Anybody that followed our Friday Nick Hardman columns in 2014 will have made plenty of profit from the selections posted.
2015 has already got off to a great start and today Nick has selections at Huntingdon and Doncaster and selections for tomorrows Lanzarote…
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We had a great start to 2015 with 3 winners from our 5 AW selections in addition to L’Ami Serge winning comfortably and Triolo D’Alene grabbing some place money @16/1 under a brilliant ride by Barry Geraghty on Saturday.
This week we turn our attention to the Friday cards at Huntingdon and Doncaster and we have a couple of selections for the Lanzarote Hurdle at Kempton on Saturday.
Nicky Henderson has a 44% strike rate at Huntingdon in the last 2 years. In that time he has sent out 15 winners from 34 runners. 9 of those winners were in hurdles races and he is 3-4 in maiden hurdles at the course.
Today he has a couple of qualifiers who are pretty much unknown quantities.
Huntingdon 1.20pm Maestro Royale
Huntingdon 2.30pm Hel Tara
Nicky Henderson also does well at Doncaster with his hurdlers. In the last two years his hurdlers at the course are 15-37 (41% strike rate) and show a level stakes profit of £37.46.
His handicap hurdlers have a lower strike rate (31%) but tend to pop up at decent prices with his last 4 handicap hurdle winners at the course returning industry SPs of 16/1, 15/2, 8/1 and 8/1. He has a trio of hurdle runners today.
Doncaster 12.30pm Saint Charles (Maiden hurdle)
Doncaster 1.35pm Nicolas Chauvin (Novice hurdle)
Doncaster 3.15pm Earth Amber (Handicap hurdle)
The Lanzarote Hurdle is one of the feature races on Saturday and I like the look of Dawalan and Hello George who are both backable each-way at 8/1.
Dawalan represents the Henderson/ Geraghty combination.
Back in November he got to within half a length of Sign Of A Victory over 2 miles and the latter is now rated 149 over hurdles having been last seen in the Grade 1 Christmas Hurdle at Kempton.
Dawalan also had the re-opposing Kilcooley 16 lengths behind that day and that horse has gone on and franked that form (2nd to L’Ami Serge and 23 length winner at Haydock on his next two starts).
What is more significant though in the context of the Lanzarote hurdle is Dawalan’s battling victory at Ascot over 2m 4f on his last start.
That day he was outpaced and 5 lengths down three from home, but rallied gamely to get up close home to beat stable mate and 145 rated Bear’s Affair.
The extra furlong should suit and he gets a whole stone from Kilcooley who heads the weights.
Hello George ran a good race in the Ladbroke Hurdle, not beaten that far in 6th. He probably needs more of a test than the 2 miles he faced that day and he certainly gets it here.
He was tapped for toe in the Ladbroke but stayed on nicely to suggest the step up in trip may well suit.
He gets in off a light weight of 10st and that should see him competitive if he sees out the trip.
Saturday January 10th
Kempton 2.40 pm Dawalan 8/1 and Hello George 8/1 (1pt e/w ¼ odds, 4 places)
It’s Not All About The Money
Today we have a guest post from Darren Power of Betting Insiders…
All About The Money
I've got an idea that may be controversial or it may be a breakthrough that will help you cope with losing spells with your betting.
As I see it, the biggest problem that we have with making money from betting is coping with losing spells.
And knowing whether the bets you are making are good bets even if you aren't winning.
What I want to suggest is that you don't look to your profit and loss line to decide whether you are doing well.
But instead look at whether you are beating the market and judge your success that way.
I'm sure you have read more than once the assertion that the Betfair market is a true representation of the chances of the horses in a race.
And that the closer to the off we are, the more accurate those prices reflect the chances.
This is the Efficient Market Hypothesis.
So it follows that Betfair SP must reflect the true chance of each horse in a race.
Of course there will always be exceptions to this like the Barney Curley gambles last month.
And I guess scientists would call these outliers, but we need to deal with the mainstream. not these outliers.
So, if we take it as fact that the Betfair SP is the most accurate representation of the horses chance of winning. Then it follows that if you regularly beat Betfair SP then you will profit over the long term.
To beat Betfair SP you will need to bet earlier in the day. So what I'm proposing is mainly aimed at people who bet at bookies early prices.
What I'm suggesting is that if your bets fit the early price criteria that you measure by how much you've beaten Betfair SP and judge your performance on that achievement rather than on what is in bank account.
So let's look at an example to see how we might calculate this.
Lets say that we make a bet in the morning at 10/1 (11.0) and that the horse in question returns a Betfair SP of 7.6 then we have beaten the market and win a lose we made a good bet.
To calculate the advantage we want to know the difference between the implied probability of the price taken and the Betfair SP.
To get the implied probability just divide the price into 100.
So 10/1 = 11.0 which is a probability of 100/11 = 9.09%
7.6 is a probability of 100/7.6 = 13.15%
So our advantage is 13.15 – 9.09 = 4.06%
The chart below shows the profit compared to the price advantage from the Value Backing tipping service over the last 8 weeks.
The reason I looked at Value Backing is because it is a big price targeting service, which means long losing runs, which in turn means any snapshot of results will likely show it to be either very poor or very good depending on whether there have been recent winners.
What you can see from the chart is that the advantage over Betfair SP (blue line) has been pretty consistent, averaging an advantage of just over 1% per bet.
The green line shows the profit over the same period which heads in the same direction and ends up at 23.5 points profit at 1 point level stakes.
This example turned out to be a straightforward comparision, my next step is to try the same analysis on a more volatile set of results.
If you have comments on any of this please leave them below and I'll check back to answer them.
Darren Power
Betting Insiders
Today's Selection courtesy of Mathematician Betting
Wolverhampton 4.40 Ocean Legend – win bet – 9/4 Bet Victor
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