Un-Claimed Gold
Hello dear reader, and welcome to another Tuesday in my little ethereal punting paradise. First up, a quick bit of admin.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!
Right, now I've got that off my chest (I don't talk to my mum, and I haven't sent her a card, but she can't say I wasn't thinking of her!), on with the show...
As promised yesterday, I plan to bring you a few snippets from Alan Potts' brilliant and seminal punting text, "The Inside Track".
Although the book was written in 1997, much of its content is as relevant today as it was a decade ago.
Today, I want to look at claiming races and, particularly, some common sense that we should apply to our betting in such races.
Potts begins by making the point that claimers are the staple of American racing. A majority of races Stateside provide the opportunity for the winner to be 'claimed' (i.e. bought for his advertised price) by anyone with the cash available.
Just to complete the understanding for people who may not appreciate what a claiming race is, each horse is allocated weight according to the value that it is in to be claimed (i.e. bought) for.
So, for instance, a race may have the following criteria:
Weights: colts and geldings 9st 5lb; fillies and mares 9st.
Allowances: For each £500 below the maximum advertised claiming price, -1lb
This would mean that if the maximum price was, say, £10,000, and Colt A was advertised at £6,000, he would have 8st 11lb to carry (i.e. 8lbs (for 8 x £500 below the advertised maximum) less than the 9st 5lb).
Filly B who was in for £8,000 would carry 8st 10lb (i.e. 4lbs (for 4 x £500 below the advertised maximum) less than the 9st).
I hope that made a modicum of sense...
Anyway, when you start to think about races in terms of the conditions for horses to run in them, you get more of an indication of the trainers' rationale and should be better placed to strike a wager.
It follows that if a horse is in for £2,000, although it has less weight, the connections clearly don't think much of it to let it go for such a (relatively) measly price. Conversely, if a horse with apparently no form is in for £10,000 (or whatever the maximum is), it may be that the horse is considered a good deal better than it has recently shown.
The point to all of this is that the owners and trainers are acting like the handicappers in the race, by allocating what they consider to be the right balance between horse value and chance of winning.
Potts states, "The assumption... is that weight can bring together horses worth £2,000 with those worth £10,000.
"That is a false assumption, and punters can benefit by concentrating on the higher priced, and therefore higher weighted, horses, in claiming races."
Potts suggests the following three rules to help you with finding claiming winners.
1) Concentrate on horses within £5,000 of the maximum advertised claiming value
2) Give preference to previous form in claiming races over maiden or handicap form
3) Be wary of apparently higher class handicap horses dropping into a claimer - they probably have a problem, which is why connections are trying to get rid...
I messed around with this information in Racing Systems Builder, to test the theory about weight in claimers. The results were in line with Potts' observations, and I derived a lucrative little system as follows:
Claiming Races
2nd Favourite
4yo+
Carrying 9st+
Finished 1st or 2nd in at least one of last six starts
Beaten 6 lengths+ last time
YEAR WINS RUNS STRIKE% LSP LSP% VSP%
2002 8 26 30.77 22.00 84.62 46.72
2003 10 33 30.30 14.25 43.18 34.03
2004 14 36 38.89 22.26 61.83 60.37
2005 10 24 41.67 18.00 75.00 71.70
2006 12 25 48.00 27.91 111.64 112.29
_____________________________________
54 144 37.50 104.42 72.51 63.17
As you can see, although there aren't too many qualifiers (there aren't that many claiming races!), a strike rate of 3 out of 8 and a level stakes profit of £2,088.40 for £20 stakes, makes this worth tracking.
Incidentally, 2 and 3 year olds performed much less well against these criteria. I suspect this is due to their relative lack of exposure.
Racing today is more a literal damp squib than a metaphorical one, with only two meetings surviving the monsoons.
Brighton is a good place to lay favourites, and I'm trying to get Shaheer beaten in - funnily enough - the claiming race there.
I don't really fancy much, so it'll be a day of focusing on other work stuff. :(
Just before I close, another quick plug for Trainer Flat Stats whose sole runner yesterday was a winner, albeit at the skinny price of 10/11. More info is available here.
Ciao pronto
Matt
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!
Right, now I've got that off my chest (I don't talk to my mum, and I haven't sent her a card, but she can't say I wasn't thinking of her!), on with the show...
As promised yesterday, I plan to bring you a few snippets from Alan Potts' brilliant and seminal punting text, "The Inside Track".
Although the book was written in 1997, much of its content is as relevant today as it was a decade ago.
Today, I want to look at claiming races and, particularly, some common sense that we should apply to our betting in such races.
Potts begins by making the point that claimers are the staple of American racing. A majority of races Stateside provide the opportunity for the winner to be 'claimed' (i.e. bought for his advertised price) by anyone with the cash available.
Just to complete the understanding for people who may not appreciate what a claiming race is, each horse is allocated weight according to the value that it is in to be claimed (i.e. bought) for.
So, for instance, a race may have the following criteria:
Weights: colts and geldings 9st 5lb; fillies and mares 9st.
Allowances: For each £500 below the maximum advertised claiming price, -1lb
This would mean that if the maximum price was, say, £10,000, and Colt A was advertised at £6,000, he would have 8st 11lb to carry (i.e. 8lbs (for 8 x £500 below the advertised maximum) less than the 9st 5lb).
Filly B who was in for £8,000 would carry 8st 10lb (i.e. 4lbs (for 4 x £500 below the advertised maximum) less than the 9st).
I hope that made a modicum of sense...
Anyway, when you start to think about races in terms of the conditions for horses to run in them, you get more of an indication of the trainers' rationale and should be better placed to strike a wager.
It follows that if a horse is in for £2,000, although it has less weight, the connections clearly don't think much of it to let it go for such a (relatively) measly price. Conversely, if a horse with apparently no form is in for £10,000 (or whatever the maximum is), it may be that the horse is considered a good deal better than it has recently shown.
The point to all of this is that the owners and trainers are acting like the handicappers in the race, by allocating what they consider to be the right balance between horse value and chance of winning.
Potts states, "The assumption... is that weight can bring together horses worth £2,000 with those worth £10,000.
"That is a false assumption, and punters can benefit by concentrating on the higher priced, and therefore higher weighted, horses, in claiming races."
Potts suggests the following three rules to help you with finding claiming winners.
1) Concentrate on horses within £5,000 of the maximum advertised claiming value
2) Give preference to previous form in claiming races over maiden or handicap form
3) Be wary of apparently higher class handicap horses dropping into a claimer - they probably have a problem, which is why connections are trying to get rid...
I messed around with this information in Racing Systems Builder, to test the theory about weight in claimers. The results were in line with Potts' observations, and I derived a lucrative little system as follows:
Claiming Races
2nd Favourite
4yo+
Carrying 9st+
Finished 1st or 2nd in at least one of last six starts
Beaten 6 lengths+ last time
YEAR WINS RUNS STRIKE% LSP LSP% VSP%
2002 8 26 30.77 22.00 84.62 46.72
2003 10 33 30.30 14.25 43.18 34.03
2004 14 36 38.89 22.26 61.83 60.37
2005 10 24 41.67 18.00 75.00 71.70
2006 12 25 48.00 27.91 111.64 112.29
_____________________________________
54 144 37.50 104.42 72.51 63.17
As you can see, although there aren't too many qualifiers (there aren't that many claiming races!), a strike rate of 3 out of 8 and a level stakes profit of £2,088.40 for £20 stakes, makes this worth tracking.
Incidentally, 2 and 3 year olds performed much less well against these criteria. I suspect this is due to their relative lack of exposure.
Racing today is more a literal damp squib than a metaphorical one, with only two meetings surviving the monsoons.
Brighton is a good place to lay favourites, and I'm trying to get Shaheer beaten in - funnily enough - the claiming race there.
I don't really fancy much, so it'll be a day of focusing on other work stuff. :(
Just before I close, another quick plug for Trainer Flat Stats whose sole runner yesterday was a winner, albeit at the skinny price of 10/11. More info is available here.
Ciao pronto
Matt
posted by Matt at
11:36
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