A punter at the counter on Saturday was telling me about his banker in the two thirty. Best horse in the race, he said, nothing else can live with it. He was probably right about the horse. I didn't back it, and here's why.
There are two questions on every bet, and most people only ask the first. Will it win. The second is whether the price pays you for the times it doesn't, and that's the one that decides whether you make money over a year.
Say a horse wins half the time it runs in that sort of race. At evens you break level before commission, which means you lose slowly. At 6/4 you make something. At 4/6 you're giving money away, however good the horse looks in the paddock. The horse hasn't changed between those three prices. Only the bet has.
The ones at the front of the market are the hardest to get right for exactly this reason. Everyone has seen the same form you have, so the price already has the obvious bit in it. A clear best horse at 4/6 is a bet the whole ring has already made. You're joining a queue.
So I look for the favourites where the price has gone the wrong way. A horse that was second last time, beaten a length by something that's since won again, and the market has it at 3/1 instead of 2/1 because the form book says 2. A horse that's dropped in trip and has already won over the shorter one. A horse that's 7lb lower than when it last won, which nobody mentions because the last run was poor.
None of those will win every time. They're bets where the price is paying me for the doubt, and the doubt is smaller than the price says. Every BSP Favourite has passed that test before it reaches the members' card.
The banker in the two thirty won, by the way. At 4/6, after commission, he made £6.50 on a tenner. I'd rather wait for the one at 3/1 that wins four times in ten.
Lee
PS: I don't do each way doubles or anything clever either. Singles, win or place, at the price. It's slower and it works.
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