VALUE?

If no one is offering it, you can still ask for it. You may not get it, but sometimes you will. The hard part is deciding what the real odds should be and getting that right, then getting matched at the price you ask for. Coupled with a sensible head, anyone capable of the above cannot fail but to make money regardless of outcomes of events.

Punters who've studied prices and methods of evaluating for a long time :)

8     silks     73P511     Mangonel (ex7) 3 Distance winner     7     10-4 v     Jim Best     C Bolger

Was 8/13 fav in pretty competitive race ....on going that probably would not suit ....at this point in season......+ 7 llbs extra.......

You just "know" the odds were wrong....and either lay it or back ones more likely to WIN......if odds are "value".

Was one of the hyped horses for bookies today........

Of course you don't over stake the race.....but you should attack a race where odds for fav are just "wrong".

So when you say "nobody knows when one particular price is right or wrong"....is garbage FAFH. With HORSE RACING it happens every day.

Watch the hubris DFC.
It might just bite you in the bum.

hubristic even

YUP.......

GULP.
I think then I should shake off my torpor and start to learn a few things about the geegees.
Any advice on how and where I should start this mammoth task in front of me ?

Probably takes years...decades......FAFH.......so unless you are prepared do do the time.........perhaps you should stick to what you are "good" at......

The trainer is a very "good trainer of above fav ....but he does particularly well in SELLING/CLAIMER type races......

Today the race was a H/C race .....and horse had won 2 races recently ....but going today was not the same.......etc etc

I must admit....I never checked the trainer's % strike-rate in H/Cs today......which is very very good.......but not as good as the other type of races.

However, it was the horse that had to try to win today.......and not the trainer running.....and the odds were ridiculously low....just looking at the shape of race.

If you do start studying HORSE RACES ....start at "simple" race types.....where horses are same age.

You then can move onto mixed age race types......but then it becomes harder, due to number of factors you need to be aware of .


Your post above is generally a fair way to look at it....

FINE AS FROG HAIR 24 Nov 11 23:14 
Oh ok if it's only an occasional glitch in the prices, then maybe I won't bother after all.
Not enough hours in the day to do racing and other sports, properly and thoroughly at least methinks.
=========================================================================

Though , as I said above, there are "VALUE" bets in most races.........but for most people there are better ways of passing the time.

GL with "other" sports FAFH.......though LUCK is generally irrelevant where you have an edge or three.

Determining how much to bet if you have ascertained value.

In this experiment, after deciding a horse's chance of winning to the closest 5% (down), we wish to have a bank that will grow with each bet by at least 0.11%. Any bet that you would get on at above the dividend required column would be an overlay increasing the growth potential.

Eg. We give a horse 33% chance of winning, we round that figure down to 30%, we look at our dividend required column next to the 30% which tells us that the div. required to make at least 0.11% growth is 3.49 or better and the amount we bet on it would be 2.9% of our bank.

If we accepted dividends lower than required, once commission is deducted we would be on a losing spiral. The bet % of bank is calculated to get the growth of 0.11%.

Some say it is not possible to determine the likely winning chance a horse has in an event. I say it is. You will not get all your chances correct some will have less chance than you perceive while others will have more chance. As long as the average holds you're good to go.

Chance of winning	Dividend required	Expected growth per bet	% of bank to bet.
50	2.10	0.11%	4.5%
45	2.35	0.12%	4.2%
40	2.65	0.11%	3.6%
35	3.05	0.11%	3.2%
30	3.59	0.11%	2.9%
25	4.34	0.12%	2.5%
20	5.50	0.11%	2.2%
15	7.48	0.11%	1.8%
10	11.52	0.11%	1.4%
5	23.75	0.11%	1.0%

I agree tomdeane,

I only use half a dozen factors to determine horses chances.

The important part is determining the variables applied to those half dozen (how much in penalties or bonus's to arrive at a  rating, which can then be converted to chances of winning)

theonlywayforward

What makes punters arrive at different values is why prices change so much.

In my case Jockeys and Trainers have no bearing at all. I prefer that a horses past performances is the greatest
indicator of it's future performances.

Compound Magic     25 Nov 11 06:00 
In my case Jockeys and Trainers have no bearing at all. I prefer that a horses past performances is the greatest
indicator of it's future performances.
The trainer brings the horse to the meet that he previously entered 6 days prior.He would have had to book a jockey to ride same. If you think he wants to win the event what would a reasonable thing for the trainer to do..If you believe that trainers just run around the country for fun well then there are alot of people wasting alot of diesel.Ha.

Laying the 1 Ipswich.
No jk tr combo

Because weight carried is such an important factor, when a horse has an apprentice up, the horse depending on the jockey allowance
is usually more than compensated by carrying less weight which is factored into my ratings (weight)

Who knows the best way, there are so many ways of rating horses. Stick to what you know if it works for you.

If it is not working for you, more homework, listen, read what others are doing that claim to be successful.

Test their hypotheses before committing. Keep at it and you will eventually find an edge.

Cheers, Party on!

TAB    Form    HORSE    Est
3    61x1x      Lambert    46.5J/T:0-2-4 0%-50%
2    64711     Hidden Shuffle    42
6    x5521      Before The Storm    40.5
1    3103x      Big Tony    37
4    11210     Noname    35
12    81x35      Jamais Contente

Now work it out from there and include

Anybody know why this thread's posts are not wrapping around the screen? or is it just me?

Anybody know how to fix it?

tar

There is no 'right' answer to what factors to focus on.    All successful horse racing punters will have their pet factors that they're able to comfortably spot and assess in a race. Some will be very strong on determining trainer intent. Some will be able to identify pace scenarios. Some will be better at assessing current form and consistency and comparing it to that of the other horses in the race. Some will be good at scrutinising past races and seeing where a horse is overpriced or underpriced due to a sequence of recent races that it was particularly well or badly suited to.

The point is that we need to be able to determine which factors we're particularly good at picking out. We look for races where we know one of the horses has a particular advantage or disadvantage due to our favoured factor/factors, and where we know that advantage or disadvantage is likely to be very significant. If we then think the horse is underpriced or overpriced, we play the bet accordingly. If we restrict ourselves to betting only on those races, we should be able to make money.

By the way, there's nothing mystical about our pet factors. We'll usually be good at picking them out because we've got lots of experience of 'seeing' that factor.  In the case of Theonlywayforward, long experience of hearing how his father thought as a trainer, and how he himself thought as a jockey, has probably given him many invaluable insights.  For the majority of us, though, technical analysis is likely to be our route to success. 

The best way to get up to speed is to pick out one angle, and then go through hundreds of past performances looking for races where that angle was particularly prominent in at least one of the horses. When we've done enough research, we should be able to establish some ground rules. We'll have an idea of what it is precisely that we're looking for, and we can then develop quick ways to measure those factors and place values on them. We then determine what range of values would count as 'significant'.     

After this the hard work will really begin. Now we've got to start picking out that angle in live races, and at this point we'll almost certainly be hit by a number of subtleties that weren't obvious from looking at past performances. There're a bunch of angles I use regularly. In most cases I spent several days obsessively looking to see how they affected the running of races. I then spent a week or so coming up with ways of measuring them. After that it often took me another six months to a year to work out how exactly to use them effectively in realworld betting. (And even now I'm continuing to refine my knowledge on angles I first started looking at two or three years ago.) 

The key is research research research. Most punters look for a particular factor in a handful of races and then give up as soon as it doesn't bring them instant profits. In fact, the majority of factors have a huge amount of hidden depth to them, so you'll need to persevere if you want to get your knowledge to the point where you might be able to use those factors properly.