US racing - in-running stats

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There haven't been many good things to come out of this pandemic, but one thing that has definitely improved is the liquidity on the Betfair US markets - increasing probably 5-fold in fact. This has resulted in more losers being beaten at short odds and more winners trading at big odds, presumably punters who usually play in-running on the UK/IRE racing and are trying their luck on the US racing, but it's a different ball game over there.

Anyway, on Wednesday evening I made a note of the biggest in-running price each winner went at the 3 tracks (I think I missed 3 races when I took a break and walked the dogs but there were still 23 other races to analyse), and the following chart shows the results...

The most obvious thing that can be seen straight away is that while 5 of the 6 short priced winners (under 2/1, prices highlighted in red) did trade bigger in-running, only one traded at considerably longer odds (2.9bfsp - 7.8 in-r), so it would appear that the in-running layers are reluctant to lay the favs at much bigger odds than they were trading at pre-race, which makes sense as these horses are the main attraction of money and the horse most likely to be watched during the race - as soon as it makes a positive move in the race they'll be backing it in a flash.

Anyway, so if we remove these 6 favs we are left with this...

17 races left, and all but one of the winners traded at larger odds in-r than their bfsp. What is incredible is that 4 of these traded at double their bfsp (in-r price highlighted in blue) and a staggering 11 (65%) traded at at least 3 times their bfsp (in-r price highlighted in green). Four of these hit 95.0 or 100.0

Now anyone who gambles (ie everyone who will read this) should immediately realise that money can be made from this. This is, in fact, where the majority of my profits from betting on the US racing comes from. Simply put, backing horses at considerably longer odds than their bfsp WILL make profits long term. It has to.

I have analysed this previously and I usually make a note of the run style of each winner (using Timeform comments on the Betfair card) but I forgot to do so on Wednesday. I'll add these tonight. It goes without saying that horses that come from well off the pace are more likely to trade at big odds in-running than those who race on or near the pace (and I must add that not many front-runners won on Wednesday which probably exaggerated the results a bit), but you'd be surprised at how big some of these prominent racers trade, because as soon as they come under any kind of pressure the layers react prematurely, and often they rally.

I'll post tonights results on this thread, although only one meeting (Tampa Bay) is in-running today.

 

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Only 8 races to analyse from last night (I missed race 5 as I was having me tea, no idea if it traded higher or not).

These are my colour-codes I use with a range of 6 running styles...3 'warm' (front half of the field) and 3 'cold' (back half of field)....these can be found for every runner on Betfair at the end of the Timeform comments...

So the 8 races from Tampa last night...

Again, the two winners under 2/1 did both trade higher (in red) but not enough to be worthwhile backing as we're trying for big odds at small stakes here, so lets remove those...

4 of the 6 winners traded at at least double their bfsp and 3 of those traded at at least 3 times their bfsp, including another one hitting monster odds, this time 190.0 (I'm only including those prices matched to at least £1, as often the Betfair cross-matching bot trades small amounts at higher but it's often just 1p or 2p).

Only a small example but already you can see the significance of the run styles...all 3 of the 'cold' runners hit 2x or 3x+ their bfsp while just one of the 3 'warm' runners did so. You will find that this is the norm which follows logic, although occasionally a deep-closing winner won't hit a bigger price (pretty frustrating when you pick a 14/1 winner but try for 25/1+ and don't get matched) yet early paced types will surprise you by spiking up despite being prominent throughout.

The way to go is definitely to side with the 'cold' runners though, and is a pretty foolproof profitably horse racing method. It's my freebie for the lockdown

Just Tampa again tonight. 10 races.

 

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A difficult card to play tonight, with quite a few uncompetitive maiden events. Take out the 2 odds-on winners (red) we are left with 8 races and although the first 7 of these winners all traded higher than their bfsp, only 3 of them went big enough to be deemed successful in-running bets. The winner of race 10 just about made all which explains why it didn't trade higher in-r.

Only one of the 10 winners on the card were true hold-up types (pace rating 5 or 6) and ironically that winner didn't hit double his bfsp (23.0 - 30.0). Still, 3 of the winners did trade at 3x their bfsp or more bigger including the winner of race 5 which hit 95.0 (actually hit 790.0 to pennies).

 

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Last night was a tough one for the deep closers, with both meetings dominated by those who raced on or near the pace. A good start with the first winner grabbing the leader on the line after hitting 32.0 but after that nothing could come from behind until the last race.
It's very difficult when the US tracks are riding like this as no matter how strong the pace is the leaders just don't stop. Hopefully tonight will be better but unless there's a weather change I doubt it.

The 'cold' runners did well at trading at bigger odds, but unfortunately there wasn't enough of them...

The good news is that the liquidity last night was tremendous, over £100k matched on most races and £250k+ matched on some. This makes it a lot easier to trade a position and get on other horses at or near the front when it's obvious they're not coming from behind. Hopefully this will continue.

 

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It's wet and sloppy at Will Rogers tonight so we might see a change in the results regarding pace, the first winner came from mid-div.

 

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Forget that, the bias is just as strong as yesterday, absolutely nothing can come from the back. Also the Betfair 'live' pics are about 4 seconds slower that usual so when you see something happening the market has reacted several seconds ago and you only get matched when you're wrong.

 

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A change of going last night but the pace bias was as strong as the previous night, with once again the tracks proving impossible to come from behind. The only winner to have a pace figure of 5 or 6 (penultimate race at Will Rogers) was actually ridden completely differently and raced up with the pace throughout (which explains why it only traded fractionally higher in-running).

Also almost every race was won by a fancied horse (it took 14 races for a winner to have a bfsp higher than 7.8), so it was a difficult night indeed trying to get a winner that went a big price in-running, although Fonner came to the rescue a bit late on (perserverence is definitely needed at this game).

3 meetings tonight, hopefully the pace bias won't be as strong

 

[ONEDUNME]

Nice one mate. Hope you're earning again

 

[SAMOAN]

Looked a bit " sloppy " last night ( Weds ) at WRD. Gave up after the 2nd race, but thinking you might have found an angle.

 

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Cheers lads.

After a couple of frustrating days which saw the 'on-pacers' massively favoured, things switched round nicely last night. Will Rogers was a little mixed but Tampa Bay and Fonner Park saw 15 of their 18 winners hit at least double their bfsp (9 of them (an incredible 50%) hit 3 times or bigger

Only Charles Town in-running tonight, starts at midnight. The sprint races there are usually massively favoured towards front-runners but hopefully we can see a few come from behind at the longer trips.

 

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Great start at Charles Town last night with the first winner coming from off the pace and trading at more than 3 times its bfsp. The next two races were 5f events and as like 99% of these races they were both won by front-runners. The 4th race was a farce as Betfair suspended as they went past the post for the first time with a full circuit left to run. Typical Betfair-employee incompetence. Decided to have a much-needed early night after that (well, if you call 1.30am early ).

Tampa (5.15) and Charles Town (midnight) tonight.

 

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Tampa was pretty good last night considering there was only one winner with a bfsp of higher than 7.8 - four of the 6 'cold' winners hit at least double their bfsp, including the 8th winner which went a monster price. Charles Town was a waste of time as every single winner was a prominent runner and they just don't go much bigger at that track when they're in front (think of a circular course like Chester but tighter - the 5f track must be the sharpest in the world).

Same two tracks tonight.

 

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A fair mix of winning styles from Saturday nights winners, including quite a few that came from way back. Some nice prices hit in-running, it's a shame the last 2 from Charles Town didn't go bigger than they did but this was almost certainly down to the fact that it was after 3am so most of the layers had probably gone to bed!

Will Rogers and Fonner tonight, the former is still proving to be favouring the early-pacers (but late-runners can still win) but Fonner was excellent for getting big prices on the winners in-play at their last meeting. Fingers crossed for the same again.

 

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A mixed bag of results last night, not helped by the fact that there were very few winners that weren't fancied (only 2 of 10 winners at Will R were bigger than 4.7 bfsp). The 'cold' runners continue to nearly always hit double their bfsp (or more) in-running.

Same two tracks tonight.