Welcome to Punters Corner with Roman Koz

For years I have wondered why Australian horseracing rates the best jockeys and trainers based on their total wins for the season and I have come to the only conclusion possible: it's the easiest. The rest of the world has many definitions of success but generally percentages become the only true barometer. Would you invest your superannuation money in a fund yielding 6% or 5.5%? The answer is a no brainer.

This season the Sydney training premiership will be won by Peter Snowden. Based on published data on Tuesday in "The Sportsman" he has trained 92 winners from 543 runners for a win average of 16.94% while Gai Waterhouse has trained 68 winners from 347 runners for a win average of 19.59%. A quick tap on the calculator shows Gai is a 13.52% better trainer (19.59% minus 16.94% = 2.65% x 100 = 265%/19.59 = 13.52) yet no recognition is shown for her better performance.

Punters backing every runner trained by the David Hayes stable in Melbourne and Adelaide would be wondering why such a high profile trainer has such poor training figures. All told he has had 73 wins from 734 runners for a strike rate of 9.94% but he is not the worst. In Perth Neville Parnham has had 613 runners for 39 winners for a miserable win percentage of 6.36%.

We punters have a hard, tough life but surely concentrating on the truly top trainers MUST be the way to go if following trainers is one of our betting strategies. For the record the best trainer in Australia, based on the figures in "The Sportsman", is Mark Kavanagh with his Melbourne and Adelaide runners totaling 82 winners from 323 runners for a fantastic win percentage of 25.38%. Backing every one of his runners actually showed a profit, albeit a mere $2 odd, but which punter can honestly say they had 323 bets across all sorts of classes and broke square.

So, Trainers:Rule 1 for the 2010-2011 racing season has to be "follow Mark Kavanagh". This does not mean you have to back every runner but closely following this excellent trainer, when all the planets align, must have you in the right ball park to start with.

If you would like a personal tip from a trainer you could not have gone past Gerald Ryan's move to bring Ironstein to Caloundra for the Cup. Ironstein had won his last two races in Sydney quite comfortably in restricted Benchmark 80 races and to have Ironstein contest the Listed Caloundra Cup, against the solid staying contenders in the race, was a confident move worth noting.

The likes of trainers like Gai Waterhouse, Peter Snowden and Peter Moody shift from state to state regularly these days and an interstate move by them is similar to knowing water comes out of a tap however some trainers don't overdo this sort of training and Gerald Ryan is one of these trainers. Trainers like Chris Waller and Joseph Pride from Sydney rarely travel interstate but watch them when they do in the future for this duo are top class trainers. Be aware there are many trainers who move around and win a race or two but long term you lose backing them as they seem to have too many runners so think about your Trainers Stable carefully.

While you are thinking about trainers try and think of how some trainers have won races. Were they first up or off a 7 day or less back up? The trainers of regular winners off breaks or quick backup runs really need to know what they are doing. What are the trainers like at getting their horses to win two or more consecutive races? There are many ways to think about trainers and their methods and if you can work a few out you have a big start in the right direction.

In the next couple of weeks I will be thinking about which trainers I will follow over the Spring carnivals. Undoubtedly C Waller and J Pride will head my list as will G Ryan when he brings runners south to Sydney and Melbourne.

Here we are at the end of the financial year as well as the Brisbane carnival but in no time whatsoever the Spring carnivals will be upon us. I am reminded of this in no mean order as I note that the high class runners Predatory Pricer, Herculian Prince and Hinchinbrook are strutting their stuff on the training tracks and Theseo is already out and about running 1200m gallops. I also noted in an article in "The Sportsman" that Bart Cummings is firing up Allez Wonder, So You Think and Faint Perfume for their spring campaigns as well as the promising Precedence. No doubt Bart has a couple of other Spring candidates on the boil and we all await to see how many Group 1 races this legend can win in the 2010-2011 racing season.

Personally, this is the time of the year when I start planning my 43rd Spring campaign. In the August edition of PPM I will finish of a series of articles by discussing my thoughts on tackling the trifecta and First Fours. So far my attacks on both forms of betting has been littered with hard luck stories and tales of amazement and the development of a hole in my wallet that almost needs medical attention. It is my intention to tackle the toughest, better class open handicap/s available each week using the Roving Banker option.

I have tinkered with a target betting method for a few months with different objectives and divisors for win and place betting and have finally felt it is time to up the ante a fraction. I like the idea of forming a no form study "Betting Stable" where I back each horse to win a certain amount per run (target betting) and I will be really tightening the figures I have in the Generic Ratings (Universal Handicap) project I have been developing for the last twelve months. This is simply a set of ratings for every runner on my list over certain distance ranges for each runner.

I could add other betting attacks, such as trainers and jockeys, but how many different bet forms can one person keep a proper track of? Laying horses on Betfair is another option but this demands a tremendous amount of self control and I sometimes wonder how much of that I have!!

What about you? What are your Spring campaign plans?

I knew the lure of Fox Classics would get to me eventually and here I am watching/listening to an episode of "Gunsmoke". Things will only get "worse" because I have only recently started subscribing to the Foxtel package that allows me to watch just about every channel and while I have been trawling the Foxtel program guide my lips are starting quiver with anticipation. Although most of you would be aware I am a horseracing tragic you do not know years ago I was TV addict.

The first television show I ever saw was the UK series "The Adventures of Robin Hood" starring Richard Greene and by the end of the show I was hooked. Within a matter of a couple of months I started collecting magazines, like TV Week, TV Times and Listener In Weekly. To say I devoured their pages would be an understatement and within no time at all I knew all the stars and costars of all the television series of the time, especially the westerns. I don't know what causes people to become record keepers but there was no stopping me and within a couple of years I had index cards on over 1500 character actors and actresses. I might add I was about fifteen.Every time I saw a familiar face I jotted down their appearance and eventually I was able to list the names of actors not even shown in the official cast lists.

To say I loved a western would be the classic understatement and shows like "The Lone Ranger" and "Rin Tin Tin" were precursors to later adult shows like "Gunsmoke", "Cheyenne", "Bronco", "Bonanza" and the show I will be watching in about 30 minutes, "Maverick". To this day I can still rattle off the main stars of all the major western TV series of the late 1950's and 1960's as well as many of the other genres as well. It was while I was watching "Cheyenne" I came across my favourite character actor, the unbelievable Jack Elam, through his portrayal of a character no one bar myself seems to remember called Toothy Thompson. If any of you have seen the "support your local sheriff" films where Jack Elam costarred with Brett Maverick (James Garner) you will understand what sort of a scoundrel Toothy
Thompson was.

As "Gunsmoke" is about to finish I note that an actor called Ken Curtis is portaying the character Festus Hagen, the follow on side kick to Matt Dillon vacated when Dennis Weaver (Chester Goode) left the series. Ken Cutis was in a TV series called "Ripcord" with Larry Pennell ...... gosh, I need to stop. Go to the website http://www.b-westerns.com/kcurtis.htm and have a look at the photos and information.. I suddenly have the urge to watch "Rio Grande" after reading this quote, "One of my favorite western musical memories is Ken Curtis doing the lead (with the Sons of the Pioneers) on "I'll Take You Home Again Kathleen" in the Ford and Wayne RIO GRANDE (1950)"

Now, moving on to
"whose the tall dark stranger there, Maverick is his name"

Blow me down: Roger Moore is on the show BUT not as Brett's UK cousin Beauregard. Sit back, Roman and enjoy.

Each Thursday afternoon I print out the form for the races of interest for the forthcoming Saturday with quite some excitement. I am like the proverbial kid in the lolly shop as sitting down with a "fresh" form guide is one of the pleasures of my life. Yes, I know there is a kind of sadness attached to that but that's me. There is something that captivates me about the challenge ahead as I start circling , underlining and slotting the chances into my ABCD order. As I look at each race I mentally grade each event into as an A B C or D event with naturally the D events being the toughest.

As I was doing this tonight I thought of the issue of value. In some respects I hate the word "value" due to the never ending theories about how to calculate it but we punters must try to at least tame it. This weekend there is one race in Perth (Race 5) I thought only had two serious chances and one strong maybe. The two main chances are Roman Time and Mega Steel with the lesser chance Broadway Belle as well as the second stringers like Beat The Storm, Superscenic and New Spice that win races, but when is their day? The lightly raced Phenomenons, 3rd up after 413 days absence from the track, no doubt due to injury, can improve but, at this stage, we need to risk him. Now, I am hoping $1.70 or more the placewill be available about either, or both, Roman Time and Mega Steel for the place as I will be quite interested to make a wager on whichever I finally choose, at that price. If both are under $1.70 I will have a look at Broadway Belle at $2.00 the place or longer but for a lesser size bet or I may opt for a win bet. I will decide just before the race.

Across the nation on Saturday there will be several races where the favourite will also be paying about the same place price but may well be starting in a race where there might be four or five genuine chances plus similar second stringers to the ones I have mentioned in the Perth race. In those cases the $1.70 is not value compared to the $1.70 in the Perth race, as far as I am concerned, yet some punters will defy the odds and bet without considering the word "value". With the way I sort the races from easiest to most difficult I at least have a method of trying to tame the tiger called "value" and if I get the next part right, that is, the selection process I have a great, but not certain, chance of winning..

According to some racing people a horse will be fine on a slow or heavy track because the sire was a proven wet tracker. Another comment I have heard is "the mother was terrific in the wet". It fascinates me to even hear some respected racing people make these comments as over many years on the punt I have never seen a study that proves either of the above tenets. The only "facts" I can provide are those shown in the racing paper "Winning Post" which has a section called "Bred To Swim", where slow and heavy track runs are tabulated for sires and broodmare sires.

It was only a couple of weeks ago when I heard a commentator stating the progeny of Lonhro do not "go in the wet" yet the following day one of his progeny won with the proverbial leg in the air on a slow track. At the time I thought it was an "over the top" statement so I dragged out the section this week and I am here to tell you Lonhro's progeny have THE best strike rate of all sires listed, at 20% over 146 runs for 29 wins. As always I am quick to point out that a sample figure of 146 is not statistically significant, as far as I am concerned, so time, or a number closer to 500 runs, will show whether Lonhro's progeny are ok in the wet or not but at least he is leading right now.

Looking at the figures from another angle what should I make of the strike rates for Bianconi (9%) , Encosta De Lago (9%) and Redoubte's Choice (12%) in slow and heavy conditions? You could say "well, Roman the stats speak for themselves: don't back their runners in the wet" but I would reply in the total for all conditions their respective percentages are 11%, 10% and 18%. Subtracting the slow-heavy percentages from all conditions show on fast-dead tracks the percentages are better for Bianconi and Encosta De Lago in the dry by 1-2% BUT drop for Lonhro!! Does this mean you should not back Lonhro sired runners in the dry? Of course it doesn't which all goes to show what a load of bollocks those initial quotes/comments I presented actually are. Just concentrate on THE horse as it's the one doing the running. The form guide, or observation, will tell you if the HORSE can handle the wet or not.

It was a battle and the usual First Four frustrations surfaced but it wasn't until Race 7 in Perth when I surged to the front for a tiny profit. It would have been a very nice profit for the day percentage wise if Werd at 10/1 had won instead of Grand Nirvana at 4/1 but I am not complaining. On Saturday I discussed the 25,33,40, 50% combinations method which I am comfortable with as far as the number of runners but it is the amounts and the percentage returns via the Flexibet option I need to ponder over. I spent two hours on Saturday night jiggling some figures into an Excel sheet and I shall do some more jiggling during the week to try and calculate which amounts I need to invest for a healthy return when I actually get a First Four using the combinations attack.

The other form of attack on the First Fours I have is the Roving Banker. What I like about this approach is that my key selection can run 1 2 3 or 4 (Newport ran fourth for me in the Cup and Melito second) and if I get the other three positions correct, in the right race, I can be involved in a result worth many thousands of dollars. Using the combinations approach I am starting to think, ever so slowly I might add, that I am restricting myself long term to dividends based on results around form horses. The result in Race 7 is a perfect example as the F4 was quite gettable form wise and paid a beautiful $805.50 for the dollar but in that race I was never going to get a better dividend unless Werd won and even then it may have peaked at $1500 or $1600. In the Brisbane Cup and the Stradbroke I at least had my two Roving Bankers come in and I was a contender in a race where the dividends were around $64000 and $53000. What in effect I am doing is staking a place bet which includes fourth position on my banker. If I load up in the other positions I am in the firing line BUT, and it is a big BUT, if I take too many other selections the outlay become astronomical.

For instance, if I take my A selection as the banker with 6 other horses I am taking 1 x 6 x 5 x 4 combinations ($120) times four = $480.(Remember as a Roving Banker I am taking this horse for 1st 2nd 3rd and 4th). If my A selection is $2.00 for the place with the extra chance for fourth it is like receiving $1.80 the place (I am just guessing - I haven't a clue how to work it out) so I need a collect of $480 x $1.80 = $864 for a reasonably fair collect, value wise. If I bet $48 on the First Four I will receive 10% of the dividend therefore the First Four needs to pay $8640 for me to collect $864. In a field of fourteen there is a fair chance a dividend of $8640 is possible so attempting to collect 10% is probably fair but I have a feeling 15% is more like it. In a field of 12 I will need to invest more and even more in a field of 10 and even more in a field of 8. Again I have to do some Excel work but this time for the Roving Bankers.

One of the most frustrating bet types is the First Four. Since last Spring I have been zigging and zagging with this bet form and I am still coming to grips with the best way of tackling it. There are three main areas of difficulty with the obvious problem of having to correctly identify four "spots" in the race as the main hurdle. The second perplexing issue is one of outlay versus return and the third involves how many runners are used in your combinations.

So far, I have narrowed my choice of attack to two with both tied into how many runners there are. The first attack requires me to have a pecking order for 50% of the field, that is, in a field of 12 runners I have to make selections ABCDEF. I have tossed and turned and bet on all sorts of percentages for each of the positions (First, Second, Third, Fourth) but have decided for Position A I will take 25% of the field, for Position B 33%, for Position C 40% and Position D 50%. The combinations for a field of 12 will be ABC x ABCD x ABCDE x ABCDEF which becomes 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 or $81 for the $1 unit. To work out the combinations just subtract the number of positions that precede the one you are working on. For instance in the fourth position above there are six runners. Just subtract three from that number to covers Positions A B and C. Your TAB site should have a bet calculator (see top row) which will help you immensely if you wish to experiment further.

If you decide to go a fraction wider, like I have at times, do not go past the 33, 40,50, 60 percentages which has the combinations at ABCD x ABCDE x ABCDEF x ABCDEFG or 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 ($256). As you can see the combinations multiply threefold and all you have done is add an extra runner into each position. The next step is to decide how much to invest. Firstly, though what would the combinations be in a Melbourne Cup field of 24, a Caulfield Cup of 18 and fields of 16 and 14?

I shall return with more on this bet type by Monday when I will discuss what I did this weekend using this approach.

We punters need to keep our eyes wide open all the time otherwise we miss important clues that could help us snag a juicy priced collect. This weekend all country roads lead to the three day Swan Hill carnival and for a punter seeking good class open company races each year there is an opportunity or two at this carnival. On Friday the 1200m Golden Topaz worth $70000 heads the bill and I doubt if most punters can look past Veewap on his current form. His current price of $2.90 seems fair enough but buried in the ruck are two roughies, both at 40/1 on TAB Fixed Odds, who command some respect at those odds. Bonindi loves slow tracks, has had two runs at the track for a win and a second and is reasonable first up. Jerrymac loves it wet and has form behind Likable Will, who will be around 10/1 for the win. Both these outsiders are $10 for the place and I have partaken a small bet on each at those odds.

On Saturday at Swan Hill all the races are restricted events but on Sunday the 1600m Swan Hill Cup worth $85000 heads the card with city performers such as Bird Of Fire, Laspiel and Dr Nipantuck in the race. Prolific country cups winner Bourbonstreetblues and in form country horses Montego Bay and Glaneuse also add their weight to a top little race however buried in the ruck is Jerrymac, my Golden Topaz roughie. He has only ever backed up once before on a quick backup and that was after 3 days and he ran 2nd over 1600m. Now, I am stringing a mighty big bow with Jerrymac but just remember what I said in the first sentence. Also remember quick back up horses at any carnival can do amazing things. You might cast your mind back to Cruyfforme's second at 80/1 ( damn!!) in the Warrnambool Cup for just such an instance.

Naturally, we are all looking forward to the Stradbroke Handicap on Saturday and with the track likely to be good make sure you cross out the average runs by several of the runners that have had to contend with damp tracks, chequered runs and wide barriers in recent starts. I was asked by a mate of mine tonight for a roughie and I promptly said King Mufhasa as he likes it dry and not the slow track he copped last run. I have also had a small bet at the $11 for the place so it looks like yours truly is really testing the Gods this weekend. May they smile and grant me the tiny wishes I will make just before each race.

If Whobegotyou was a horse able to race on the pace he would be a sensation. As a matter of fact he is a sensation now as his finishing bursts are something to be seen but like many fast finishers he needs everything to go his way. The pace of the race is always critical for this horse as a slowly run race means he has to run world standard sectionals to get up and win from his usual near last position on the home turn . After studying the weights of the Stradbroke Handicap I thought the pre race betting would have had the betting at 4/1 the field so you can imagine my surprise when I saw W is listed at $2.50 with the fixed odds at Tabcorp.

If I bet $40 on Whobegotyou I will win $60 if he can overcome all the problems I have mentioned as well as getting past some smart horses who themselves can run good sectionals. If I bet $40 for the place on Catapulted I will win $70 if he simply places. History decrees that Catapulted cannot win the QTC Cup and The Stradbroke Handicap but there is no such "rule" about placing. Just the same history also shows "most" rules in racing are broken eventually so a win by Catapulted is not out of the question. Which do you think is the better value bet? I know what mine would be and that is Catapulted if he draws a suitable barrier.

At the weights how can we not consider backing Melito (51.5kg) ahead of Whobegotyou (57kg) considering Melito's excellent wfa form. I am sure the handicapper would like another crack at her weight. The new boy on the block is Latin News, who should have strolled in last week, thus enhancing the thought the handicapper also would have liked to reassess his weight. Supposition, of course, but isn't the punt about thinking ahead and I don't think I am being too loose with my thoughts about Latin News and the handicapper.

Here I go again potting the short priced favourite most people think is over the line. Late Saturday afternoon I might be thinking "I told you so" but then again some of you might be saying, "Couldn't he see what a good thing it was?". Time, as always, will tell the tale.