Welcome to "On the Punt" with the Optimist

Track Wet Don't Bet?

I hate most "off" tracks.

Last year at this time, though, I had a picnic with Riva San, getting 30/1 the Oaks and very juicy odds in the Derby as a dessert. She raced on genuinely heavy tracks, both wins being at a track that favoured her style of racing, Eagle Farm. So this seems a hypocritcal statement, yes?

Well, no, because I take the view that a great many very good horses can handle genuinely heavy track conditions, so long as the footing is trustworthy. Shifty tracks and bogs are frightening things, but genuine "heavy" is often OK.

Innocent until proven guilty, I say, where I have been waiting for a certain horse to reach a certain distance and it strikes a heavy track.

Frankly a "dead 5" and a "slow 6 or 7" can bother me more. They are indeterminate. A dead 4 is just off a perfect surface, and sometimes it is perfect, whereas when they hit that 5 button I get a bit edgy. If I am to have wet, let me have VERY wet. I at least know where I stand on that one.

So, if they get to race on Saturday at Doomben, I'm OK with horses that are:

(a) proven on heavy

and

(b) unknown on heavy.

I am NOT OK with horses that have failed badly (maybe unplaced twice in comparable class) in such conditions.

Innocent until proven guilty? With the right odds, and on a genuine 8 or 9, I'll accept that.

late note: The Doomben 10.000 on Saturday is a no-brainer at present. We may, however, learn something from it, IF it is actually run.

Every Race Tells a Tale.

I was surprised by the failures of both the fillies I was hoping to learn from yesterday (see the previous posting). La Etoile was cluttered away and it was an odd ride, whilst Marveen simply didn't look to get the 1600 metres. So much for the 2400 we were thinking about!

Ortensia,on the other hand, overcame a bad draw to destroy her field of good mares and fillies. Now there's a classy beast.

La Etoile's run has to be forgotten. No point in analysis, she was never going to get a fair go. That's the talk around the traps this morning. Well I don't know about you but I learnt very little. The same goes for Marveen, who wasn't unlucky, just not good enough.

However, I did glean something there.

Maybe she isn't good enough.

If that's the case, and remembering she beat La Etoile last start, I'll tread very carefully. My heart says go on in and back La Etoile next run. My head says not to, as there are now two strikes against her: Marveen beat her and Marveen may not be top of the heap.

Meanwhile, Miss Darcey (third to the other two a fortnight back) was cruising home behind Scenic Shot and company in the Cup.

And we know she gets the Derby/Oaks trip.

If I learnt much from yesterday's female contingent, it is this:

1. Miss Darcey provided the most positive staying clue.

2. Ortensia is head and shoulders above most of the sprinting females in town.

Perhaps those two pieces of education will stand me in good stead for a couple of winners, while my hesitance about two other fillies might save me money. We'll see.

And one of my very most favourite lessons follows from this:

1. Be prepared to NOT back a horse if you have doubts; and to wear the chagrin if it wins.

Let me toss in one more bit of learning from Saturday. Call this slow learning for some. I took 25/1 Solo Flyer in the Doncaster. At the 150 metres mark I was counting my winnings. He ran nowhere. This followed failures in the Guineas and the Derby much earlier. I did not back him yesterday. Now he has faded again at the end of a mile. That makes at least four clear statements of his ability range.

Does anyone need any more evidence?

A Lesson to Learn By.

At Doomben on May 16 there are two fillies running in different races.

One is in the third race and won her last start. She beat the other filly, which has been targeted at the fifth race.

One has had several runs in since February, the other has had only four runs since a spell (the first was in March, after four months off the scene), building up her distances 14-14-16-18.

Both started from terrible gates last start at the Gold Coast and they hammered at each other all the way down the straight. There was a neck at the finish. Quality filly Miss Darcey ran third, a length away. They both deserved to wilt, but neither did.

On May 16, one, Marveen, has slipped back to 1600 metres (weight for age, all ages) and is clearly after the Queensland Guineas later on. The other, La Etoile, is being tested for her chances in the Oaks (and even the Derby - last year a filly won both). She's racing over 2020 metres.

The results of these two fillies' efforts might well determine order of favouritism for later big races. They will certainly decide which way La Etoile heads.

The Friday markets suggest $5 Marveen and $11+ La Etoile. I doubt that latter price, but who can say?

Whatever the results, the lesson for us is the same: two fillies, virtually together over the line a fortnight back at level weights in very strong class, take on two entirely different sorts of fields on May 16. The serious decisions that are then made will teach us all just a little bit more about the science of watching young horses' placement.

What is the most important of all form factors?

Now I've got your attention, I confess that this question, posed many years ago by a young journo, has remained a sort of permanent challenge to me.

You could come down to maybe ten or twelve finalists, as I often do.

Obvious ones, so I won't bore you by listing them.

But which one???

Just one.

OK, I plump for class.

I may change my mind tomorrow, or next year, but this one has been at the head of my list for quite a while now.

It has a big problem associated with it: it is very much an opinion-based thing. But then, so is virtually all betting. The late Bill Whittaker told me many years ago, when indeed I was a young journo, that RACING IS OPINION.

Without it racing would not exist.

We learn, and as we learn so we develop our views and preferences, our opinions.

That's where I stand. For now, anyway.

What about you?

It Happens

Now and again a day comes up when you wish you'd never bought the form guides, never even got out of bed. This happened to me on May 9.

If a raw novice looked at the results, he'd probably say, "But there were plenty of good winners and they weren't real outsiders"... or something like that. And I'd have to agree.

But a hardened and serious punter was in big trouble early at Doomben, where the big meeting was being held. And it didn't improve.

I sensed after the the third race (with horses having won at $11, $47 and $22 on my local TAB), that things were not looking good. At this point I still had my selections to run and I couldn't see the writing on the wall.

At $6, $10, $20, $16 and $6 (again local tote, the Brisbane bookies are usually hopelessly under) the remainder of the meeting doesn't look to present an impossible job on paper. Hard yes, but not impossible. But the wide draws (those horrendously large fields!!!) and the riders' persistence in looking for rails runs or fanning fifteen wide on the quite savage home turn, meant some horses were stuffed. Totally, irrevocably stuffed.

It happens. Time to pull up stumps. You just know. I was keen on a mare in Melbourne that finally had her best distance, best track, reliable rider, etc etc... wide barrier but she'd go back anyway... and she ran on again, as she always does, as she would in the Bridge to Bondi race in Sydney.

After a day like this, what do you do? Tear up all your guides? Take up bowls? Send the Pay TV back?

Here are my suggestions for what WILL HAPPEN to every punter every so often in his punting career:

1. Stop betting when you sense that it's heading for "one of those days".

2. Save your guides and the results etc, but find something else to occupy you for the next 72 hours. Go for walks. Read. Watch telly.

3. If you must remember the racing, remember the LONG TERM and that it is the ONLY term that matters.

And live on, refreshed, to fight another day. Tomorrow or the next day. Not today though. Even horses need a rest!

(Follow-up to my previous blog entry, as promised)

Well, Takeover Target won the Goodwood as a champion often wins: he worried those who underestimated him and then showed how much better he was than this field.

What did we all learn about the point I raised in the previous blog?

It didn't matter where Diplomatic Force finished. What mattered was what was available. I'm gradually forming a view about these early prices:

1. They can only work in favour of the punter with genuine short-priced horses.

2. Anything else will, in all likelihood, be better on at least one tote, or even at starting price.

Where's the cut-off line for the punter? I'm starting to think it might be around $4 to $5.

Diplomatic Force was $16 best anywhere but he was freely available in many places at $33 and better during the last half hour of betting. That place bet of $4.75 was way, way below what the TABs were offering (let alone the bookies, who were keen to offer "no Takeover Target" bets, ie you get the rest of the field running for you at black odds!)

I might now do some study on the advantages (if any) of taking very strong $3 to $5 chances prepost.

Remember that these prices are set AFTER the final field is declared and are subject to huge deductions, sometimes when horses you don't believe are real chances are scratched. It's a bit galling to see your bet pay less than the starting price.

This is because the bookies are betting to maybe 140 prepost, whereas when the horses jump they'll be down to around 112. That's a BIG drop!

Prepost Thinking

Further thoughts on prepost betting on final fields

As I write this, the Goodwood Handicap field has been announced in its final form, and of course Takeover Target is favourite.

In fact it's a $1.60 favourite, something to scare off all but the richest and the most foolhardy.

I'm wondering, in the light of what I've written in the past, what opportunities, if any, this provides for you and me so far as backing any of the other eleven starters is concerned. Their prices are all double figures, and miracles do happen. After what I saw at Randwick, it's difficult to imagine anything beating this champion. However, I'm examining the other prices with a view to their "temptation level".

So that we can follow this through, and then we can have a crack at sorting it in my next blog, I'm going to nominate Diplomatic Force as a horse that might have the ability to run second or third, and with an unusual amount of luck could even win.

The champion has to turn around, after making a long journey, on a track that he's not really familiar with, under weather conditions that we can't be certain about at this stage. Well, champions do it, but the odds aren't worth our finding out. Diplomatic Force is rock-steady at $16 with every bookmaker in town including the TABs.

There are two possibilities here:

1. This price is accurate.
2. This is what the bookmakers think they can sell the horse at, when he really should be $21 or more.

My sneaking inclination is towards the second possibility: nobody wants to offer any more than he has to, in order to attract whatever business is around. However, the true picture could be that the horse is really a 20/1 chance or more, given the exceptional class of the favourite.

The option here is to wait until the day, and then take either the top course fluctuation, or one of the online bookmakers' "best of all dividends" kinds of bet, where you can get "best TAB or starting price".

There is also the option with some bookmakers of betting each way the top fluctuation, and getting a quarter the odds regardless of there being an odds-on favourite. Some bookies do it, some won't. Ask yours if you have one. While the idea of $16 to win on Diplomatic Force is not enticing, $4.75 for the place, giving a return if he runs second or third of 137%, looks much more attractive.

I'll watch it right through and then report back after the race. We know that one swallow doesn't make a summer, but I'm sure you'll be as interested as I am in the kind of price available for Diplomatic Force on the day. It's an isolated instance, but it might set some ideas in motion about prepost betting on final fields.

Some More Thoughts on Specialising

Perhaps distance is a major key. Is staying a great spectacle that the average punter cannot afford?

If you get serious about restricting the number of races you try to win, I wonder if you have a game plan. Remember this: You're not trying to restrict the number of races you DO win, just the number you actually bet on.

After watching the Sydney Cup, and doing my money on Divine Rebel and Mr. Tipsy, and what's more being beaten by an eight-year-old, I started to wonder even more about Australia's fascination with stayers. If money is the only consideration (and it sure beats whatever is running second!) then let's establish a handful of criteria that might help us along this road:

1. Ignore all races contested over further than 1500 metres.
2. Ignore all races run over less than 1100 metres ( these are death traps).
3. Consider only the five inside barriers.
4. Consider only course and distance winners .
5. Consider only horses which ran first, second or third at their previous start.
6. Consider only horses in the prepost market between $3 and $ 10 inclusive.

My thinking here was to look for horses which knew the journey and were proven over it, had recent form, were thought to be in the market but at a reasonable price, were drawn well (and better drawn than the vast majority), and of course were essentially in sprint races.

Looking at the meeting I just alluded to above, I had to go through to the last two races to identify any contenders. These were Danleigh and Noble Edict. Noble Edict ended up not qualifying because it had run nowhere at its last start, and that was before a spell. It won and paid $18 on the TAB, so I guess there's an argument somewhere there against Rule 5. However, I'm looking for specialisation and security, and the other one was also victorious, starting at $8.

It was a Group One race, too, so maybe there's more still for your specialisation. It's a starting point. One bet, one win. I look forward to your thoughts on where it might lead.

I wish I could avoid all races with more than a dozen starters.

The recent Doncaster was a case in point. Nineteen of the beasts and probably fourteen arguable chances. The favourite got buried early and that was that for him.

The way I see it, there are are only two or three types of runners that can even be considered in large fields. The rest present us with too many question marks.

If I am tempted to explore a large field, I want to identify:

1. the on-pace runners.

2. the runners with very high win strike rates.

3. the runners being ridden by the very top and in-form jockeys.

If I can get all three, I get interested. I wish I could say with hand on heart that it's always that way, but I STILL get lured in by really attractive prices about some horses that are a risk (backmarkers, for example). After all my years, I can at least say to you that you must learn by my long experience. A big race field is a minefield.

They're all a bookie's dream.

The line you sometimes hear peddled by a few of the "experts" is "the bigger the field, the bigger the certainty".

That is total nonsense! The bigger the field, the more dangers there are, and not just the other horses. I repeat, big fields are minefields.

Why those three demands I listed above? Well, on-pacers tend to get into less trouble. You know where they'll be, and whatever happens in the ruck won't affect them. If they have very high win strike rates (say 50%) at least we are with a winner. On stats alone it can repeat.

And I do like top riders who are in form. Look at Jim Cassidy at the moment. Trainers are beating a path to his door. Amazing man, never ridden better. When he arrived as a kid to ride Kiwi in the Cup, we'd never heard of him. He and Brian Mayfield-Smith knocked Tom Smith off the top of the NSW premiership after Tommy had been The Man for about four thousand years.

A high performing on-pacer with a top in-form jock will do me. Otherwise leave me right out of those big fields.

Eachway Bets - Which Way to Go?

Eachway betting can be a good safety valve.
But it can be against logic. What are the main pros and cons?

In favour:

1. It provides insurance.
2. It protects against frustration caused by a long run of outs (which can happen to anyone).

Against:
1. Eachway betting cuts into the size of a winning return.
2. If you bet for a place, you are saying that you have doubts.

As an option, and considering all these arguments, why not stagger your bet?

Work out what you'll need to invest for the place, just to cover the whole bet. At $9 the win, you'll only need to put down 33.3 cents in the dollar. That $9 is 8/1 in the old betting language, so you'd get 2/1 for the place (a quarter the win odds).

So you'll get back your full outlay if the selection places second or third.

The other 66.6 cents of every dollar invested goes on to win.

At a price of $5 (odds of 4/1), you'd need to bet a straight 50% eachway, but anything over $5 requires less than half your stake for the place portion.
With the TAB you'd have to calculate the stakes close to the race, and work from there.

What About Shorter Prices?

Eachway betting below $5 is mostly inadvisable for the average punter. You would have to bet more for the place than for the win, just to cut even.

At 50% eachway, you'd recoup some of the total stake if your horse placed, but not all.

At $3 the win, an eachway bet turns a 2/1 win bet into a bet at $1.60, or odds of 6/10! This is probably, long term, NOT in the average punter's best interests.

Nevertheless, there is still that argument about avoiding frustration, and there are times when an eachway bet on a horse at about $4 can be a reasonable proposition. This is when you feel that there is a major threat, and that you would rather get three quarters of your money back, than risk losing the lot. That's a personal decision and it probably depends on personality and circumstances.

I can see an argument for it, although I might not do it myself.