DAQMAN’S BETTING SECRETS: PART 4 and 5 EXTRA: Daqman adds facts and fallacies about the trainer and jockey sections of his series on racing and betting. When is a winner to be ignored? When are super strike-rates misleading? Should you lump on a traveling trainer or a special jockey booking?
TRAINER AND JOCKEY FALLACIES
Losing punters have funny habits. And the laughter is catching among the layers: they can’t believe their luck! We’ve already seen in this series that winning on form is far from automatic.
Winners last time out are not even safe. The first question we need to ask about success on the last day is: has the horse been this way before? When he last won a race, did he also run well next time out?
Trip and ground, track and class of race are vital. But, if he can’t put two races together, you’re on the wrong horse!
Moreover, if the trainer knows the horse doesn’t hold his form, or that he needs everything right on the day, he isn’t going to put pressure on him in less than ideal circumstances.
Winner last time out It’s a proven fallacy, except of course when – as we saw earlier in the series – the horse is with a trainer who specialises in sequence horses, or with one who is capable of disguising a horse, or improving a horse. His winner may still be ‘well in.’
Winner last time out becomes important when you consider backing a horse in a big race who had lost his form but is clearly being brought back for the big prize.
If he gets a penalty, it might be extra weight that is needed to get him into the race, but generally penalties are bad news.
Under the radar A winner might run again quickly with a penalty because his rating in future will be revised upward to a mark much bigger than the penalty itself.
Check them out; how many horses win again that quickly? Remember my warning about winners last time out; which trainers can do it or really want it?
Generally, horses don’t stay ‘at peak’; they are ‘let down’ and ‘brought back’ or given the chance to ‘bounce back’ by resting them and ‘producing’ them for another target.
A run for your money Sprinters are worth a special study. There’s not much between many of them in the ratings, so just a few pounds extra will stop them; you need to latch on to them when they have a good mark.
You need to note which trainers keep them on the go; which trainers aim at the occasional handicap; which trainers play games with the handicapper.
Most are legitimate, or nearly so. The horse is a 5f sprinter, yet he runs in three consecutive 6f races. He drops a couple of pounds, then returns to 5f. That’s the sort of thing that gets the trainer a good win and you a good price!
Strike rates You often see in the Press that a trainer has a dramatic strike rate, say 50%. But 50% of what? And what runners with live chances remain?
It’s tempting to look at small trainers with, say, four wins from eight starts (4-8).. wow! But, let me tell you, you’ve probably missed the boat.
Perhaps the stable houses only 14 horses, of which half are pretty useless. His eight starters are from his seven best, of which five like soft ground. Four have won in the mud. So you might just get one more hit at the end of his coup.
He’s definitely a trainer to watch; he’ll have more good times in the future but you need to look very carefully at what horses he’s got left before you feel confident he can continue his run right now.
Even in a very old racing book, of quaint phraseology, I read: ‘In the betting calculus, any coup that can be identified, whether an isolated incident or a sequence, is finite by its very nature.’ In other words, ‘what’s that was it’? You see it only when it’s gone.
Jockey bookings A booking for a jockey who has a full card at the meeting is not likely to catch my eye, unless it’s a horse he alone wins with.
That horse becomes a potential gold mine, if he is the ONLY booking of the day for our man, or if other rides have no significance and not much form.
What’s his game? When you first look at the cards each day, check out the jockey mounts, particularly at Saturday meetings.
Where’s so-and-so? He usually rides for this trainer or he usually rides that particularly horse. But he’s not at Haydock Park today; he’s at Ffos Las.
The prizemoney in Welsh Wales is low. Even if he wins, he will probably make less than his riding fees for three or four mounts in the North.
It seems a strong indicator, particularly if the owner has given him other ‘hot’ mounts in the past, or has one lined up in the future, say in a big handicap.
Traveling Trainer Trainers may send horses long distances these days. You need to check the situation before rushing in.
Is this a meeting the stable wins at? Has the horse won there before? Is a good jockey booked or is one who is often seen on the stable losers going up for the ride?
The race might be the only chance of a prep because the trainer was late in spotting an opportunity elsewhere which he won’t win without a run.
Try to check on the owner in past reports or on Google. You could get excited about a solo raid by a southern trainer at Musselburgh and discover that the owner of the horse lives in Edinburgh.
You need to know from past results: is the horse going up for fun or is it the case that the animal has been prepped in the South and is going ‘up North’ now he’s ready for a hit in front of the owner and his family?
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