SIN BIN IS VALUE FOR THE NAP: With those around him in the BETDAQ market ‘flawed’, according to Daqman, Sin Bin is awarded today’s nap vote at Taunton for Paul Nicholls to complete a hat-trick.
LOOK OUT AT CHELTENHAM TOMORROW: Daqman is itching to go on the attack with his new bull’s-eye bet (to win 50 points) and try to continue his run of 11 lays in a row. So look out at the big Cheltenham meeting, starting tomorrow.
WHEN IS A BET NOT A BET? WHEN IT’S THE WRONG PRICE
As a punter for many years, I know how important the price of a horse is. Value is all. But sometimes, when one is too big, you can be put off it, just as easily as, when one is too short, you feel you have to leave it alone.
I’ve had both, consecutively this week, and they’ve cost me money. They both won. And, you may argue, winners in any circumstance have to be better than losers.
Tuesday was hardest to bear. I said that Hidden Identity was ‘far too big at 10.0’ on BETDAQ in the morning. I said I ‘had to debate whether this is value or a negative sign and, in such a small field, it’s a negative.’
Identity’s value remained hidden to punters everywhere. He started at 10-1. And he won to the gritting of Daqman teeth.
Then yesterday I said ‘Smad Place is an interesting recruit to the chasing game but can hardly be backed at prohibitive odds.’ Smad Place won 4-11.
We have to let them go, and the plain truth remains: that the real ingredient of value betting is to know the price you want.
You must price up the races yourself. You must, must, must know what price is value and what is not.. If you want 10-1, then 10-1 is not big. If you want 4-11, then it’s not short.
In fact, I thought Hidden Identity was a 4-1 shot. I thought Smad Place odds on but not that much (he unseated first time over fences). So the hidden factor must be put into place.
Somehow you must know what you want, as you would if you went shopping. If you saw a known-brand bottle of champagne for £50, you wouldn’t buy it. At £15, you’d think there was something wrong with it.
In each case, just as with the horses, you’d have the nagging doubts: why is it so expensive? Why is it so cheap?
Know the genuine price in advance, whether you are shopping for champagne or the value of your intended bet. I will talk more about it, when the opportunity arises.
We will win. And we will lose. That’s the nature of the game. But, if our pricing up is right, we will win in the long run, and that is all that matters.
In crude terms, if we truly get 10-1 about a 4-1 chance, we can, in theory, expect to win two and a half times more than those backing that horse at SP. If we get 4-11 about a 4-6 shot, we need a lot of winners to pay for one loser and the long term becomes an equation of clawing back small percentages.
Backing the price, as opposed to backing the horse, is the hardest lesson for a punter to learn. But it’s the only way to make a profit. Getting the price right is a tricky business sometimes, though life is easier on BETDAQ.
If the bookmaker takes 30% from a race – Total SP 130 – you can be pretty sure that Betdaq offers for that race will add up to less than 110%, a punter-friendly zone where mistakes are not so costly. The price is right!
TAUNTON: One perpetual headache is to decide whether or not a leading stable’s contender is overbet. It’s inevitable that Paul Nicholls four runners at Taunton today will take more money – and make the layers more nervous – than the opposition.
The first question to ask yourself is: does Nicholls do well at Taunton? Answer: he gets 35% winners. Is the yard in form? Yes, Nicholls is on a hat-trick, after scoring at Wincanton and Auteuil.
More important for me is the question: does Nicholls farm any particular race? Trainers are creatures of habit: they go for the same target with the same type of horse, knowing it has paid off in the past.
In fact, the Ditcheat target race today is the class-3 novices’ hurdle (2.40), in which their recent form is 1F12, and the stable’s ex-German Listed-Flat contender, Irving, makes his hurdles bow.
But he’s not ‘the same type of horse’. His background is in direct contrast to his previous winners, which were well known from their English Flat form and recent bumper form.
And BETDAQ backers this morning sent Nicky Henderson’s Cup Final to the front of the market. This one is bred to go to the top, by presenting out of Asian Maze, herself a top-class hurdler.
LUDLOW: At mundane meetings like today’s, look for the ‘nugget’, a horse with a glint of gold among the day’s chaff. Cup Final could well be one.
At Ludlow, the same stable sends out Free Thinking (1.30) with ‘a very bright future’ (quote unquote the trainer in the Racing Post stable tour): 3.5 on BETDAQ this morning, with little in the way of opposition that looks strong or potentially so.
So I’m backing Free Thinking, with a saver on Cup Final, which assumes that one of them will win. Just in case both do, I will have a small-stakes double.
VALUE BETS: But it’s in handicaps that you find good offers going begging, based on the kind of exposed form you don’t get in those novices’ races.
The price doesn’t have to be huge, as long as it’s bigger than it should be. And, in a 106% list on BETDAQ this morning, 3.3 Rydalis (2.00 Ludlow) looks good.
Just the ‘bridesmaid’ Jayandbee was backed to get anywhere near him and it was 9.6 bar two. I couldn’t see any value in the bar – with Kings Lodge, Lava Lamp, Cootehill and Raduis Bleu all winning only over shorter trips – except possibly Inside Dealer at 9.8, with a 50% win-and-place record from 24 starts going right-handed.
There’s a real test for A P McCoy at Taunton (2.10): Western King needed a lot of driving, hanging badly, under Sam Twiston-Davies at Ludlow, and McCoy takes over with Charlie Mann’s six-year-old put up 8lb.
Guess Again, a recent winner, carrying only a token penalty, has to try to beat the handicapper before his weight is revised but he is simply not that sort of horse. He runs up light after his racing, and won’t have my money riding on him.
It seems to give the Nicholls’ horse Sin Bin a cracking chance (5.2 BETDAQ offers this morning), superbly bred for chasing, by Presenting out of a Be My Native mare.
The offer is big because those around him are badly flawed, and because of yet another value book on BETDAQ, showing 105% at the time of writing. Seems to be one Nicholls’ runner that isn’t overbet!
DAQMAN’S BETS
BET 8pts win FREE THINKING (1.30 Ludlow) and 2.2pts win (stakes saver) CUP FINAL (2.40 Taunton), with 1pt win double the two
BET 8.6pts win RYDALIS and 2.2pts win INSIDE DEALER (2.00 Ludlow)
BET 4.6pts win (nap) SIN BIN (2.10 Taunton)
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