Subscribe to rss
Do The Research & Take The Profits
Many punters go about attacking the betting exchanges in different ways. Some trade or attempt to trade on Betfair in running, some trade price movements prior to the off. Others try and find value with the higher priced horses which are substantially higher on the exchanges while others look to lay horses that they think will lose.
Another way is to play at being a bookie and look to offer prices on all of the competitors in the field. The bottom line is that there are in fact numerous ways to operate on the exchanges and each one can either be successful or unsuccessful depending on the mechanics of your own individual strategy. There has been an awful lot of opinion on the subject of form study with regards to betting exchanges and not all of it is accurate.
Many so called experts have stated that the old conventional style of form study is obsolete now because of how accurate the market is as a whole. They are partly right, it all depends how you go about using the form data. Data can be very useful or entirely useless and it all depends on what you do with it and your own interpretation of it.
Back in my early days on the exchanges, I used to look for strategies that did not require a large amount of expertise in order for me to implement them. It is surprising just how far you can get with nothing more than a large dose of common sense. The systems and strategies that are successful do not necessarily have to be complicated. It is a mistake to think that just because a strategy is simple that it cannot possibly work.
But any successful system or strategy must have sound fundamentals and principles for it to work. If a strategy has these two elements then it has every chance of success and it does not need complexity for it to be successful. One of the keys to success not just in horse racing but in any field of sport is to look at past history. While what has happened in the past is no guarantee to what will happen in the future, it is however a good indication of what is likely to happen.
If only more punters looked back at past statistics then they would not arrive at totally the wrong conclusions when it comes to trying to predict the outcome of sporting events. This is highlighted perfectly in sports like football and especially in the World Cup. Yet time after time people just seem to think that what seems likely to happen will in fact happen and what is unlikely simply won’t happen at all.
Yet time after time these lessons go ignored, France were stone cold certainties to qualify from their group in the 2002 World Cup and Greece had absolutely no chance in Euro 2004. The country that plays the best football early in the tournament is certain to win it to hear half of the pundits talk and the teams that start badly have no chance.
This principle of looking at past data to try and ascertain what is going to happen in the future can be applied very well to horse racing and especially in running. Going back through a horses race history can reveal very striking data into just how it is going to run in the 3:30 at Sandown today.
I have always likened horse racing to athletics because there are quite a number of principles that apply equally to both sports. For instance, preferring flat races to fences, stronger over certain distances than others, record against today’s field, who likes to sit at the back or front run to name but a few. All these things can be applied equally to both sports.
Knowing of just how a horse has run certain types of races in the past can be a clear indication of just how it is going to run this one. Any trainer worth their salt is going to know their horses inside and out after a while. They will know what makes the horse tick, what makes them comfortable as well as uncomfortable.
They will know what types of races suit the horse and it’s particular strengths and weaknesses. When they are in receipt of this information then they will tailor a strategy for how the horse will run during the race and give instructions to the jockey to carry it out. Back to athletics again and many athletes like to lead and take the pace early on.
A classic example of this was the ex-middle distance athlete Peter Elliott. Our top 800 and 1500 metre athlete for while after the demise of Coe, Ovett and Cram. Elliott was a classic case of an athlete who had no finishing kick at world class level. He needed to lead straight away and force the pace if he was to have any chance of success and hope that he could put enough distance between himself and the fast finishers in order to win the race.
Tactics like this are also evident in horse racing as well. One thing is certain, a world class athlete will not show their superiority on the first lap of an 800 metre race. In the same way that a top race horse will not show its superiority in the first few furlongs. That difference in class will reveal itself in the closing stages when lesser competitors will tire and fade away.
Just because an un-fancied horse is still in the lead with two furlong to go in a six furlong event does not mean that it is suddenly a favourite to win the race. On the other side of the coin, just because an odds on chance is sitting at the back after the first furlong does not mean that the horse is running badly or that there is something wrong with the horse. If this is a pre-conceived plan that is being implemented then the event is entirely normal. Understand this and you might just profit from in running horse race betting on the exchanges.
Get Social
