Leading into yesterday, I was 100% at Ayr with 7 of 9 selections being unplaced.
The first play of the day was Dutch Heritage who broke that streak and was my only 'weak fave' to win on Monday.
As I watched the race unfold, I was impressed with Tony Hamilton's moves leading up to his dash to the finish. He had won the previous race on Majestic Moon and his confidence showed 30 minutes later as he tracked the field and swung out to the middle catching the leaders and in-running traders by surprise.
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Win or lose, I always relook at my selections afterwards. If I bet on a football match and the 4/5 home selection won with an 85th minute goal, though winnings went into my account I don't consider it a 'solid' selection.
With football, I expect a selection to win by 2 goals with at least one goal coming in the first half. If my selection failed to score in the first half but finished 3-0 up with all the goals scored in the last 15 minutes, I look at why they were held for the first 75 minutes and bear this in mind rather than going by the result in the paper.
With horses, I expect a 'weak fave' to finish around 4 lengths per mile behind the eventual winner, 5 if the going is on the softer side of good. Anything inside that, I need to look at and compare it with other races on the day to determine how good I am at reading the track.
I also look at selections I passed on to see if they won or ran close to the winner.
So with Dutch Heritage winning by 3/4 of a length and Yours Ever losing the next by only 1/2 a length, it means taking a moment to look closer at my reads at Ayr to gauge how strong my selections have been at the track in order to maintain a strong strike rate. It's a matter of determining which factors should be given more weight when trying to identify 'weak faves' .
The same with Lingfield: Both horses inside 2 lengths over distances of 10 and 12 furlongs.
But as previous results had shown me, Yarmouth is one of my stronger tracks, thus why there were three on the day:
Wordsaplenty: 3 3/4 Lengths over 6 furlongs
Soap Wars: 7 L over 6 F
Flynn's Boy: 2 1/4 + over 7F *but the first 5 finished within 4 lengths.
It's a matter of keeping "success" in perspective and finding your stronger tracks to play and focusing your time accordingly.
WEAK FAVES FOR 31-JULY
Selections based on the quality of the fields in their previous races
AYR
2:15 Decision By One
2:45 Sandy's Row
3:20 Tajneed
Beverley
2:55 Emperors Waltz
Goodwood
2:35 Michelangelo
4:50 Jacob's Cat
RESULTS: 4 for 6 on the day. Both horses that won their races were at Ayr. The one selection at Beverley was correct on a day where 3 of 7 faves won at the track. I was pleased with the 2 for 2 at Goodwood, both horses not in the mix.
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SHAPESHIFTER'S WORLD
Comments: 4
trades: no, I don't keep records
bets and positions: yes, dating back years, I keep records. Some quite detailed so that I can look at my performance from different angles.
This approach to identifying/flagging up 'weak faves' - I was doing "part time" on All Weather but full-time since April.
These results aren't posted anywhere. For July 'weak faves', you can find all 109 on
horseracing>Anybody fancy a lay-a-day
Cheers
If laying, I used to "lay to risk" an amount. But I tend not to do that anymore. I try, instead, to be more selective and then make a play to make "X" then approach the play from different angles to reduce the risk.
I'll try to give more insight on this on the blog.
For now, and talking about simply laying one horse, an approach that averages down the risk is to split the stake between win and place market.
An example from this month for me:
18-July / Catterick
Red Tyke went to 6.0.
To show the math simply, if I was to lay for £10, this would mean risking £50
But in the place market, it was 2.0
So putting £5 against the win and £5 against the place reduced the risk to £30.00 (£25 win / £5 Place).
Like splitting the stake between 1X2 and Asian markets, you end up with three scenarios (excluding commission):
HORSE WINS: -£30
HORSE PLACES: 0.00
HORSE UNPLACED: £10
Red Tyke won that day.
And, a footnote to that day:
If I had just played the win market, I would have been down just over 2 pts. If I split evenly on all 5 races, I would have been down -.75 points
It comes down to your strike rate and sometimes won't work in every scenario. A good starting point is how your bets did at certain tracks and/or certain number of runners.
You may find that every time you lay at 5/1 or 6/1 in 12 to 15 runners, you have a decent read and 80% of your selections are unplaced, 10% place and 10% win.
I find it helps not to be rigid in your approach to staking.
As mentioned, I'll try to give more views on this on the blog.
Best of luck with your plays.