Watch Some Racing

Bluetonic

I read this Brian O'Connors blog over on Irish Racing and for some reason the gambling forum and some of it's contributors came to mind straight away.

Watch Some Racing

August 31, 2009 by Brian O'Connor

Picking a winner is a difficult enough task at the best of times so those of you bemoaning a lack of success at the job might consider the need to do one thing – watch some racing.

It is remarkable how many punters don’t. Whether through a lack of time, facility or inclination, there are so many out there who don’t actually look at the beasties they are betting on. And when things go breasts up, they give out that the entire game is bent.

Such a species is the bread, butter and jacket potatoes of the betting shop industry and they show no sign of becoming endangered.

Now, no one is saying that horses don’t get easies, or that some of them aren’t off a yard, or that some of the human participants find it difficult to lie straight in bed at night.

But that’s not a peculiarly Irish condition. There are races being run on the all-weather in Britain that beggar belief in the ‘ready-up’ stakes. A more valid concern is the lack of penalty associated with some pretty blatant cases witnessed in this country. All of which is no excuse for betting blind and then bitching about losing.

As someone who spent a little time betting reasonably seriously and retreated from the battle with a resolute determination never to have my life dominated by it again, here’s a hard-earned tip: watch everything.

There’s no excuse not to. Even if you don’t want to invest in a Sky package, then throw a few quid into a laptop and log on to the Attheraces website’s archive where every race can be seen just minutes after its run. It’s a wonderful facility that’s free and available to anyone with a mind to organise it.

Such a requirement is hardly going to flatten anyone who is even remotely interested in making their betting pay. It is basic. Watching each race is no guarantee of making things lucrative but not doing so gives a person no chance.

Ultimately, watching means you end up backing your own judgement. Can you recognise a no-try from a can’t-try? Is a horse running over a completely wrong distance? Has such and such a jockey buried one deliberately or been simply plain unlucky?

Everyone finds out quick enough if they’ve a decent eye or not when some hard-earned is on the line. And if you haven’t, well then it might pay to indulge in a different line of diversion. But finding out requires the discipline to look at what’s happening out on the track.

There has been a weave through various previous threads on this site where contributors have expressed some fundamentally flawed thinking, such as, if an odds-on favourite is vulnerable, then the second favourite more or less has to win. Or that form-lines are almost set in stone.

Now I know it’s a cliché but horses really are not machines. And a cliché is only a cliché through overuse, not because it’s wrong. Horses improve for runs, for experience, for different ground, different trips, different trainers, and yes, sometimes, when the handbrake is let off.

If it was as simplistic as looking at the best figures next to a name on a racecard or paper, then bookmaking as a profession wouldn’t exist. But for our sins, we are all intrigued by the most nuanced sport of all.

The ability to read those nuances is the primary determining factor in making your betting pay. Sure there will be times when a result is just unfathomable from any logical point of view. But racing is not a pursuit where logic can ever be expected to consistently apply.

Expecting otherwise is probably the greatest mug bet of all.

qc3

Very good point..

allthedoyles

brilliant read................now I know why the guys that remain in bookies , all day long - every day , have such a huge advantage over me .

I go in to bookies out of the blue and expect to back a winner ........

As you said above , thats a mugs game ..........and I agree fully