PROFITABLE BETTING
Five key areas to improve your chances of winning juvenile races
Now that we are approaching the back end of the turf Flat season there are plenty of races for two-year olds. I've come to love these types of race because I have uncovered a profitable little system for them which has shown a smallish but consistent rate of return over the years.
When developing betting systems it often pays to keep things simple. I have found that you are better off basing systems around the core form factors and then thinking about ways in which you can exploit blind spots in the market to attain value. A few years ago I developed a simple system for two-year-old races that is based on just five simple factors. I’ll first describe the system, its rationale and then go on to discuss its results.
The rules of the system are:
1. Select stakes races for juveniles.
You need to ignore handicap races for two-year-olds. These so-called nursery events are an absolute graveyard for punters. I know some professionals believe that they can gain an edge in these events but I have often found the results in these races to be mysterious, unless you follow certain stables that specifically target these types of event. Overall the favourite wins more often in juvenile stakes races.
2. Select the clear favourite in the betting market for the non-stakes race.
This doesn’t mean the forecast favourite. The system assumes that in two-year-old races the betting market is the best guide and that all inside information and all relevant form are contained in the betting odds. Thus if a horse shortens significantly to be the market leader at the off then this is because those in the know have lumped on. Provided that you time your bet to the last minute before the off you can pretty much guarantee that you will have backed the favourite.
I have consistently found that fillies and mares are more inconsistent than colts
3. The selection should be ridden by a non-claiming jockey or a 3lb claimer only.
It doesn’t happen very often but on occasion the favourite can be ridden by an inexperienced jockey, claiming an allowance of more than three pounds. Now let me ask you a question. If you combine an inexperienced two-year-old and an inexperienced jockey do you think that this is a good combination? Unless the seven-pound claimer is the next Lester Piggott I don’t think that this is a good combo in which to invest. The results of the system are much better if the favourite has the assistance of a professional or an experienced 3lb claimer.
4. The selection should be a colt.
This may seem a bit of an odd criteria for a system but I can tell you that I have analysed thousands of races from dif
ferent angles and I have consistently found that fillies and mares are more inconsistent than colts. All others things being equal you are better off backing a colt than a filly.
I once put this theory to the test and conducted a detailed statistical study that basically matched the form characteristics of colts and fillies. You would have expected that both sex groups, given that they were matched on a number of form factors, would have the same win strike rate.
However, the fillies had a lower strike rate and this I think can only be explained by their inherent inconsistency. I’ve spoken to stable staff, trainers and veterinarians and they all concur that fillies are more difficult to train and they do not take their racing as well as colts. The results of this system are significantly improved if you stick to the colts. This also means that you should stay clear of two-year-old geldings. My reasoning here is that if the value of a racehorse is basically its value as a future stallion then, if you considered a juvenile to have any potential, you wouldn’t cut its balls off in its first season would you? The statistics show that two-year-old geldings that start as favourite tend to win less often than two-year colts.
5. Finished fourth last time out or worse.
This final factor is the main one that gives the system its edge. You would still make a profit if you simply made selections on the basis of the first four factors but by adding this fifth factor you can increase the rate of return. Why though would you want to back horses that finished outside of the first three on their last start? Good question and most punters probably wouldn’t want to back a horse that had this profile. And this is exactly why we gain an edge by adding this factor.
If plenty of fellow punters don’t like horses that finished fourth or unplaced last time out but the horse still went off favourite this tells us that the horse must have plenty else in its favour and it probably has its connections backing it. Basically the odds on offer are greater than the true probability of the horse winning. This is the definition of value. In going against the crowd we gain an edge. Furthermore finishing unplaced last time out in a two-year-old race isn’t the negative that it would be in other types of race. Juvenile races often have big fields and so finishing fifth in a 15runner race is a better effort than finishing third in an eight-runner race. Juveniles also often run below form on their first few starts as they start to learn their trade. .
System results
A number of so-called profitable systems do not record consistent levels of profit, year in, and year out. They often record a lucky year in which they make an extraordinary profit, which disguises the fact that in a normal year the system makes a loss. When testing systems it is therefore important to look to see if a system makes a profit over a number of different years. I am always much more confident of a system that has shown a consistent profit over time.
My results, taken over a three-year period, show that the simple system outlined found 366 selections and had 165 winners, representing a strike rate of over 45 per cent. This keeps losing runs short and is good from a psychological point of view because you are frequently at the payout window. The overall profit to a 1-point stake was almost 56, giving a rate of return of over 15 per cent. A profit was recorded in all years.
This year the system has again been doing well. Up to August 6, the system recorded 43 bets and recorded 20 winners (a nearly 47% strike rate) and made a profit of £13.40 to a £1 stake.
RickyTaylorisauthorofanewbook ‘BettingintheTwenty-FirstCentury: ChallengesandOpportunitiesforthe ModernPunter’(availablefrom Amazon.co.uk).YoucanreadRicky’s latestresearchandbettingsystemson hiswebsiteprofitablebetting.co.uk.