The last 2 CairnBet meetings have been abandoned so it's been a while. You've probably forgotten we existed, in much the same way as we were in danger of forgetting what we were doing. If, indeed, we ever knew in the first place. I even gave the kit a test on Wednesday.
So with batteries, card machine and laptops freshly charged, change trays filled and fivers replenished, we set off at an ungodly hour to once again do battle at Kelso.
Those of you who have followed us for the last 3 years, and presumably have aged 6 in the same period, will know that Kelso is a tough nut for us (and, I think, many others) to crack. We remain firmly in profit in our hedging account at Kelso (this is not a good thing!) and were again today. We lose hedging everywhere else (this is a good thing)
Just a very quick reminder of how we bet. We run a "stand what you take" model with a set liability. This means we will only hedge back if a horse exceeds our liability on the off and we will only hedge back enough to get a horse back to our maximum liability. We do this regardless of the price of the horse. So, for example, if we have a horse losing us £800 and we're running a £500 liability we will back it back to win £300 thus reducing the liability to £500. This will be the case whether it is an evens favourite or a 100/1 outsider- this is what produces what we refer to as our "bingo" book. We can easily have two 33/1 shots - one winning us a grand and the other one losing us £500. We do this because we lose hedging so we try to minimise hedging as much as possible. We understand that 90% of the ring don't do it this way and shake their head ruefully if we win on a favourite or lose on an outsider.
Most in the ring will run a "standardised" book where they will take the bets they take but will probably push a price at the top of the market and maybe be less competitive the further down they go. They will also "straighten" their book at the off by using exchanges to have the top of the market losing and horses worth increasing amounts of profit as the price increases. The benefit of this is it takes opinion out of the ring so they won't get caught on a "live" one and won't have masses of green on a favourite which may not run its race. This involves more use of exchanges but provides greater consistency of book and, as I say, ensures shrewd bets do not affect the overall outcome. We totally understand the reasons for doing this, it's just not for us. The final method is to green up (take the same profit out of every horse) - we believe this is the least effective method but will guarantee a wage every time.
So, back to Kelso. We are winning hedging which, in theory, means more folk at Kelso are finding winners compared to every other track. This has been the case for as long as we have bet there so I'm pretty comfortable with this being a trend. Steve mentioned that, even when we do have a winning result there we don't seem to hit the same number of jackpot type wins as we do elsewhere. Anecdotal at this stage but something I'll have a look at in the next few days. Initially though I thought it would be interesting to see how we performed at all the tracks we go to on the basis of profit v book value. Book value is calculated on the off as a "snapshot" of a book's p&l v exchange price and is useful for understanding viability of meetings etc.
I don't like to post too many figures but am going to do so here. Below is a list of all the tracks we attend (with a big enough sample to be a viable measure) and our profit performance v book value. So, for instance, if we have a book value of £100 and we win £120 that would mean we have outperformed the book value by 20%. We believe that we should outperform the book value (also referred to as the "green up" figure) by minimising use of exchanges as we believe every hedge costs money over time. The results were interesting...
Track Percentage Profit Increase/Decrease v Book Value Figure
Ascot +29%
Cartmel +14%
Cheltenham +2%
Kelso -10%
Musselburgh +32%
Newcastle -18%
Perth +28%
Newcastle was a surprise though sample was smaller than the rest and included a couple of dismal Plate meetings which accounted for a large proportion of the overall take.
Kelso was less of a surprise... I'd imagine even the boffins of Bletchley Park may struggle to find the winning formula but we'll keep on trying.
From our end we'll keep an eye on it until at least the end of the season, but we get less out of it compared to book value than anywhere else by quite some distance so it may be that, at some point, we look at a different strategy there. Possibly even a version of the standardised book. We'll see.
Anyway, enough rambling, here's what happened;
1) Tedious nothing sort of a book with the 2 at the top of the market worth little bits. The one that was worth a little bit less duly won from the other one but the places were, of course, good and we got off to a reasonable start.
2) A one horse book as we couldn't lay the favourite, So Many Roads which was a huge winner and was never going. It was a choose your liability job but at least the winner, Imaginary Dragon, was the least smelly of the 2 losing options.
3) Stood the 2nd two in the market for half maxes and had a modest enough win on the jolly which was immediately wiped out by a hospitality table popping down and all betting the 4-5 forecast.
4) The Heartbreaker Stakes. We, at CairnBet really like the Fergal O'Brien stable. All things being equal we like it when his stable wins. Their Twitter feed is funnier than ours could ever hope to be, they are clearly highly passionate about the sport and are very supportive, particularly of grass roots racing. They even follow us. But we really, really didn't need Young Buster in this one. As anyone who follows us on Twitter can attest this one can be filed under "significant difference in result" as Imperial Merlin was cruising and hit evens in running 3 out. Sadly it hit the floor at much the same time and, despite a heroic effort by the jockey to stay on, our Christmas goose was well and truly cooked and a max loss ensued. The pigeon still hasn't turned up either. Must be the snow messing with the radar.
5) So from here on in this is where the system, which has saved us so often, fell down spectacularly. We stood original favourite Ip Up for a chunk supplemented by Nell's Bells as our other loser but the outsider, Atlantic Dancer, was only a small winner for us despite being at the nether regions of the market. A quick chat with fellow books indicated that most of them had to back it on the exchanges to be a decent winner. Definitely one for the standardised book system.
6) Another favourite chinned, this time at a shortish price, and the drifting Dream Boy gave us another small win whilst our colleagues were merrily twirling and rejoicing in another big one.
7) And finally Rath an Iuir was the best backed horse both on and, it appears, off course as it was backed in from something like 9s into 5s and was, of course, a loser for us. Another one that needed backing on the exchanges but, given it was still 5th in a list of 6, most will have done so and fair play to them for doing so.
Overall a disappointment for many reasons. It seems like the cost of living crisis continues to bite. Bet sizes were tiny and overall take well down compared to last year. All the other books I spoke to said much the same. We were in it after 4 when we could've been miles behind but made no impression in the final 3 when jackpots were aplenty elsewhere.
Finally, it was nice for our friend Pinno to note that most Northern books seem to get on well. I think this is true by and large. Things are unlikely to get easier for us with Premierisation likely to hit the smaller tracks this season along with the 6 race cards in the summer. Cost of living is making everyone tighten their belts as well and I think it is important, now more than ever, that on course books stick together whenever possible. In theory we are all each other's competition on track but we would be doing ourselves a disservice is we didn't work together to protect and, who knows, even grow our little corner of the betting world. If we stick knives in the backs of each other it can only end one way and no bookmaker needs that. Have a great New Year and, if the snow stops, we'll see you at Musselburgh on New Years Day. Until then...