races out of 10. We took odds of 7/4

So out of 10 bets

• We win 6 times, £175 a time.      That’s PLUS   £1,050
• We lose 4 times,                        That’s MINUS  -£ 400
•                                                            ——
• Net Profit Equals                                                £650
•                                                            ——

Now we bet ten times, £100 a time so our total investment is 10 x £100 or £1,000. We made £650 profit on this £1,000 so we made 65%

Therefore the expected return from Magners Hill is 65%!

That’s an amazing return!

Which is the better bet?

Based on the above assumptions the long term profit from bets like Magners Hills is 65% whereas bets like Victorias Groom would return 50%. That makes Magners Hill a 30% better bet!

I knew you wouldn’t like the answer! Everyone loves betting big priced horses! But there can be gold on those short ones too!

Caveat

It’s only fair to say that we did disregard the fact that Victorias Groom was an each way bet. And as you know I believe betting each way adds something to the value of your bet. But there’s no denying that on the above figures and betting win only, you’d win more betting Mangers Hills then you would betting Victoria Grooms!

Moral of the Story

There’s two important lessons in that bit of fun.

• Do not turn your nose up at short priced horses. They can add enormously to your long term profits

• If you bet horses that shorten in the market and end up a lot shorter than the price you bet them at. Then cheer! Because whether the horse wins or loses you’re almost certain to make a long term profit.

As I finish this late on Monday night we’d had another fabulous turnaround and we’ve already won back all last week’s losses with a nice bit on top! Moscow Catch pulled us a massive 72 points profit and got the week off to a scorching start. Don’t you just love the highs and lows of this game! It really does keep you alive eh?

All the best

Bob Rothman

PS This week’s password for the secure areas on our website www.horseracingpro.co.uk is now MAGNERS