In this video, I will explain, what I view, as the one of the keys to trading on horse racing. That is, finding trainer betting patterns. I will explain what I mean by trainer betting patterns. I will also explain how to find and use these patterns.
This video is Part 3 of a series on how to read horse racing markets for the purposes of trading on the betting exchanges. If you haven’t watched Parts 1 and 2 of series, I suggest that you watch them before this video. I will assume that you have the knowledge that I provided in Parts 1 and 2.
So, let’s get started.
A. Topics Covered in this Video
This video is a sports trading video. Sports trading is gambling and I’m not giving any advice. I am just giving my opinions.
All of the topics in this video are connected. Therefore, I would advise that you avoid skipping ahead.
In the last video, I said that Part 3 will be about how to read and use form. Although there will be a small amount of form discussed in this video, I decided to do how to read and use form in the next video, Part 4.
So, what is this video about?
Firstly, I start by talking about what I will refer to as “creative trainers”. I will explain what they do and how this helps us as traders.
Secondly, I will talk about trainer betting patterns. I will explain what I mean by these and why our strategies should depend on the trainer’s betting pattern. Betting patterns are much stronger if they are associated with the type of race and the type of horse, where you first identified the pattern.
Thirdly, therefore, I will talk about race selection and I will explain how we can categorise horses. I will refer to the early drifter graph, that you’ve seen in Part 2, to explain how different types of horses, should affect our trading decisions.
So, let’s get started.
B. The Big Forces: Bookmakers and Stables
There are 2 main forces in the market.
Our strategies require us to be aware of both of these forces. These forces include the bookmakers and the stables. Both bookmakers and stable connections prey on traders and punters. However, bookmakers are mainly interested in punters. Therefore, punter can be seen as the main prey of bookmakers. The stable connections prey on traders and punters. By the way, bookmakers are traders themselves, which means that stable connections also prey on bookmakers.
When developing our trading strategies, we need to reverse engineer the bookmakers’ activities in the market and how individual stables gamble on their horses.
Although these may sound like separate ideas, there is often overlap. In the previous video, I presented a theory that the bookmakers aim is simply to get punters to bet as much money as possible on each race. This theory is important because, once you know what the bookmakers’ goal is, it becomes easier to reverse engineer how they behave in the market to help them reach that goal.
So, the other force in the market are stables. I assume that all stables are gambling stables, although some stables have become more famous than others for their big gambles.
Their bets and gambles are all organised I believe. My belief in this is based on my own observations that some trainers’ favourites have more of a tendency to drift than others, while other trainers’ favourites have more of a tendency to get heavily backed.
However, my belief that the gambles are organised are also based on documentaries and interviews that I’ve watched on YouTube. In particular, these 2 videos called “Racing’s Dirty Secrets” and “Racing’s Dirty Secrets 2” show how the racing industry works or at least, has worked in the past.
There is one part of the video, where a trainer is at a British race meeting and he wants to place a bet on his horse. So, at a race meeting, there are bookmakers everywhere. This trainer is spoilt for choice concerning where he can place his bet. So, what does this trainer do? Well, he picks up his mobile phone and phones his contact in Spain to place the bet for him. When he does that, he has also given his contact the tip, which means that a lot more money, than the original bet, will probably end up on the horse.
Although the trainer was well-known, he wasn’t one of the big trainers. I would imagine the big stables would need organisation to get their money on.
In the next section, I will talk about trainer betting patterns. For now, understand that if a stable is using a contact or an organisation to place their bets, it’s likely that each organisation will have its own strategy to get money on. This suggests that there may be a pattern in the market. If we can identify such patterns, we may be able to get a piece of the stable’s action.
C. Corrupt Racing is Beneficial to Everyone
What you have to understand is that, when stable connections want to get money on a horse, they want the best odds. Therefore, it is profitable for them to find ways of tricking the market (or normal traders) into going the wrong way.
Often, people criticise the dodgy goings-on in racing. As traders, our job is not to judge the trainers and jockeys. Our job is to reverse engineer their activities in the market and try and get a piece of their action.
We have to accept that this is horse racing. You should kind of expect tricky stuff to go on behind the scenes. In any case, if you look at big respectable-sounding companies, you may struggle to find any that have a current or historical profile that is even close to being squeaky clean.
At least with horse racing, we know where we stand. The gambling world is different from the rest of the world.
In the racing world, you have a lot of people, who are looking for edges. This could include trainers, jockeys, and bookmakers. This is the way it works, and it is the way it has always worked. Of course, the racing authorities probably know that that is how it works as well. Therefore, it may appear that they are turning a blind eye.
So, let’s look at what trainers may get up to.
I’m sure that many viewers know how handicaps work and how trainers beat the handicap system. However, I am going to explain this from a different angle. I am going to explain that the seemingly dodgy goings-on in racing, are a good thing for the industry, and for punters and traders.
That’s right. The dodgy goings-on benefit everyone.
To explain this, I will explain how handicaps work in a dodgy world ie the world that we live in. After that, I will explain how handicaps would work in a perfect world, where all trainers and jockeys are doing the right thing.
You can decide for yourself, whether you would prefer racing to be dodgy or whether you would prefer it to be completely sanitised.
1. How Handicaps Work
So, in handicaps, the horses carry weights, such that in theory, they should all dead heat. After each race, the official handicapper re-asses the horses and adjust their weights according to the ability that the horses have shown.
There are a number of ways in which trainers can get a horse’s weight down in order to set up a gamble in a future race. For example, they can run horses over a distance or going that the horse isn’t suited to. Another method is to undertrain the horse and enter the horse into a race when it is not fit.
As far as I know, these 2 methods are not against the rules. Not trying to win a race is against the rules. This does appear to happen.
2. The “Perfect” Handicap
Imagine a perfect world in which trainers don’t try to beat the handicap system and the handicapper always does a perfect job. How blissful would this world really be for traders and punters?
So, in this perfect world, horses always run over the optimal distance and going. In this world, trainers are so honest that they withdraw their horse if the going changes to an unsuitable going. This is because this may cause their horse to run badly, which would result in the horse’s weight to be reduced by the handicapper. These honest trainers don’t want an unfair advantage in a future race.
In addition, trainers always make sure that their horses are 100% fit when they race. In addition, in this perfect world, the jockeys are honest as well. So, the jockeys are told that they must always try to win their races.
So, here are the odds of a normal race. What would the odds look like in this perfect world. They wouldn’t look like this. They would look more like this.
The reason for this is that, if all horses are carrying weights, such that they will theoretically dead heat, all horses will have an equal chance of winning the race. This might be an extreme example. However, what I am getting at, is that in this perfect world, the horse’s odds will all be efficient from the moment that they are put out and there would be almost no volatility in the market.
Punters wouldn’t be interested if they can’t see a possibility of getting an edge. Traders won’t be interested in an efficient market that hardly moves. I mean, could it get any worse? Well, actually, yes, it could. Horse racing owners won’t be interested in buying horses if they can’t set up a gamble. They don’t just want to gamble themselves. It’s a social thing for many owners. They want to give their friends a hot tip.
Most races are low class races. Owners can’t pay for the training costs from the prize money. Therefore, they need to make a profit from setting up a gamble. They also need to enjoy the gamble. Without these owners, most of racing would die out.
So, I’m saying to all the traders, who complain about the stuff that goes on in the racing industry, be careful about what you wish for. If you try and sanitise gambling, there will be no gambling.
Reading the market involves interpreting what is going on behind the scenes. The trickery and manipulation that goes on behind the scenes, is part of the game. There is a similarity to poker. A poker player isn’t always telling the truth about his hand when he bets. Sometimes, his bet means he has a strong hand; other times, his bet is a bluff.
It’s not as difficult as you imagine to read the market. You just need to have a suspicious mind.
So, let’s move on to trainer betting patterns.
D. Trainer Betting Patterns
If you are trading on horses, I would say that reverse-engineering trainer betting pattens is essential. Many people are aware of the idea of following trainers. However, some people don’t look at form. You can find some patterns without looking at form. However, you can find more patterns and importantly, more reliable patterns, when you do look at form.
The idea of looking for trainer betting patterns is similar to looking for betting patterns in poker. In this example, villain has AK. The flop (which are the 3 cards on the table) has given him a pair of kings. After the flop comes down, there are 3 betting rounds. If a player always plays a hand (such as top pair top kicker) in the same way over the 3 betting rounds, this is known as a “betting pattern”. For example, if he always bets the first round, checks the second round and bets the 3rd round, we would call this a betting pattern.
Poker players remember how their opponents bet their previous hands. Even the players at the table, who have folded their hands and have nothing to do with the hand, are watching for betting patterns.
So, after the hand has played out, the players will know how villain bets AK, when he flops top pair. In the future, when villain bets his hand in the same way, his opponent will suspect that he has top pair.
Of course, the players have to see villain’s hand to reach any firm conclusion. If either player folds at any time during the hand, villain won’t have to show his hand.
Most of the time, poker players do not put their opponents on an exact hand. I mean you can put your opponent on an exact hand occasionally. However, most of the time, poker players put an opponent on range of hands. Therefore, if you get a good read on a player, you will know how he plays each category of hand.
Where am I going with this? Well, we need to categorise horses based on their form and the type of race that they are running in. In the poker example, if you try to read the betting without ever seeing a hand, it would be difficult to get a read on your opponent. This is equivalent to trying to read the betting in trading, without knowing anything about the horse.
Just as a poker player has a different betting line for different categories of hands, a stable may have a different betting line for different categories of horses.
1. Horse Racing
For example, you may have seen a horse’s odds drift all day and then, come crashing down at the 2 minute pre-race mark. If the horse has strong form that is visible to the public, it is difficult for a stable to allow their horse drift heavily before coming in with the money.
If a horse has bad-looking form, or is having its ever first race or has been off the track for a year, it is much easier for trainers to allow the horse to drift before coming in with the money.
In other words, if the form isn’t attractive to punters, the stable can allow the horse to drift in the market before coming in with the money.
This, by the way, is why you get so much volatility in novice stakes and maidens on the flat. Many of these horses are running their first ever race. Others may have run one or 2 races. However, lightly raced horses are open to big improvements because they are just getting used to being at a race track.
The type of form in these races or the lack of form, means that these races are not likely to attract regular punters. It may attract the follow-the-money punters. These punters need to see a market move. Otherwise, they don’t have any money to follow.
2. Interference
You might think that the betting on the other horses will interfere with us identifying a betting pattern in trading. Yes, it can. However, it’s the same with poker. If awkward cards hit the board, villain will be uncomfortable about his top pair. This may lead him to alter his betting pattern. On this board, villain has to worry that hero has a queen. He also has flush and straight draws to worry about. In addition, hero will know that, even if villain has top pair, he will have a lot on his mind. Therefore, hero wouldn’t expect villain to use the same betting line with AK, as he would on a less scary board.
In the same way, I’m not suggesting using a betting pattern in isolation. We have to look at the other horses in the market. This is just to make sure that there is nothing unusual going on. For example, if my betting pattern indicates that I should lay the favourite at 2 mins pre, I wouldn’t enter the trade if the rest of the favourite range seems unusually passive. Conversely, if I was thinking of backing a horse, based on a betting pattern, I wouldn’t enter the trade if the market is unusually active. In this context, when I say, unusually active, I mean unusually and not just the normal backing that you see. For example, there may be a lot of horses are getting backed usually aggressively or there may be a steamer in the market.
On a more positive note, sometimes, you can have a betting pattern read on the first and second favourite. If your read is that they are going in opposite directions, you have a strong trade. You can look for betting patterns on 2nd and 3rd favourites. We can also look at the form of the other horses and predict whether the other horses will get backed.
So, in poker, we identify an opponent’s betting pattern for a particular type of hand. If we see the same betting pattern again, we believe that he has the same hand. In other words, we deduce what our opponent’s hand is.
In trading, we Identify first part of the stable’s betting patten (9 am to 2 mins pre-race). Remember, to break this into betting rounds. Unlike the poker player, who can’t see his opponent’s hand, we can see the trainer’s hand. The race type and horse category is equivalent to the poker player’s hand.
E. Studying Trainer Betting Patterns
All that is left for us to do is trade with the part of the betting pattern (usually just before or after 2 mins pre). By the way, trades don’t have to take place at 2 mins pre-. You can trade on any pattern that you have seen in the past.
So, I will explain what I mean by studying trainer betting patterns.
This is an example from notes that I have made on a trainer. I’ve called him Trainer A. The race type is important because a stable might bet differently in different types of races. This was a maiden. Generally, I prefer handicaps because you have form to go on as well as trainer betting patterns.
However, I was looking at a maiden. In races, with minimal form, such as maidens and novice races, I avoid stables with tricky betting patterns. When there isn’t any form to go on, it is easy to be sent the wrong way by tricky stable connections.
Usually, I just follow trainers, who I see as straightforward, in these types of races. I believe that Trainer A is a straightforward trainer. There aren’t that many of those.
There was no form on the horse. It was its first ever race.
So, next, I followed the betting from the start of the day.
When I look at the betting, I try to interpret each betting round in terms of weakness and strength. I don’t just think that the odds are going up or down.
So, I will show you what I mean on a graph.
Between 9 am – 11 am, the odds stayed at around 3.2. So, not much happened during the BOG round of betting. I will use different colours to separate and draw attention to the different betting rounds over the course of the day.
From 11 am until 30 mins pre, the odds drifted to 3.75. This shows weakness.
Then, between 30 mins – 6 mins pre, the odds came down to 3.3. Now, I’m not necessarily thinking that this is strength because this is the market manipulation prime time round of betting.
Then, the odds quickly went back up to 4.0 between 6 and 5 mins pre. That caught me by surprise because I wanted to enter the trade just before 5 mins pre and I missed out. As I said, I have this trainer down as straightforward and therefore, I trusted that the initial weakness between 9 and 11 am represented weakness.
Then, between 5 min – 2 min pre, the odds stayed at just above 4.0 and didn’t move much.
So, what now? Well, we have weakness between 9 and 11 am. There was a bit of strength followed by weakness during the market manipulation round. Since the odds drifted higher than their previous high (and importantly stayed at the new high), this represents weakness.
I don’t normally lay at the top of the range but I did this time. I wasn’t worried that the odds would come crashing down. I have never seen this trainer do this before. What I was concerned about was that the odds would come down by a small amount. Remember, we are at 2 mins pre and this is the reset round. If the odds have drifted too high, they may come down. Usually, they go back up again but not necessarily as high as they were. This is why laying at the top of the range is often a difficult decision.
Anyway, I waited for about 30 seconds and the odds hadn’t moved down. They moved up by about a tick or 2 and that’s when I entered the trade.
So, why did I make an exception and trade here. Firstly, the horse had shown weakness in the betting throughout the day. Secondly, I gave it 30 seconds within the re-set period for the odds to come down. I felt that this was enough time for the odds to come down, if they were going to do so.
Thirdly, and most importantly, I have other data on this trainer. I don’t have a mass of data. You don’t need a mass of data when you are looking for a pattern. However, in the races that I have looked at, if this trainer’s horses get backed, they have always shown strength earlier in the day. For example, at 5 minutes pre, you might see a graph like the one on the right.
It might not look exactly like this graph.
You might get variations such as this graph. However, I’ve always seen this trainer’s favourites get backed early. Therefore, putting the pieces of information together, I was as convinced as you can be in trading, that the weakness in the betting genuinely did represent weakness.
This is how I analyse trainers. I note down the odds at different time points. After I’ve finished with my trading, I create a graph from those odds. Then, I try to figure out what everything means.
When you analyse trainers, you find that different trainers have different betting patterns. It might seem like a lot of work studying trainers like this. However, the benefits are huge. It’s not just about getting a read on a trainer. For me, by practicing reading a graph slowly, with no pressure, during my off-the-ladder work, my mind became faster at this analysis. Literally, just after a couple of weeks of practice, I could read the betting in real time.
There are a lot of trainers, who I have studied, who I haven’t managed to get a read on. I don’t trade on these trainer’s horses. There are other trainers, who I’ve found a pattern on their third or fourth favourites but not their favourites.
I’m not saying it’s easy. However, there are a few ridiculously easy patterns that I have found on an occasional trainer. I will explain the first pattern that I ever found. In fact, this example led me to consciously look for and study trainer betting patterns.
At the time, I hadn’t figured out how to win at trading.
I was looking at a race and this trainer’s horse had drifted all day. The 5 minute timer started and I decided to lay the horse. I didn’t have any rationale for doing this. In my naivety, at the time, I thought that the horse had drifted all day and therefore, it was likely to carry on drifting. I was just using £2 stakes which is the stake that I use, when I am testing an idea.
As soon as the 5 minute pre-race timer started, the odds of the horse came down. The odds kept coming down for the whole 5 minutes. There were a few pauses, where the odds didn’t move at all. However, there was only one direction that the odds moved in.
So, I looked out for this trainer’s favourites after this. The next time, that I saw that he had a short-priced favourite, a similar pattern occurred. Once the horse started getting backed at 5 mins pre-, the odds only went in one direction.
This was the first idea that I had that I could trade successfully on. However, it didn’t stop there. Obviously, not all of trainer B’s favourites get backed. So, I asked myself the question, “What happens after 2 mins pre-, when his favourite hasn’t been heavily backed between 5 and 2 minutes pre-?”
The answer to that question, is that his horses drift. If they have only drifted, the odds might come in by a few ticks after 2 mins pre-. After that, the odds go back up and the general direction is a drift.
Therefore, once you find a pattern, you can often get 2 patterns for the price of one.
As I said, you won’t find many patterns as easy as this to interpret. I found this pattern a few years ago and it is still working today. You can lose patterns by the way.
3. Betting Patterns can Change
You should be aware that betting patterns can change. This doesn’t occur often. When I have noticed changes in a trainer’s betting pattern, this has always been between racing seasons.
Earlier, I gave the example of trainer A. This is a trainer that I have been studying recently. For the last few years, I had a clear read on this trainer’s betting. However, his pattern changed this flat season. It seems as if he has put a new person or organisation in charge of the betting on his horses.
For the last few seasons, trainer A had a lot of bounce backs. If one of his horses was backed heavily, it would bounce after 2 minutes pre. These bounce backs were proper runaway bounce backs, where you could join in at any time and feel comfortable that the odds wouldn’t reverse.
However, this season trainer A’s bounce backs have completely stopped. His old betting pattern was weak equals weak and strong equals strong, apart from the 2 minute bounce backs. This was easy enough to read. His new betting pattern seems to be weak equals weak and strong equals strong.
Importantly, when trainer A’s favourites had these runaway bounce backs, these horses would still win a lot of races. So, there was no throwing the race or anything dodgy going on.
When you do get a few reads, you are in a stronger position to trade because you have a long term expectation of what will happen.
This is one reason why I don’t see the market as a random machine. There are different betting personalities behind each trainer’s horses.
So, which trainers should you study first? Well, I started with the big trainers. This was because they have a lot of horses and you can accumulate data on them quickly.
Another way is to start with the trainers, who do a lot of late gambles or have a lot of bounce backs. In this case, you are finding the move in the betting that you would like to get involved in and work backwards from there. However, be aware that the stables that do late gambles, are likely to be tricky.
I think the jumps are easier than the flat for finding such patterns, although I’m not sure. By the way, trainer B is a jumps trainer, whereas trainer A is a flat trainer.
I have a few different trading methods. Most of my methods are based on form.
However, I always take the trainer into consideration. This is nothing new. A lot of punters take trainers into account when making their betting decisions. They don’t just follow a trainer blindly. They read the form and pick a horse that they like. Then, they look at the trainer and ask themselves, whether they trust this trainer’s horses.
The form of the favourite is important. Different types of form may result in a different betting pattern from the same stable. Although you may be able to find patterns, without looking at form, you might not see a pattern for a lot of trainers. The key is to only trade those trainers, where you see a pattern.
As I said, punters know this. They know that certain trainers are more reliable than others. In addition, different trainers are more reliable for different punting methods. For example, if you are looking for a well-handicapped longshot to run well, there are trainers, who are good at setting these up. If you are looking for short-priced favourite, who gets to form and wins several races in a row, there are other trainers, who specialise in this area. In addition, when you read the racing tipsters’ comments on a horse and you read between the lines, the comments often indicate that the tipster is basing his tip on the training methods of the trainer.
So, let’s move onto the next topic, which is race selection and categories of horses.
F. Race Selection
In this section and in the next video, I am going to explain how to read form and I will explain how different form variables affect my trading decisions.
In the last video, I said that my first success in trading came during the morning. However, I would lose when I traded the same horses at after 5 minutes pre. There are 2 reasons that I am explaining this. Firstly, I will use the early drifter idea as a model to explain how different form variables affect my trading decisions. So, some form variables will support my trade, while others will work against it. Secondly, I want to explain how you can analyse a method that doesn’t work and turn it into a method that does work.
1. The Early Drifter
So, with the early drifter, I would back favourites, that appeared strong on form before 9 am in the morning. Then, I would close the trades at around 11 am. I broke even on these.
When I lost in the morning, I would see the odds come down sometime between 30 minutes and 2 minutes pre. I would think, “Oh, now, the horse is getting backed. I always knew it was a good horse”. Then, it would drift and I would think, “Why me?”
This is why strong form is important. The kind of form that I am talking about is, where you think that if the horse runs its race, it should win. That’s if, there are no surprising improvements from the other horses in the field. I mean there might be the odd form variable that you are uncertain about. However, there shouldn’t be many and the uncertain variables shouldn’t be that important. I will explain what the important variables are later in the video.
As I explained in Part 2, the theory is that the early drift was because the odds were originally priced too low (ie a level where there was no value). As I said, in Part 2, this makes sense because punters should be backing the horse during the BOG round. Yet, the horse is drifting.
As with any method, this method is dependent on the trainer. There are trainers, whose horses are more prone to drifting during the last 2 minutes than others.
2. The Late Gamble
So, I’m not going to talk about the late gamble, when I explain form. Once you have watched this video and Part 4, you should be able to figure how different form variables affect the late gamble. However, I will explain the important points.
So, the late gamble graph can be similar to the early drifter graph. It starts with an early drift. Next, it might continue drifting or stay at its drifted level. In this graph, I am assuming that it stays at its drifted level. The important difference between the early drifter and the late gamble, is that the horse is at its drifted level at 2 minutes pre.
Then, the odds come down. So, I would win these in the morning – I mean almost every morning. At 2 minutes pre, the odds would still be at the top of their range. As I generally don’t lay at the top of the range, I would miss the trades in which the odds did drift. So, that just leaves the trades, where the odds came down.
So, what was happening was that I was seeing the odds come down and I assumes that they would go back up again. So, I would try and get into the trade at its lowest point. The odds would continue down and I would end up in a “why me” scenario.
What type of horse was I looking for? I was looking for horses, that looked strong. However, when you looked deeper into the form there were questions. When I first started doing this, I was only looking at last time out winners.
In other words, the horse had won its previous race but there would be big question marks about other aspects of its form. So, the positive aspect was that the horse had won its last race. The negatives could be that it hadn’t run well on the going or the distance.
What I want to explain is, that in this video and Part 4, I will be referring to weak last time out winners. However, it’s not just last time out winners that this can apply to. It could also apply to a horse that has the highest speed rating of all the horses. I prefer to use the term “weak last time out winner” instead of questionable form because the idea started with weak last time out winners.
If you have never read form and you don’t know where to find form variables, I will explain everything that you need to know about form in the rest of this video and in the next video.
So, when I use the term “weak last time out winner”, the same principles can also apply to horses with top speed ratings but have not won their last race. Basically, you are looking for one important form variable, that makes the horse stand out, and other variables that are negative.
2. Races to Avoid
One type of race to avoid for the early drifter is a horse that is moving from National Hunt flat racing to hurdles or a horse that is moving from hurdles to fences.
In National Hunt racing, which is also known as jump racing, there are 2 types of obstacles and a type of race, called National Hunt Flat racing. In National Hunt Flat racing (also known as “bumpers”), there are no obstacles. These are essentially flat races. There are 2 types of obstacles over the jumps, namely hurdles and fences. Hurdle races are named “hurdles”, while races over fences are names “chases”.
Many of these horses then progress to hurdles. Some hurdlers progress to becoming chasers.
Sometimes, you see a horse, with good form and good odds. Then, you notice that the horse is moving from one type of racing to another. So, the horse could be moving from bumpers to hurdles or from hurdles to fences.
Sometimes the speed ratings of the horses are so high that you think that if the horse can jump the new obstacles, it will probably win the race. In this case, the early drift is likely to represent uncertainty about the horse’s ability to jump. However, it may not represent weakness. Often, the money will come late for these horses. Therefore, we should exclude these from the early drifter method.
3. Researching Races
Prior to researching a race, I select which races that I might get involved in. I exclude a lot of races before I look at any form.
Firstly, I look for races with a small favourite range.
It is better if the favourite range that includes at least 2 horses. This is because we want at least one horse in the favourite range to bet against the favourite. If there is one favourite and all the other horses are rags (outsiders), this is a disadvantage. This is because no single horse is likely to push the odds of the favourite up. When you only have outsiders betting against the favourite, you need the favourite to be under-priced. In other words, you need people to lay the favourite for its odds to go up.
Secondly, I’m mainly interested in races with short-priced favourites. If there is good form on the favourite, these are the races that punters like. In addition, you get more signals of what is likely to occur when the favourite has a short price.
When you have a short-priced favourite, its odds are likely to be sensitive to other horses getting backed. By contrast, when the odds on all of the horses are 4.0 and above, you can get several horses getting backed at the same time, while other horses drift.
I exclude any races, where the favourite is 3.5 or over.
Thirdly, I exclude any race where the trainer of the favourite has 2 or more horses in the favourite range. In this situation, the trainer knows which one of his horses is best. This gives the stable too big an information advantage over us traders.
You have to remember that stable connections may want to bet on their horse. We need to see these guys as having a similar mentality to bookmakers. They will do anything that they can (that is within the rules) to get their money on at the best odds.
Generally speaking, we want to avoid races, where trading decisions are likely to be complicated.
The types of races for this method are mainly handicaps on both the jumps and the flat. On the jumps, I do also use the method for non-handicaps, such as novice hurdles. On the flat, I use the method in Class 1 races, which are non-handicaps.
The races to avoid completely are all other non-handicaps on the flat including novice races and maidens. When I say avoid these completely, I do mean avoid them completely. These races tend to be all about stable gambles and there is a minimal amount of form for punters to go on. Many of these horses have never seen a race track before and the others have only had one or 2 races. Because only the trainers know the abilities of their horses, it is easier for them to act as if their horse is weak in the betting, when the horse is strong and vice versa.
This early drift doesn’t necessarily reflect weakness in novice stakes and maidens. A trainer of the favourite can just allow his horse to drift because he will know that form-reading punters will not be interested in his horse. The follow the money punters will wait for a market move before betting. Therefore, if the trainer wants to back his horse, he is likely to be first to bet at the best odds.
G. Types of Horses: Unexposed and Exposed Horses
When you listen to racing commentators, you might hear the terms “exposed” and “unexposed” in relation to horses. So, I will explain the difference between unexposed and exposed horses.
I don’t think that there are any standardised definitions of exposed and unexposed horses. Therefore, I will give you my definitions.
1. Unexposed Horses – Definition
We call a horse “unexposed” when we don’t know how good the horse is or when we don’t know the limits of a horse’s ability.
2. Exposed Horses – Definition
A horse is said to be “exposed”, when we know the maximum limit of its ability. Usually, such a horse will have long racing history.
There are 2 types of unexposed horses.
If you don’t know how to read form and you don’t know how to identify unexposed and exposed horses, I will explain this in the section on how to read form.
3. Unexposed – Insufficient Information
One type of unexposed horse is where there is insufficient information for the public to make a judgement on the horse’s ability. Such horses have little or no form. Little form means that the horse has only run a handful of races. No form means that the horse is running its first ever race. In these cases, the horse is said to be unexposed.
We do not want to trade such horses. There are 2 reasons for this. Firstly, punters are not attracted to such horses. Secondly, we have an information disadvantage. Because the public can’t weigh up from the form how good or bad the horse is, it is easier for stable connections and bookmakers to trick the market.
In Part 1, I said that trading is a game of incomplete information. We want to trade in situations, where we have more information rather than less.
4. Unexposed Horses – Big Improvers
Another type of unexposed horse are easy last time out winners. Exposed horses can suddenly improve above their recent performances. In handicap races, horses carry a weight according to their ability. If a horse has been off form for a long time, it will drop down in the weights. If the horse suddenly finds its best form, it will be low in the weights compared to its ability. Although weight will be added back on by the handicapper, it may not be enough weight compared to the horse’s ability. In this situation, the horse is said to be “ahead of the handicapper”.
Therefore, if an exposed horse improves on its recent performances and wins a race easily, we could consider such a horse as unexposed.
This is because, when a horse wins a race easily, it could have more in the tank. Therefore, the winning distance may not reflect the maximum level of the horse’s ability.
This type of unexposed horse’s ability isn’t capped.
This may seem counter intuitive. However, we can lay these horses if they are early drifters. These horses may seem dangerous to lay. The opposite can be true. The public can see that the horse’s form is strong. Therefore, many punters will be betting on it. If such horses are showing weakness in the market, this weakness is believable.
With these horses, you do want to be more sure that the horse is weak. Therefore, you want a bigger early morning drift when considering laying such horses.
I differentiate between horses by categorising them as shown in this Table. With insufficient information, there is no trade. Be aware that you do get insufficient information horses in handicaps. These are often horses, that have run a few novice races and are relatively new to handicaps.
H. Different types of Favourites
We want to look for weakness in the betting on the favourite. However, we need to select the right type of favourites.
Here’s a list of types of horses. The ones in red, we usually want to avoid. The one in yellow, “OK form” is a grey area. The ones in blue are the types of horses that we are interested in.
So, I will quickly go through all of these types of horses so you know the difference.
First, there are unexposed (insufficient information) horses. They tend to be lightly raced or completely new to the race track. They have no or a just a small number of form figures.
I’ve said that I don’t usually trade these for the method that I am explaining. The only exception is high class races. I’m talking about Class 1 races. If you don’t know what I’m on about, I will explain later how to identify the class of a race.
However, when I trade such horses, I want to see, at least one good form figure. There are 2 main reasons for this. Firstly, punters like these races. Secondly, it’s more difficult for trainers to fool around with the market in these races. The horses, in these races usually have big reputations and therefore, it’s harder for a trainer to pretend his horse is weak, when really it’s strong.
Secondly, there is, what looks like bad form. When you look at these, you can’t figure out why the horse is favourite. These are likely to be inside information horses. Some will be well-handicapped on their best form. In this case, the market is saying that the horse is back to form.
Sometimes, you can’t find any reason based on form. They might improve for reasons that are not form-related. Perhaps, they’ve had some kind of operation, such as being gelded or a wind operation, that might improve their performance. There are other things that might change a horse’s performance, such as wearing blinkers for the first time.
In any case, the bad form horse could be an inside information horse and punters will not usually be interested in this type of horse.
So, let’s look at the OK horse. Often, you will see a short-priced favourite that isn’t bad on form. However, it doesn’t look either better or worse than the 2nd or 3rd favourite.
So, you might ask why is this horse put in at 2.1, when the 2nd favourite (whose form looks just as good) is put in at 4.0. Again, this could be inside information creating this situation.
The only time that I trade these is if the horse is trained by a big-named flat trainer. I’m talking about the giant and not just big names here. In this case, the horse could be at short odds just because of the trainer’s name.
Bookmakers know that punters are more likely to back such horses, which means that they might suppress the odds of such horses.
Next are strong form horses. These will be better than the field on almost all form variables. So, we are talking top speed ratings and easy LTOWs. We need to be careful about class horses here. I avoid opposing class horses in general.
Finally, there are your weak LTOWs. These often still appeal to punters because the horse has won its last race. These are a type of horse that look good on the surface but when you dig down deeper, they have a weaknesses. What makes these horses weak? There are a range of form variables that might make a LTOW weak in the betting. This includes factors, such as
- Tough finish in last race
- Wrong going
- Wrong distance
- Poor speed rating
- Too high in weights
- Long time off the track
Or a combination of these factors.
There were 2 trades that were memorable in that they were based on a betting pattern that I had observed on this trainer.
The trainer had 2 horses in 2 separate races. Both were easy last time out winners. However, both were going up in distance. This leaves question marks to the punters and I expected the horse to drift from its opening price. If it wasn’t for the change in distance, I would have expected both horses to be short priced favourites.
Both horses drifted to 3rd favourite, which means that we have a big flip-flop in the betting. I didn’t trade the morning drift, although I should have because I’d seen this pattern with the trainer before.
I had seen 2 types of market behaviour with similar horses from the same trainer before. The first was this. This looks like the same graph as I’ve shown you before. However, it is different because the 2 minute mark is here. In other words, if his horse stabilises after drifting, the odds come down fast during the 2 minute re-set.
When you see a pattern, you should always ask yourself, what happens when the pattern breaks earlier. I had seen a pattern break before. Both horses showed this pattern.
Instead of the odds staying at their drifted level after the morning betting session, the odds came down. This wasn’t during manipulation prime time. They start to come down earlier than that. So, this is nothing to do with the graph that I have shown before. When I had seen this before, the horse’s odds had drifted after the 2 minute re-set.
So, I layed both just before the 2 minute re-set and won both trades.
I’ve seen patterns that don’t involve form. However, these aren’t enough of these. When you connect form to the betting pattern, this opens up a load of research opportunities.
Importantly, when you find a pattern, this is your own trading strategy. It’s not a strategy that someone else has told you to do.
Not only that. You don’t feel scared of losing your edge any longer because there are always opportunities to research and find new patterns. You don’t need statistics for this. Once I’ve see a pattern a couple of times, I am ready to trade.
Here’s a tip. If you are researching betting patterns, follow the big trainers. This isn’t just because they have a lot of horses. I find the smaller stables a lot more tricky compared to the big stables.
Hopefully, I’ve convinced you now about the value of reading form for trading. So, let’s look at how to read and use form.
There are 2 types of horses. There are horses that are likely to be backed by regular form-reading punters. Then, there are horses, that are only likely to be backed by in-the-know money. These in-the-know horses are generally characterised by having little or no form or they have been off the racetrack for a very long time. In these cases, the public can’t assess how good or bad the horse is.