The Patriarch Presents
I have no wish to trespass on colleague Clive’s turf, but I would just like to add to something he wrote about last month. It was the “All Red” idea, the morning steamers, the insider gambles – all excellent stuff, and the information being available on the Racing Post betting site as Clive indicated. I would like to draw to your attention another free site with very much the same information, perhaps better, and presented in a different way. It’s certainly worth looking at as an adjunct, at least, to the original idea.
The site is oddschecker.com. Go there and look down the list of features on the left-hand side until you come to Market Reports. Click that, and first up underneath it is Racing. Click on that and you’re there. I’d suggest going there around noon when markets have had time to take shape. You will find a long list of steamers or gambles, and it is the way that they are arranged that is of particular interest to me. In the first column for each horse you get the Best Original Odds. In the next column the Best Current Odds. Then a column with the Shortest Current Odds. The next two columns show the number of bookies offering odds and the number who have odds cut. The final column is headed Significance and I’ll come to that later since all the other columns are self-explanatory.
The number of bookies offering odds is a maximum of 12 or 13 which is a few more than on the Racing Post site, and then on the next column you can see how many have reduced the original odds. Clearly we are looking for all, or nearly all, to have done so. And looking at the first two columns shows us easily how much the odds have come down by.
Here’s an example from the day I’m writing this, Wednesday 28th April. The horse was Hazeldene running at Kelso in the 6.50. All 13 bookies had reduced its odds, and at noon these odds were 9-1, with the original odds being 22-1. Obviously, quite a gamble, and there for all to see. It won the race at 9-2. The page lists well over 20 steamers every day, not all as obvious as Hazeldene, and this is where the Significance figure comes into play. I don’t understand fully how the figure is arrived at, but I do know that the higher the figure the better. We can all see that a horse reducing by one point from 2-1 to Evens is much more significant than another horse reducing by a point from 10-1 to 9-1. So, this Significance figure can be a good guide to horses where the drop in price is not so obvious as in the case of Hazeldene, for example. Anyway, the oddschecker site is certainly worth a look along with the Racing Post one to find these daily steamers. But again, along with Clive, I’d just warn that you can’t expect all of these listed steamers to be winners.
These 3 letters can skyrocket your doubles profits
Question. You’ve backed two win singles at £10 each, and you’ve been lucky (or smart) and they’ve both won at 3-1. How much do you collect? The answer is fairly easy – £80. But wouldn’t it be great if you got £140 or even £200 instead? It would – and now I’m going to show you how to do it. It’s very easy and just involves adding three letters to your betting slip. I touched on it in my piece last month, and decided to give the full details this time.
The slip would read – £10 Win Horse A. £10 Win Horse B. SSA or DSA.
These are the only letters you need. Which you choose is up to yourself. Let me explain.
SSA stands for Single Stakes About and DSA for Double Stakes About.
With Single Stakes About the bet would be settled in this way, Horse A wins at 3-1 so the return is £40. Of that, £30 is set aside but the other £10 is added to the £10 stake on Horse B. So we now have £20 on Horse B and it wins at 3-1. The return is £80. And here is the surprising bit. This time £70 is set aside and the single £10 stake is allowed to be put on Horse A which has already won at 3-1. That returns £40. So, altogether we have £30, £70 and the final £40 making a total of £140 for our bet. That’s SSA.
For DSA it’s double the original stake that is invested. So when Horse A wins at 3-1 £20 is set aside and the double stake of £20 is added to the £10 on Horse B. That wins at 3-1, returning £120. Of that £100 is kept and the double stake of £20 is re-invested on Horse A giving £80 for that. So this time we have £20, £100 and the final £80 making £200 in all. That’s the good news, £140 or £200 instead of £80.
But there is a down side, slight though it be, that has to be taken into account. If you have just one winner the returns are a bit less than with your two traditional, straightforward singles. If both win the returns are less than for the double, but with the double you get nothing, of course, if only one wins. As I see it, the SSA or DSA is a useful middle way between singles and the double. Which you choose is, as always, up to the individual temperament.
Classic success from a classic system
Finally this month I’d like to refer to my Classic System which I put forward some time ago now. If you’ve used it then you’ve already made a good profit this year. If you haven’t done it, then it’s too late now for this year but bear it in mind for next time. It used the five Classic races, the 2,000 Guineas, the 1,000 Guineas, Oaks, Derby and St Leger. You backed the favourite in each with an increasing stake of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 points – stopping at a winner. We lost 5 points on the favourite in the 2,000 Guineas, but didn’t have long to wait for our profit when the favourite won the 1,000 Guineas at 9-2 with a 10 point stake. That made a profit of 40 points, and the bet stops for the year. But there’s always another year.