Backing Favourites and Short Priced Horses
The reality is that favourites and short priced horses are responsible for more damaged betting banks than outsiders ever will be. The reason is simple.
Winning and making a profit are not the same thing.
A favourite only needs to lose occasionally to cause serious damage if the price is short enough.
Take a horse priced at 1/2. You need that horse to win around 67% of the time just to break even before any bookmaker margin is considered and a horse at 4/6 needs to win around 60% of the time.
That is a huge burden.
It is worth spending a day or two, just backing short priced favourites to see exactly what happens to these runners and to your betting bank.
As an example, I looked at Milford Grange yesterday at Ayr and my confidence was high. Well this is a winner, I thought. Eight runners, around the 2/1 mark and all my qualifying rules had been passed with flying colours.
Coming to the final furlong he was behind by about two lengths and couldn't get close enough to the 6/1 winner, who kept on well and took the prize.
This is just one example, but as I say, it is worth backing or at least just watching all short priced horses over a couple of days. You will see that very often, what happens to a 5/1 shot or a 10/1 shot, can and does happen to a 6/4 shot.
A horse can be the best horse in the race and still lose.
The start can go wrong. The pace can be unsuitable. The horse can fail to handle the ground. It can be trapped behind weakening runners. The jockey can make a mistake. In jump racing, a horse can hit a fence and lose all momentum in a fraction of a second.
All of these things happen every day.
Many punters focus entirely on how often a horse wins and pay little attention to whether the odds represent value. The bookmakers know this as human nature pushes us towards certainty. Most people would rather back a horse they think has a good chance of winning than take a chance on something at a bigger price.
The problem is that racing is uncertain by nature.
In Britain, favourites typically win around one third of races. The exact figure varies from year to year, but generally sits somewhere between 33% and 36%. That means favourites lose roughly two races out of every three.
Read that again.
The horse most likely to win still loses most of the time.
Punters remember the winners because winners feel good. They forget the long sequence of beaten favourites that quietly chip away at their betting bank.
Short priced horses create another problem. They distort confidence.
Imagine two bets.
The first is a horse at 1/2.
The second is a horse at 8/1.
Most punters feel far more comfortable backing the 1/2 shot. Yet from a mathematical perspective the 8/1 horse may be the better bet if its true chance is underestimated by the market.
This is where many betting banks get into trouble. Punters begin staking more because the horse 'can't lose'.
Of course it can.
A 1/2 shot that gets beaten wipes out the profit from two winning bets at the same price. A 4/6 loser wipes out even more. One bad result can undo an entire afternoon's work.
Anyone who has bet regularly on horse racing will know the feeling. You back three successful short priced horses, build a modest profit, then watch the next odds on favourite finish third and erase everything.
It is one of the most frustrating cycles in betting.
The psychological effect is equally damaging. Losing a 10/1 shot is expected. Losing a horse priced at 1/3 feels like something has gone wrong (plus you probably had two or three timles your normal stake on it to get back some losses).
Punters often respond by increasing stakes on the next favourite in an attempt to recover quickly. This is where discipline starts to disappear and betting banks begin to suffer.
Jump racing highlights these dangers perfectly.
Over hurdles and fences, uncertainty increases dramatically. A horse can travel strongly for two miles and then make a costly mistake at the final obstacle. Even the most talented jumpers can have an off day.
That is why experienced National Hunt bettors are often wary of taking very short prices.
A horse may genuinely be the best runner in the field, but if it has to jump ten or twelve obstacles cleanly and cope with changing race conditions, the margin for error is much smaller than many people realise.
So should you ever back a favourite?
Absolutely.
The mistake is not backing favourites. The mistake is backing favourites because they are favourites.
There are times when the market underestimates a favourite's chance. Perhaps the horse has a major class edge. Perhaps it is extremely well handicapped. Perhaps the opposition is weak and inconsistent. In those situations a favourite can still represent value.
The key question is not:
'Will this horse win?'
The key question is:
'Why am I backing this horse?'
That is a completely different mindset.
Professional bettors happily back favourites when they believe the price is wrong. They are not interested in collecting winners. They are interested in finding value.
What about laying favourites?
This is where things become interesting.
Because favourites are often overbet by the public, laying them can sometimes offer opportunities. The public loves certainty and bookmakers understand this because in the main they make their best profits from short priced 'certainties' not winning.
If bookmakers really profit when the favourites lose, that should be a good reason to realise that backing these yourself is not actually the best way to make money.
A favourite priced at 2/1 only needs to be slightly overrated for a layer to gain an edge.
The attraction of laying favourites is obvious. Since favourites lose around two thirds of races, you immediately have a higher strike rate than someone backing them.
However, laying comes with its own risks. A single winner can wipe out several successful lays, so your bank management becomes critical. The mathematics are different but the need for value remains exactly the same.
The smartest bettors are not anti favourite and they are not anti outsider, they are anti bad value.
That distinction is everything.
In the long run, blindly backing favourites is usually a losing game, break even, or maybe just a small profit.
The prices are often too short anyway and when the prices are short, punters trying to recoup losses pile on and the horse shortens even further.
You are now betting 6/4 on what is really at best a 2/1 shot and that won't end well in the long run. The risks are underestimated and the rewards rarely justify the stress.
A better approach is to treat every race as a puzzle. Ignore the horse's position in the betting. Ignore the reputation of the trainer and the odds.
Ask yourself one question. Does the price accurately reflect the horse's true chance?
If the answer is yes, leave the race alone, if the answer is no, then you may have found a bet.
Should you set yourself a minimum price to back at? That depends on what your strategy is and what types of bet that you strike.
In the long run, I would suggest that you keep your bets on short priced horses to a minimum and if you do find one you want to back - don't double or triple your stakes.
Bet Recorder - Analyse your bets.
Odds ranges are one of the things that the Bet Recorder will analyse for you and I am finding that my successful bets recently have been within the 3.0 to 8.0 range overall using Betfair for my bets, where I have recently made around 50pts profit.
Backing horses shorter than 3.0 has resulted in just a 5pt profit.
I have also been able to see that all bets over 8.0 have provided just 1 winners from 30 and a 25pt loss.
I am also doing well on 3 year olds and 4 year olds, as well as in better race classes, where the form is likely to be upheld more.
All very interesting and somthing that would be difficult to spot without the Bet recorder I know.
