Fintron's AW thread - backing to place

[fintron]

Those of you that venture onto the systems area of this site may have noticed a thread I started many months ago in which I detailed a method of picking horses on the all-weather. Basically, every selection was a previous course and distance winner, with the CD win coming recently to ensure that the horse still retained some winning ability. After trialing this system for a month with win only selections I ended up giving up on the system as it was showing a loss to level stakes. The main pattern in the winners I noticed at the time was that every horse sent off at odds on went on to win, but the total number of such horses picked out was small – a mere 5 out of 60 over the course of the month. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Since that time I went onto using different methods to pick out my horses and I started my own thread in here, however, I showed far more of a loss than a profit. Looking back on what went wrong I think the reasons for that were twofold. I staked disproportionately high stakes on selections which I thought were bankers, which, to my surprise, ended up losing. Secondly, in an attempt to reduce losses I continued to bet win only, even though many of my horses were making the places but just not managing to get their noses infront. As a consequence I have decided to start a new thread here, which plays more to my personal strengths - backing to place rather than to win.

The refinements to my original system came after I studied a months worth of selections (60 in total) over the four AW courses open in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />UK at the time – Lingfield, Kempton, Southwell and Wolverhampton. I want to openly trial my refined system here over time to test whether the same patterns continue in the results.

Also, I would also like to point out that if anyone is looking for a thread to follow to earn them bucket loads of money then this is not the thread for you. My results over the trial month indicate that large amounts of profit will not be made using this system. However, the reason I am still interested in it is because it appears to successfully cover any losing bets and produced a slight profit with a large volume of bets placed over a short period of time. I don’t bet on the horses for profit. I don’t have the sums of money to win worthwhile (enough to live off etc) amounts even if I could manage to consistently find winners. The reason I enjoy betting on the horses is for the excitement, so if I can manage to make my betting self-sustaining such that it does not financially interfere with my other commitments, and maintain a decent level of interest in racing daily, then I will be happy.

When I originally collected the data when I first started this system I only recorded the SP prices of each selection. Since then I have gone back and now jotted down the Tote place payouts for each of the successfully placed horses and then worked out the profit of backing every horse to place at level stakes. In races where no place betting was available, i.e. 4 runners or less etc, then I have calculated using the Tote win payout. For the small number of horses that were odds on (SP) I also used the Tote win payout for these too. The reason for this was because the Tote place payout on odds on selections was sometimes as short as 1.02 and I don’t think it is sensible to risk staking 1 pt to win only a fiftieth of it back as profit.

Thus, the method of making the selections is now to look for a race in which there is only one CD winner that has its CD win in its last three runs. If more than one horse meets that criteria then the race is ignored. All horses are then backed to place, unless they are running in a race where no place betting is available or if they are odds on, in which case they are backed to win.

As I said above, I am still openly trialing this system here and I do not know which will be more profitable, backing horses to place on Betfair or backing them through Tote. For the next couple of weeks I am going to run two profit and loss columns, one for bets placed through Betfair and one for bets placed through the Tote. Whichever shows the most profit will then be chosen for future P/L calculations.

During my trial run a total of 60 horses were identified. A total of 32 were placed (SR: 53 %) on which 18 were winners (SR: 30 %). By backing each of those selections to 1 pt level stakes a total of 60 points were staked, with 60.6 pts returned, generating a small, overall, profit of 0.6 pts. However, I am hoping that by backing horses on Betfair rather that through Tote I may be able to increase this profit margin.

For the purposes of this new thread I am wiping the slate cleaning and starting with 0 pts.

[fintron]

Re: Fintron's AW thread - backing to place No AW meetings for today, so the first selection will be from Great Leighs tomorrow night. Selection 1 6.10 Great Leighs - Loose Caboose - CD winner two runs ago at this level, beating joint favourite We Have a Dream by a neck. Has been in good form in general over the past couple of months and if a recent turf run at Thirsk can be ignored then her form on the AW reads 2112 between March-May. Seems effective over either 5f or 6f, and although her rating has increased 3 lb since last run here she was beaten by only a neck off her current mark of 75 LTO at Lingfield. The jockey booking of Seb Sanders is also a plus. Selection 2 6.40 Great Leighs - Basra - recruited from Ireland and landed first win for current trainer over CD here LTO a couple of weeks ago when was backed in from 9/1 to 13/2. Dropped in class here so although up 5 lb in the handicap, may cope with that increase to make the frame again. Selection 3 7.10 - Great Leighs - Mumbleswerve - landed a maiden stakes race LTO when ran on well to lead inside the final furlong. Up in class here and up against Swop, who won well on his debut for Luca Cumani, however, only interested in it making the places and it will hopefully run well for JP Guillambert again.