It was a tough ask given my self confessed addiction when it comes to horse racing literature; therefore I have quite a few books on the subject.

Listed below are the books that have had the most influence on my approach to handicapping. I will write a synopsis on each book, change or rearrange the list over time.

1. The Odds On Your Side – Mark Cramer
2. Money Secrets at the Racetrack – Barry Meadow
3. Betting Flat Handicaps – Jon Gibby
4. The Match Up 2 – Jim Bradshaw
5. Braddocks’s Complete Guide to Horse Race Selection and Betting – Peter Braddock
6. Winning Thoroughbred Strategies – Dick Mitchell
7. Six Secrets of Successful Bettors – DRF Press
8. One Hundred Hints for Better Betting – Mark Cotton
9. DIY Punting – Terry Burke
10. Betting for a Living – Nick Mordin

It’s always folly to tempt the patience of the gambling gods but a pleasing set of results yesterday

Southwell 9th March – Contenders

4:10
Kings Ace
Louisiade 2nd
Madison Belle 1st @ 7/1

4.40
Exit Smiling
Mozayada
Trans Sonic 1st @ 7/2

5:10
Tri Chara
Hard Ball
Vogarth

5.40
Cape Of Storms
Don Pele
Fulford 2nd
Gracie´s Gift 1st @ 22/1

My weekend review of my Pace Process and assumptions (think aggregation of marginal gains)  really helped to visualise the running of each race to great effect.

What was really pleasing was the result of the 5:40 given that my recent visit to Southwell provided a real time lesson of how efficient the market is at this venue and therefore needs to be monitored closely up to the point when the runners enter the starting stalls.

The drift on Betfair of pre race favourite Fulford gave the “kiss of death” signal I needed to dutch the other contenders for a positive result.

The other lesson from my Southwell expedition was the requirement of early pace for distances up to 8 furlongs. Below are the in running comments for each of the winners from the races above

Madison Belle – led, headed over 4f out, led again over 2f out, soon pressed, ridden and held on gamely opened 8/1 touched 9/1

Trans Sonic – prominent, led after 2f , about 4 lengths clear over 2f out, ridden out touched 4/1 £1600-£400 (x8)

Bold Diva – held up, headway to chase leader over 1f out, ridden to lead narrowly inside final furlong, driven out opened 4/1

Gracie’s Gift – tracked leaders, led 2f out, ridden and ran on opened 14/1 touched 25/1 £5000-£250 Each Way

I don’t mind being wrong once in every four attempts in my pre race pace analysis as long as I can reduce the odds in my favour when eliminating horses that are running against the pace bias for the remaining three occasions.

Among serious handicappers there are two major schools of philosophy. In one intellectual camp are the empiricists, who view every race as a unique problem to be solved by intuition and analysis. They evaluate horses’ records by weighing many factors and subtleties, and reject the notion that a horses’ ability can be measured in any precise, concrete way. In the other camp are the rationalists, the speed handicappers, who believe that a horse can be measured by how fast he runs. Speed handicappers perform various arcane calculations to translate a horse’s ability into a number.

No area of handicapping inspires passion of controversy. The advocates of speed figures share the view of Pat Lynch, an astute New York handicapper, who says,, “Time is the one absolute truth in the game.” The critics, who include writers of most books on betting the races view speed handicappers as madmen looking for certainty and easy answer in a game in which they don’t exist. Author Tom Ainslie approvingly quotes a horseplayer who says, “very few speed handicappers are lolling in loot, In fact, one of them we know is rarely let out of the attic, and steadfastly maintains he is Martin Van Buren”

For the most of my career as a horseplayer, I shared this scepticism. But when I finally became acquainted, I was infected by their messianic fervour. I started making my own figures. I proceeded gingerly at first, with caution of a bather dipping one toe in a cold lake. But soon I was completely immersed. Discover figures were one of the momentous events of my life.

Andrew Beyer – Picking Winners

With an average strike rate of 15% and 96 pts profit since July 09, you would think that I was well on my way toward professional status. Alias when I benchmark my strike rate performance against newspaper tipsters, there is room improvement

How did the cycling team win eight gold medals?

The explanation used by the cycling performance director, Dave Brailsford, was that it was achieved through the “aggregation of marginal gains”. By looking for a 1% gain at everything they do, from mechanics upwards, they pulled together a whole series of small gains that enabled their athletes to dominate their sport

Using similar techniques I have reviewed my overall process and determine that I should reinstate the use of Speed Ratings in my approach.

Why use Speed Ratings?

The purpose of a speed rating is to take the different tracks and conditions creating a common number using a complex computer generated number that gives us a representation of how fast a horse is. The numbers are generally between a low figure (say 50) and high figure (say 100,) the higher the number the faster the horse.

Speed Ratings allow a handicapper to analyse a horse’s particular performance in a race simply and easily, without having to worry about which size track the time was run at, or what the condition of the track was during the race, or in some cases even the distance of the race itself.

As outlined in various All Weather racing books, given the nature of racing on this surface, Speed Ratings are particularly useful for contender selection (by the use of Class Pars) as most races are pace oriented and therefore truly ran (in theory)

Back in 2004 in my fledgling punting career (my mug days) I utilised Speed Ratings extensively based on the teachings of Mr Mordlin. In fact way back then I created a price of software to automatically produce “pseudo” Speed Ratings based on final time and beaten lengths. With the demise of my free online source of data for the software (Teletext), I abandoned their use in preference of form analysis.

Little did I know that it would take me years to become proficient in other aspects of handicapping before returning to Speed Ratings.

I won’t bother with a review of the course given that a perfectly adequate report is available on the ORS Racing Web site. However, once I eyeballed the course layout I had another epiphany moment .

The course is as flat as a billiard table and unlike Wolverhampton where the turns are tight, the turns here are sweeping and the straights deceptively long, especially the final 4 furlongs off the final bend. Additionally the course is galloping in nature allowing plenty of time for horses to gather a head of steam therefore most races are truly run affairs.

The famous fibresand surface is not as deep as it seems when viewing races on the TV although given my comments above and its unique consistency, Southwell for horses is like marmite, you either love it or hate it!

During my visit I met Maxilon 5 from the Racing Forum All Weather Lays and Plays thread (started by yours truly). As local racegoer he is a fountain of knowledge all things Southwell and the key factors of this unique venue. Our exchange of views and opinions was well worth the price of admission and my contribution to the gambling god’s coffers.

Things I picked up during our afternoon musings

• When assessing the chances of horses running here its Southwell form, Southwell form followed by long and distant Southwell form
• There are a subset of trainers that like this venue too
• The market and betting ring is ultra efficient. There are a lot of punters at Southwell that know the time of day. The opinion of this silent minority is reflected in the prices in the final minutes before the off (Note to self – Because your tissue scream’s “value”, that does not give you the green light to hoover up drifting prices from “every” bookmaker in the ring!!)
• Its difficult (but not impossible) to win draw wide over 6,7 and 8 furlongs
• Stamina and early pace are key requirements at these distances for any horse running at Southwell. Did I also mention Southwell form?
• I typically lump Class 5, 6 form together when assessing the chances of contenders in these grades. Based on some advise from Max I may need to modify my thinking as some horses suffered from the Peter Principle while others that ran poorly at other venues seem to thrive here.

As many as one in ten people have turned to gambling to try to survive the recession, according to the charity Credit Action. Adrian Scarfe from gambling counselling service GamCare said more people are coming to them after trying to get out of the recession through gambling.

This is a worrying trend and predictable given the excesses of the last 12 years that need to be repaid as this is the only cure for debt. Our politicians and general public don’t seem to understand or grasp this simple fact.

I degrees.

Some bloke from GamCare believes the great unwashed don’t understand gambling, I tend to agree. However instead of treating us all as problem gamblers why are we not given positive messages and education about gambling?

My thesis was and is “the cure for losing is winning”
Dr Howard Sartin – Clinical Psychotherapist

The Psychology of Winning: An Introduction to Win Therapy

I am one of the lucky ones to have copies of his research notes and books as applied to horse racing (the Sartin Methodology) and I for one am convinced that we can all be winners and not problem gamblers.

As normal my dog Muttley woke me up early for his morning constitutional and food. Border Terriers are a stomach on legs so can be persistent in the pursuit of a tasty morsel even at 6:30 am Sunday morning.

Instead of firing up my Nokia E72 to check out price movements on Betfair, with only one race of interest today decided to continue my read of Dave Nevison book No Easy Money: A Gambler’s Diary. I have read his first book (A Bloody Good Winner) which was brilliant as it contained many crumbs of comfort for us aspiring professionals.

Though sceptical of his second book based on reviews in various forums, the book was purchased by my daughter as a Christmas present (there’s a rumour doing the rounds, often repeated that people find it difficult to buy me presents) so decided to plough through each page for educational reasons.

Dave and I are alike in that we like a punt and a good party (combining both if we can, ah my days in Las Vegas) so the pages which recited his exploits from race courses up and down the land didn’t educate me in that respect.

For me the revelation was contained in the chapter “Drowning in the Pool” where he has a crisis of confidence after losing bundles chasing the Tote Scoop 6 pool.

Dave is a value punter  (and I try to emulate him) therefore constructs a tissue.

My job is to apply my knowledge of the form to the particular circumstances of the race in order to put a figure next to each horse, expressing its chance of winning. The figure is the price I consider to be an accurate reflection of its chance, whether 6-4 on or 25-1 against.

Pre race, he matches his opinion (tissue) against the market and backs horses that are paying > 15% edge.

However that opinion is sooooo 2009, when reading the chapter above and after yesterday’s observations plus corresponding drift on Betfair.  The new mantra for 2010 is the efficiency of the market

It was interesting to read Tom Segal, Pricewise in the Racing Post, arguing in the Weekender that no-on knows better than the collective wisdom of the market. That wasn’t true a few years ago but I am beginning to thing that it might be today.

The market is different from pre-Betfair days. It is now an amalgam of the best racing brains in the country and it reflects horses’ true chances of winning more accurately than ever before. I have come to terms with that and try to use it to my advantage rather than stick two fingers up at it. There isn’t much profit to be made from following the crowd but if the crowd is the one that forms the market, which means Betfair, then instead of being against the crowd, I have to try to be ahead of it.

I think that more than before, in decent-quality races horses who drift from their morning prices don’t win while those who are already prominent in the market shorten further, do. These price movements represent market sentiment, as opposed to the opinions of individual odds compliers, and market sentiment has become a more important factor

I don’t completely subscribe to all of the comment in the above passage. The market doesn’t always get it right (the current turmoil in the financial markets is testament to that) however, those us who are statistically minded note 80% efficiency in the SP market. If I were to repeat numbers like that I would be writing this post from my beach house in a costal resort somewhere in the Caribbean.

Also Tom Segal was not the first to highlight the efficiency of the market as applied to horseracing. In his book “Fast Track to Thoroughbred Profits” written in 1984, Cramer highlights the collective knowledge of the crowd using a fictitious time traveller who listed the betting public as his top three hero’s of the century. Why? Through their collective opinion they achieve i.e. the favourite the best strike rate of any handicapper.

Therefore to ignore the crowd is potentially a loss making strategy. Within this in mind I’ll probably adopt Dave’s approach and use my tissue to identify value in the early price markets. In the minutes before the off I’ll accept shorter prices on horses that have shortened though my tissue and side with the market in avoiding horses at longer “drifting” prices than my tissue.

Take a look at Rapid’s City’s pre race odds.. Notice anything?

Also note the in race comments

steadied start, held up in rear, short of room over 6f out, soon pulled hard and headway over 5f out, tracked leaders over 3f out, soon ridden to challenge, weakened over 1f out opened 7/1 touched 12/1

I’m not crying foul, nope not me! My observation adds more weight my decision to benchmark my tissues against Corals (thanks Tooting). James Knight Coral’s odds complier is good. In fact he is extremely good at his job!

Here’s another observation/piece of evidence. In my trips to Corals bookies in Bath I recently noted a promotion on the favourite. In certain races Corals will “Jolly Up” the favourite i.e. offer enhanced odds to punters who wish to back “The Jolly”.

Ask yourself this question. Why would Corals offer better odds on the favourite than the pre race market to a shop packed to the rafters with favourite backers?

Tipped up Lujiana in the 1.20 at Southwell Sunday to the amazement of the punters in Corals Bath (I did make quite a bit of noise when he crossed the line at 25/1)

How? A simple matter of the draw bias. Unlike the bias over 5 furlongs at Beverly which is well publicised, the equivalent bias at Southwell is disguised by stall position, number of runners in the race and pace.

Having a big winner (and basking off the profits and the adulation of other punters) has seriously boosted confidence in my capabilities and approach.

However, I hope the gambling gods are not about to exact their revenge proportional to the size of my win!

Proposals to modernise British horse racing’s image, including an end to traditional odds, have been unveiled.

This change makes no difference to me per my example tissue below.

In fact it will make it easier to bang in the pre race odds into my PDA without having to find the “/” character on the mini-keyboard for each entry.

At the end of the day, whether they are fractional or decimal, odds are odds and you still need an edge to beat them and the game long term.