Last Updated on 29 December 2022
Priced him right (he started $11 and Betfair starting price of $12:90) but stupidly left him off the plan.
From a learning perspective the important part was the “went forward and tapered in the Wangoom after a sound closing first up 3rd” as it directly relates to one of the great Marc Lambourne “pearls” from the old punters show that I’ve always paid great respect to since hearing it.
Going forward for the first time in prep is often the “come on” run and certainly was here.
Using Vince’s IVR platform when he ran on for 3rd at Caulfield he was going -4.8 lengths below benchmark at the 800, while at the Bool he was going -0.3 so effectively 5 lengths faster over the first 400 metres, and in his case it brought him right to his top.
Oh and Lindsay Smith is a classic “camp on fire” to “swim with the tide”
Random racing stat
Lindsay Smith Victorian stable $12 & under:
19/01 to 26/02 twelve wins from 36 runners
33% v 31.2% market expectations27/02 to 18/04 one win from 28 runners
4% v 29.3% market19/04 to 28/05 nine wins from 28 runners
32% v 22% market— ralph horowitz (@rtralphy) May 28, 2020
BetFair – Gambling Responsibly Includes Giving Yourself The Best Chance To Win.
I’ll start this point by stating I am completely independent – many racing sites are funded by clickbait revenue from corporate bookies who rebate a percentage of their customer’s losses on-going – but honestly, if you don’t have a Betfair account and at least look at prices available pre-race, you are doing yourself a disservice, and particularly if you are a smaller – $20 to $100 – punter who likes speaking a few in the market.
I personally think their marketing is flawed as I continue to speak to many punters who just find it too confusing, on top of the significant “noise” that is based around the controversy of laying horses – again recently in the news (article click here) – but as I recently bantered with one of my loyal regulars, it’s simply an exchange where they “clip the ticket” of each bet.
The discrepancy is often large from the official starting prices and totes with some recent examples of runners I found:
SP Best tote Betfair
Flemington 16/05
Prezado $7 $7:20 $8:80
Super Titus $16 $16:50 $24:70
Iconoclasm $5:50 $5:80 $6:40
Caulfield 30/05
Ruban Bleu $5:50 $5:40 $6:80
All Too Huiyang $15:00 $14:20 $20:80
Heptagon $8:00 $10:20 $11:70
Mahamedeis $4:80 $4:70 $5:50
And I – regretfully – didn’t find but it’s really worth highlighting
Flemington 23/05
Savaheat $51 $58.20 $82:30
It’s hard enough to find a winner in this caper.
When you do if you aren’t getting the best price for yourself, guess who you are dudding???
Speaking of Savaheat…
How could you find an $82:00 winner in Savaheat???
Here’s a “Harry Hindsight” way:
WITH THE PAKENHAM SYNTHETIC ASSUME IT JUST NEVER HAPPENED!
In simple terms be wary of wins there and equally be prepared to forgive a bad run.
Savaheat did nothing there first up hence the monster odds, but as I wrote of him before he won at Flemington:
Savaheat Michael Dee • Mick Price & Michael(17)59kg
Loves soft ground winning first up at Moe on their Cup Day last prep with the 4th best last 200 of the day, before coming to the track/distance and backing it up with an excellent win Oaks Day. Was terrible first up on the Pakenham synthetic so could improve off that, but obviously needs to considerably in one run and looks to struggle to get the right run from the alley.
So if he was first up there he would have been shorter due to his first-up mile win on wet ground at Moe and a track/distance soft ground win Oaks day. Because he didn’t fire on the Pakenham Synthetic – where form goes to die – the market gapped him. Well done if you kept him onside.
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And also with Savaheat…
I wrote “struggle to get the right run from the alley” which of course by the time rain hit the wide draw became an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
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A Ruban win over the robots
We can never definitively say how a market moves – like the old cliche in mysterious ways! – but pretty confident a factor for the “gift” price on Saturday was the poor stats of Lachie King.
Leading in his previous two months he’d had 73 rides for zero wins.
Of those 18 were single figure odds.
Yuck!
However! He rode Ruban Bleu the week before and won twice on him last prep at Flemington and Pakenham.
The risk/reward decision was could you “trust” him to ride his well on a horse he knows very well and clearly clicks with?
You could!
“Racetrack” Ralphy Horowitz provides independent form analysis via racetrackralphy.com.au. He uses Vince Accardi’s dailysectionals.com.au IVR benchmarking service and together they do the Year Round Carnival podcast review of the weekend’s main races every Monday”
