Winning Ways

Bob Rothman’s Tips, Tactics and Techniques to bet more winners

How do you know you can Jump in on this Gamble as soon as you see the money?

A teenage hacker helped a criminal network to infiltrate over 1.3 million computers worldwide and skimmed bank accounts or damaged computers to the tune of over £15m

Owen Thor Walker wrote BOTNET infiltration programs for the crime bosses when he stood trial in July he was 18 years old. The charges were dismissed and he was released with no criminal record after giving up the cash paid by the criminal network and paying a fine.

Since then he has been hired by a company called Telstraclear as a cyber-security consultant and has been paid well to deliver a series of seminars for the company. The company specialise in anti crime internet security said that having Walker on their side helped them understand how cyber criminals acted and how to defend against such attacks.

Maybe that old wives tale is true? The best gamekeepers are ex-poachers.

There are many ways to set up a horse for a gamble. Having an understanding of these can help you identify many great bets.

Think like a Poacher to bet the “plotted up” Winners

Here’s an example from today.

McBirney was a classic “plot” horse and we bet him at 5/1 as soon as I got the word from the track connections were investing. That sort of information costs me a small fortune.

But you could have easily bet him at 7/2, 3/1 or 11/4 with some confidence … without any inside knowledge … and without it costing anything other than maybe 20 minutes to half an hours analysis.

 We were able to bet it at the bigger odds because we had that inside knowledge but that costs. For me it was worth the cost to gain an extra 2 points. But unless you’re betting say £100 a race 2 points may not be worth a lot or not matter that much to you. Yet you can still have the pleasure of confidently betting a gambled winner. This is what you look for.

3 Runs, straight into a handicap

Run Him over the wrong Trip

The Racing Rules state a horse must have 3 runs or win a race before it’s eligible for a handicap mark.

Now if you’re plotting up a horse to win a race when your money’s down what sort of handicap mark do you want? High or low?

Low of course. So you do everything to make the horse look poor so the handicapper will give him a low mark. I’ll deal with all of these in future article but here’s  a  quick selection of popular techniques

1.      Run him over the wrong trip

2.      Run him on ground he hates

3.      Give him 3 quick runs while he’s unfit

4.      Blatantly cheat. Ie get the jockey to “bury” him

5.      Burst him from the front

6.      Miss the break and get into an awful position (Is this a Hills speciality?)

Run Him over the wrong Trip

MCBIRNEY stood out as a potential plot because he’d had 3 runs over the wrong trip and today for the first time was stepped up in distance. The question was is today the day or another “feeler”?

Note despite being bred by two milers (DANEHILL DANCER and DEAR GIRL)MCBIRNEY ran twice over 6f and once over 7f. 8/1 on debut implies he showed something at home. But then 20/1 and 66/1 tells you he was “not expected” on those days.

Handicap debut steps up massively in trip

When horses run at the wrong trip they “handicap” themselves. If you’re a sprinter you’ll never be truly competitive in a marathon. Flyweights don’t box in heavy weight class. The beauty is you don’t have to do too much to make the horse look terrible. He does it for you!

This is the technique made famous by Sir Mark Prescott. Just take a look at how many of his 2YO have 3 runs over sprint trips , then come out and run up a sequence as 3YO over longer trips because they’re so well handicapped.

Study those 3 runs above for a second longer. Because usually the trainer wants one run to give him an idea if the horse has enough ability. If you stop a horse too many times it will “forget” how to compete ie win!

The giveaway is one of the 3 runs will be a “sighter”

Here you see it on the last race on 21st Feb 2011. The horse is stepped up to 7f from 6f and runs a 63 versus a zero and a 32! The horse’s long term aim is clearly to be stepped up in trip and the trainer satisfied himself with that run that the horse would run better over further.

This trainer has also used another technique in tandem.   Double whammy! This horse could be seriously well handicapped! They’ve been very professional.

Run the horse quickly 3 times while he’s not fit.

You have to run it quickly because you don’t want to waste too much time and you have to start getting him ready sooner or later.

Then get it handicapped.

Then train it to win!

How do you know today is the day?

Just watch the market.

If today’s the day they will eventually bet the horse and the money will surface. I know where to look and who to ask but you can see it for yourself a little while later as the bookmakers shorten the odds.

Study the history below

Very early on this horse was available with a couple of bookies at 13/2 and 7/1. But serious money doesn’t go down until more bookies offer prices. The prices above show the earliest price at the bottom and the latest at the top. So with bet365 he opened at 5/1 and ended up 11/4.

Once I’d seen the small early move from 13/2 to 11/2 with Blue Square and from 7/1 with Boyle I suspected connections might be trying to sneak money on so I made investigations to see if it was “guessing” money or “real” money ie from connections.

Once I validated it was connections money we jumped in at 5/1 and bet him heavily ourselves. Generally it’s a good idea to either handle connections money or part of it yourself or have trusted partners and spies throughout the betting industry who can tell you who’s betting what.

The initial move would not have been enough to give you confidence he was “off” today. You’d need to wait a bit longer and see if the gamble was sustained.

Sustained Gambles are worth serious investigation

Sustained gambles ie when the horse shortens … and then shortens again …are a good indicator of connections money and not guessing money

So what happened?

He shortened from 5/1 to 9/2 and 4/1. You’d be considering bet now. But if you’re still wondering the betting shows in the last 10 minutes would convince you. Here they are below

Many horse will be the subject of “moody” gambles or bluffs to put the average punter off the scent.

But when the horse shortens in the Early price market … and then opens shorter still … and then is bet even shorter still … you KNOW serious money is down.

Now ask yourself the question …

The horse is not tipped in the paper so it’s not mug newspaper reader’s money.

There’s a potential doubt about the trip (maybe it wants a mile like it’s parents and this is a BIG step up to 1m 4f) So it’s not form money. Not in this volume.

The only people betting this must be the people connected to the horse.

Now if they’re betting it and betting it heavily … it stands to reason the previous runs were runs to get a handicap mark and not a true reflection of its ability.

But look at this!

The Official handicapper has decided McBirney merits a rating of 64. On those 3 rubbish runs!

Now you know they were “prep” runs you know the horse is way better than a 64 horse. Now what’s it running against?

0-65 horses!

This is great! He’s got nothing to beat.

Imagine you’re back at school and sports day is coming up and the teachers decide to grade the kids to make the races more even. You have various races with the other kids to find where you stand in the school pecking order.

But there’s a kicker. They run normally but you have to hop (you’re doing this intentionally of course!) You tell the school your foot hurts or some blarney! The school grade you and place you with people of “similar ability”

Now it’s Sports Day and you’re now racing against kids you finished level with … when they were running and you were hopping! But now your foot is “better” and you can use both legs to run!

How far are you going to win by?

That’s how racehorse handicapping works!

The race conditions (at the top) show it for horses rated 0-65. That means no horse rated above 65 qualifies!

McBirney is rated 64. That basically means he’s running against horses that have shown the same sort of ability he did when he wasn’t off!

This is a perfect plot, well executed and deserves a decent bet. We had £1,000 at 5/1 and won £5,000. Lovely thank you!

Now you may not be able to find out whose money it is when the horse starts shortening as we did and were happy to jump in at 5/1.

But you can read the plot as well as anyone and when you saw it open up 7/2 you could have jumped in with some confidence. When he went 3/1 you could double that confidence! And when he was punted into 11/4 you knew there was one hell of a serious trier with a stack up his sleeve! Connections don’t chuck their money down like that without a big edge.

I hope this chat may give you some ideas to use for your own winner finding techniques.

Warm Regards

Bob Rothman

Stacking the odds in Your Favour