Meeting Results Summary

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A painful day at Royal Randwick as we miss out on some big priced winners with plenty of short favourites taking the cake as we see final bend stamina the major factor behind the results.

With the combination of the lack of collect at Caulfield the results look more dire than they are, but when considering a few of the short margin places we’re still disappointed as we identify a few runners that should have been able to put in far better efforts.

Our first in R2 sees us nab our price targets in #4 Bellszov Bourke as the late market sees our price push out to a whopping $8.00 on the exchanges before settling at $6.50/$7.17 – a massive overlay that didn’t quite fit against our rated price of just $3.80.

#8 Hey Dude wasn’t quite able to achieve the same feat as we saw late market movements largely steady to settle at $12.00/$13.30 a still very reasonable amount of value locked in against our price of $7.40 against early movements down towards the $13.00 mark.

The run was very strong from #8 Hey Dude as we managed to hit low $5.00s in play with #3 Expellable bringing the pressure late along with a strong run out of #2 Eurosay. We had a very favourable early run but got stuck in traffic at the turn as an attempt to overtake was rejected with #8 Hey Dude sandwiched into the barrier and trailing behind unfavourable positioning from #3 Expellable.

#4 Bellszov Bourke kept up some decent early pace – although not as well as #8 Hey Dude – but let the stitch catch up as he slipped out to $44.00 in-play then back down to high $5.00s in what would have been a trader’s dream – only to have reality come crashing back as all steam runs out completely and we go from a very comfortable spot to dead last as Cavallo well and truly pulls back.

We’re very happy with the outlay on #8 Hey Dude and the early run was exceptionally strong, but disappointed to be let down by the late pace on both runners settling their result at a number much closer to their market price. Of course, no matter how you cut it, the margin on #1 Mr Wong was an exceptional performance considering the early position, and with most of the pack sitting at 5.00L+ it’s certainly a well deserved dominant win.

The map definitely helped with #1 Mr Wong as the gelding took full advantage of the chaos at the barrier to turn on the jets.

Neither #5 Velvet Aeroplane nor #3 Expellable put in too much trouble as they get caught in traffic in the middle and lacked the stamina to dominate, but we definitely expect big things from #3 Expellable going forward under kinder conditions.

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Heading into R3 we failed to keep the price on #10 Too Hard to Call with our half stake play as the $26.00 comes in well and truly to settle at a much shorter $15.00/$15.92 taking with it the majority of the value as we target a rated price of $12.60.

Although #2 Hellenism got it (and continues the trend of short priced favourites that we’re seeing early), the messiness of the race can be seen as #12 All About Me manages to pull in 3rd at a whopping $101/$152.88 .

The ride we had was very average, with both favourites able to take the lead early and avoid traffic meaning that we only managed to sit in 5th at a margin of 4.20L as an attempt to correct the early stickiness at the barrier by going out at 300m simply taking too much out of us and far too late with the go at the turn.

Although we think the overlay was here, the shorter late price was certainly eroded making it an unfortunate situation in terms of market value against the ratings, with the bad choice in tactics a hard stop to what should have been a better performance.

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Skipping into R5 we saw a massive late move against #2 Toryjoy as the market piled on #9 Mugatoo as our two unit Platinum play pushed through the $9.40 mark on the exchanges in a massive capitulation from punters as we settle at $7.50/7.33 another huge overlay from our rated price of just $2.98.

We’re disappointed to see the money drop out of the market in the last moment as the BSP settled at just $7.33 with $9.00 available a minute before the jump which appears to be the trend today whenever there’s a small delay making for a very frustrating market situation.

Unfortunately the double whammy came as we saw very little effort from the mare as #9 Mugatoo manages to wipe the floor proving the late plunge was where the chance was – although we still think this price was insane.

Having a good look through the replays it’s clear that there was some issues with the mare as Kathy failed to control her early flailing and was clearly having a bad ride as she fights the horse with the bit instead of matching her rhythm and letting her have the go that she clearly wanted.

Things looked to be improving at the 1000m mark as the 5 year old was given reign to actually put in a fight, but with a much better ride on #8 Man of Peace, Kathy’s stiff hips and complete lack of rhythm were never going to give us the opportunity here as poor #2 Toryjoy is clearly having none of it as her face is twisted into the barrier at the turn.

We don’t often put much of a blame on the jockey but this time around we really have to question the pairing as anyone watching the replay will see that this was the major limiter to the performance today in what should have been an explosive finish for the mare.

Instead, we pull up in 5th as #8 Man of the Peace threatens to take the upset all the way being just 0.20L off taking down #9 Mugatoo.

Whilst Basic members are spared the stake loss, it’s disappointing to see the result come through off the back of a bad ride.

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R7 is amongst the most frustrating of the day as we hit $2.00 in-play on #6 Gaulois having nabbed $7.98 at BSP and $8.00 at SP as we set solidly to take down crowd favourite #11 Southern Lad.

The early run was very average as we settled back outside of the pack before a smart move to the outside at the 600m gave us the bounce we needed to go hard on the outside at the 400m mark.

The market quickly followed as we traded blows with #11 Southern Lad with #3 Cellarman stuck on the barrier, but by then #9 Cradle Mountain had already locked in a 3 length lead to get the stronger position in the finish.

Having absolutely decimated our rated price of $4.43 by more than 200% in-play and locking in the overlay at close to 200%, it was a strong position to take especially as we managed to lay #11 Southern Lad to rest despite a very strong attempt.

This time around it’s the early position which cost us – the late burst was hindered by the slow pace prior to the 600m mark and making that back was costly as we came in from the diagonal meaning we had to make it all back.

Given a better map and a smarter choice of early position we likely would have seen this go our way and so we’ll no doubt be adding this one to our black book for another go of it shortly.
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R8 sees another big price jump with #6 All Cylinders shooting out at $17.00/$17.62 to finish just 1.20L behind in what was very nearly an upset on the $2.10 favourite #10 Pandemic against a huge effort from $31.00 whopper #1 Rare Episode.

The in-play market went our way as the strong early run got us the preferred position right in the front and middle of the pack with a very comfortable run taking us all the way past the 400m mark as we push against the barrier.

Stuck against the barrier it still looked like we would have had it as the market trades all the way down with the strong position leading through 100m with #10 Pandemic getting the neck and body ahead late at 50m — at which point it’s all but over as #11 True Detective gets third from the outside at 0.70L.

#10 Pandemic really didn’t deserve it with a horrible run very lucky to not have been overtaken by the rest of the outside as #1 Rare Episode put in an absolutely bloody good performance to run us into the barrier.

This was an absolutely monster run and we’re very very happy with the performance here – although it’s yet another big price runner that was just a little bit off a big price win; what seems to be the pattern across the day!

Although we didn’t get the cookie – we won’t be complaining about the attempt as we had well and truly picked the value and the same race run a couple of times over would definitely see us come out ahead far often than not.

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Our final of the day trumps even R7 and R8 as we trade down to just $1.30 on our $9.00/$10.40 shot #3 Poetic Charmer only to be beat at the pip by $61.02 wheelbarrow #6 I Am Vinnie.

Settling well against the barrier we kept the pressure up at a comfortable pace with the run starting at 600m as the 300m comes and a fantastic play from Berry sees us take the strategic choice to back out of the pocket and come up through the middle.

It’s at the 100m that we got the neck ahead and hit the low mid $1.00s before the jet came from #6 I Am Vinnie right up the middle with #2 Laure Me In getting the nose ahead as we finish just 1.50L off our last opportunity to turn the day into a little more of a positive note.

With this last one it seems like we may have to go and figure out which deity we’ve upset as we essentially never have this much bad luck in a row combined with such poor performances across two tracks and plenty of units in a single day.

We’ll leave this one as the replay to watch as the video speaks more than enough for exactly how miffed we are about the result this time around.

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Despite hitting plenty of overlays, we’ve simply hit a day where nothing goes our way including some big prices trading at or below $2.00 before giving it up to last minute stitches.

Whilst we always operate on a thin edge between profit and loss, it’s incredibly frustrating to have so many close picks all come at the same time – from a variance perspective it’s actually impressive to have this many negative results in a row considering exactly how close many of the runs were.

Of course, we’re still well and truly ahead when looking a couple of weeks back and without a doubt our multi-week streak was bound to end sometime; we’re just disappointed that we weren’t able to get one or two of those close collects to dampen the one-day hurt.

Obviously the two big ones for us today are #3 Poetic Charmer and #6 Gaulois in terms of the short margin places, but the failure to collect there is compounded by some truly average runs from other selections, including an absolutely shocking ride on #2 Toryjoy, which we think should have been more than capable of doing significantly better.

However, in a day with favourites we’re always going to have issues because the value is almost never to be found by going with the crowd and on the odd times that our chosen races pretty much all line up with a short priced win (despite in-race performance lacking in most cases) there’s not a lot that can be done when our average prices are pushing the $6.00 mark.

On the surface of things, it may seem like we over-staked on some of the roughies, but across almost all of the board we managed to see huge amounts of value as our selections broadly performed much better than the market and managed to pass through their rated prices without a problem. For us, being able to hit and exceed those numbers is a very important objective measure of how our numbers stack up against reality – so even if we don’t get the win if we can see +EV positions; especially at high double digit prices, then we’re bound to see the action fall in our favour sooner or later.

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The big negative is that we also saw quite a bit of late price erosion which is never nice – this appears to be the continued issue caused whenever races are delayed and automated bot syndicates switch off their positions. Although we’ve had discussions with members around how to deal with this – the reality is that betting earlier is no guarantee that SP/BSP prices will be worse or better as in a large number of positions taking BSP comes out ahead of the price that was available earlier.

We also find little correlation between the outlay that we put on and the strength of the prices, as it appears that a much larger chunk of money is pulled out of the books, suggesting the presence of large syndicates or bookmakers looking to balance their own sheets followed by hard stops caused by the delay or perhaps hitting a specific risk profile.

Of course, as prices get larger the market gets sharper to any large amount of money coming – which is why we’re looking into capping membership to help reign in any effect we might be having there.

Regardless, it’s very unlikely that any strategy around this is likely to produce improved results over the long term as you’re essentially trying to guess the movement of a market – and with it being a guess since you aren’t privy to the majority of market influencers – we’ll continue to stick with taking late prices as that’s the one that’s proven to produce the most amount of value for us over the longest amount of time.

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Generally we’re still happy with the efforts put in by the runners despite the non-existent strike rate as we did manage to lock in value – however it’s certainly demoralising to see so many attempts come up nil in the same day.

As usual, we’ll go through and see if there are any areas for improvement although in the variables that we could control it looks like we were largely on the mark; we’re just at the behest of the bigger prices that we’re pipping these days and the subsequent reduction in wins that is expected when you’re finding $20 runners that finish better than the $3.00 favourites.