BEST of the BETS

Yes I have a thought I don't bet jumps for this very reason, And I bet on the flat but I leave jumps to those who wish to bet them and I understand like me they know the risks and make their choice knowing the odds, So although I don't bet on jumps I understand why they do, But I prefer a safer conveyance for my money.

Ok, a decent debate at last and lets keep it that way. The timeform stats are interesting but it doesnt say what % of fallers when a horse has lost all chance...weve all seen a race where a horse is miles behind and has a tired fall or unseats at the 2nd last or last (personally i think the jockey should have pulled it up by then, but the jockey club made that impossible after the Grahame Bradley affair....he would pull a horse up as soon as it had no chance...they thought there was a fiddle going on because some won next time out...Derrrrr thats because he was kind and didnt give them a hard race and therefore a fresh horse nto...by the way Bradley was an exceptional horseman).

Also crucially it doesnt give an average price of the fallers. Now outsiders fall more often as they by nature (thus price) fall more often! So they arent "running for the bookies" as they had no hope in the first place.

Plus also by nature if you are jumping an obstacle there is a chance you can fall, thus the figures are surprisingly lower than i thought they would be (which is good). Plus good jumpers and bad jumpers are factored in the bookies and punters.

So while those statistics are interesting I think your conclusion that it means a better % for the bookies is flawed. i have always made a better winning return on the jumps than the flat and that includes when i took the game seriously and made money regularly from both. The intro of the AW made it harder on the flat especially the early turf meetings where you had mediocre but fit horses running on turf from the AW (that stopped my early edge i used to enjoy by knowing which Lambourn trainers had their horses fitter than most).

I think my edge on the jumps is that I spend a lot of time working out who is a good jumper, what trainer regularly produces good jumpers (eg Martin Pipe produced ultra fit horses but they were not always the best jumpers which is why in the early days he won tonnes of small races but fell short at the big meetings...obviously he put that right later on!). An example of this is Oliver Sherwood (and i have no hard facts to back this up)....he and his brother Simon (Desert Orchids original rider) are old school and still use the same methods as their mentors Fred Winter and Fulke Walwyn of teaching horses how to jump and THEN work on fitness. I just dont seem to remember many of Sherwoods horses falling and he once had a horse called Large Action that was so quick over its hurdles the jockey had to catch up! He spends weeks perfecting their jumping and was one of the first to use Yogi Breisners services. Oliver simply hates to see a horse fall thats why he stays loyal to Leighton Aspell..a real horseman who presents his horses perfectly at every jump. Hes not the best in a finish and not as astute as say Johnson or Walsh but he lets his horses jump. So when I know Oliver has a good one i tend to wade in because the one thing i know (hopefully!) it wont fall...just sometimes i wish they were a bit quicker!

So stats are useful (as this set can be) but you must tweak to what you know. At a decent course if there is 8 runners I can normally eliminate 4 (and thats not necessarily the 4 outsiders) so immediately I have an edge. 9 times out of 10 one of these four will SCREAM value and thats the one i back. It may be 2/1 (but in my book 5/4) or it could be 20/1 (8/1 in my book) and in a go. Ive being doing this for over 20 years and have had a profitable season every year (well thats not include travel, booze, food etc which no doubt has actually turned that profit to a loss!). ive also made a profit on the flat by much the same value method but probably won more in the last few years on 2yo's where i can usually narrow a 20 runner field down to 3 or 4 but much harder to get VALUE on the flat as rumours flash about too wildly, especially in Newmarket (how many pigeon catching 2 yos get beat!)

But i suppose thye overall point is to use stats to suit you. thats the beauty. Ant statistician will tell you everyone of them interprets the same set differently!

the comparison to Roulette is an odd one. The % is based only on you backing all 37 numbers for an equal payout of 35/1 which a junior school student could work ou NEVER offers value.

an interesting one tho Joe and should spark debate which is the point ofthe forum. So lets keep it clean and discuss like adults

I think the Roulette comparison was just to show bookies have a greater edge starting on jumps than roulette.
I agree though the edge can be greatly shortened by taking a whole host of things into account.

The other thing you cant do with a roulette spin is use the negative as an advantage as said above
Weed out the bad jumpers as they are most likely to fall and you shorten the edge.
Roulette has no form (other than laws of probability ) so each slot has exact same chance on any one spin
its diff with horses however but remember horses are priced accordingly if horses were priced as roulette
numbers a 20 runner race all horses would be about 18/1.(bookies dont play without an edge)


Some of those courses with high fall numbers there has to be reasons.
some are obvious so not so

yes Joe, agree with that although bookies are being forced by betfair to take less than 1% on most races. You can make that a negative % by taking early doors as bookies now routinely shorten everything on the opening show and just before the off....the contraction just before is bewildering so ALWAYS take early and make use of sites like bet365 offering extra places...they sometimes get lazy on big prices and the % difference between say 5th and 6th place can be in your favour!

yes i find this a huge plus
"bet365 offering extra places...they sometimes get lazy on big prices and the % difference between say 5th and 6th place can be in your favour!"

and extra place races at other bookies only neg about bet 365 one is you cant double them to six or 7 places
you have to do individually with the no tax rule is ok but you need to be there