The BTC Horse Racing Thread

John Folan

@jonathan-jones said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

@john-folan
Thing is.. Its already accounted for when you run the backtests and create the strategies. I admit it sounds completely reasonable but you would be acting on a variable with no empirical evidence in opposition to your backtest data.

It is but imagine if you could take those days out. It would be interesting to see.

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@john-folan
Thing is.. Its already accounted for when you run the backtests and create the strategies. I admit it sounds completely reasonable but you would be acting on a variable with no empirical evidence in opposition to your backtest data.

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@dan-mackinnon

I have for Back C&D Winner. I have 3 seperate strategies (Chase, AW, Turf) and also for pac backs (only done on turf). I am sure i tried to do this on the lays but found they didnt pass out of sample testing or some reason like that for not keeping them.

John Folan

@matthew-sheehan said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

As it's bucketing it down at Chester today, thought I would ask a question. I used to know somebody who would not place any trades on football if it was bucketing it down. He would just pull out of any planned trades he was going to do. Normal rain was okay, but if persistent heavy rain, players with dripping wet hair etc, he would write it off. Does anyone do the same for horse racing - would you advise writing the day off if the conditions are grim in the air, with poor visibility and soaked horses/jockeys?

I can actually relate to this. Persistent heavy rain ‘appears’ to affect the racing. I’ve no stats to back it up but strategies seem to go to pit in the rain. Mainly backing or dobbing.

I always go back to how much we hate running in the rain. Why should it be different for animals? Plus it must affect jockeys

Dan MacKinnon

@john-folan said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

@dan-mackinnon

Race Type
Handicap Y/N
Class
Classification

These are where I normally start. Especially the first one.

That's similar to my go-to list. Would you split those down further, for example Back the Fav in AW or hurdle only vs all race types that are profitable?

Matthew Sheehan

As it's bucketing it down at Chester today, thought I would ask a question. I used to know somebody who would not place any trades on football if it was bucketing it down. He would just pull out of any planned trades he was going to do. Normal rain was okay, but if persistent heavy rain, players with dripping wet hair etc, he would write it off. Does anyone do the same for horse racing - would you advise writing the day off if the conditions are grim in the air, with poor visibility and soaked horses/jockeys?

John Folan

@dan-mackinnon

Race Type
Handicap Y/N
Class
Classification

These are where I normally start. Especially the first one.

Greg Mitchell

@dan-mackinnon said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

I was hoping to do a deep dive into the horse racing but been busy of late. Just out of curiosity, what do others look for when going through analysis?

Do you start with different race types? Handicap vs non-handicap? Do you analyse each course or find removing courses to be backfitting?

I like high SR, so I prefer to lay at higher odds and am more than happy to take that over the occasional big loss. My approach is to have as few filters as possible and go for a year-round approach. The downside to this is you potentially get loads of trades and need to be careful when recording data vs software that I often find myself cross checking multiple versions of the same strategy.

I thought we could get a bit of a discussion on here as a lot of us seem to be the type that do deep dives into the data.

Plus it makes a change from the pre-software days when this thread was just John posting his DOBs!

I tend to always look at every possible variable after starting with an idea, starting with the ones that I think should have the most obvious affect.

So for example, if I was looking at a Lay the Stall Draw strategy (which I'm in the middle of doing), Course would be the first variable to look at, then Race Distance, then No. of Runners, then possibly Going. As logically these should have the most significant affect. (There may also be others!!)

Once the above is fine tuned to give maximum SR and/or ROI, would check if every other variable in the software had any significant affect and include/exclude any that did.

Dan MacKinnon

I was hoping to do a deep dive into the horse racing but been busy of late. Just out of curiosity, what do others look for when going through analysis?

Do you start with different race types? Handicap vs non-handicap? Do you analyse each course or find removing courses to be backfitting?

I like high SR, so I prefer to lay at higher odds and am more than happy to take that over the occasional big loss. My approach is to have as few filters as possible and go for a year-round approach. The downside to this is you potentially get loads of trades and need to be careful when recording data vs software that I often find myself cross checking multiple versions of the same strategy.

I thought we could get a bit of a discussion on here as a lot of us seem to be the type that do deep dives into the data.

Plus it makes a change from the pre-software days when this thread was just John posting his DOBs!

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@philip-brogan I assume you are talking about back and lay the same horse in any race. As Paul mentioned, the strategies have different odds ranges so there is a fair chance only one of the bets would match. Thats not certain to be the case though. I downloaded the individual results of all the strategies to analyse and in some cases both bets would match (in some i would even get 2 lays and one back etc on a single horse). If you played it like this you would likely have a small residual profit/loss on that race (provided no other horses match). This is how i play it. I have it automated. If there is a back and lay on any given horse then my automation monitors for bets on both, if both match then i take the small profit/loss. If you are running a portfolio then this is the only way to play it consistently with your backtest.

John Folan

@tony-hastie said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

Does the horse racing software have the ability to back test places rather than wins? Nothing is glaringly obvious in that dept, asking in hope that Ive missed something...

Not yet. It will do.

Not ideal tho but in the meantime you can download the individual results and include whether it placed or not a the place bsp. Can work out a p and l manually from that.

Tony Hastie

Does the horse racing software have the ability to back test places rather than wins? Nothing is glaringly obvious in that dept, asking in hope that Ive missed something...

Martin

@joseph-henderson probably not tested that one for years, others may know better

Joseph Henderson

What’s the reason for the ‘laying the rubbish tipster’ strategy running from mid-May to mid-August? Did it perform badly in back testing on jump racing?

Philip Brogan

Thanks guys

Paul Foster

@philip-brogan depends on the strategy. For example if you have lay the short odds fave and back the fave then the differing odds criteria would mean that it would be very unlikely for both bets to be placed.

Will happen sometimes, but is quite rare. I just let the bot place all the bets and it will sometimes place opposing bets for different but I'm not too fussed as I treat the bank for seach stratagy as seperate, not a combined bank.

Matthew Sheehan

@philip-brogan I'm still a novice but I personally go with the best risk/reward option of the 2. So eg. Master Richard in the 19:20 at Newcastle on 5th May qualified for pace-lay strategy on the presets and back-the-pace-horse. I was thinking what to do, saw it was at 14.5 odds - thought I would back it rather than lay it at those odds.

Philip Brogan

You can't back and lay in the same race as you would go inplay. How do you handle it if one strategy tells you to back and another strategy tells you to lay in the same race? What strategy do you assign to a race?

Angus Macleod

@john-folan said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

@angus-macleod said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

@John-Folan

Yeah mate, like you've made reference to before, fight the urge to react when things aren't going exactly as planned.

It’s like you have a devil and an angel on each shoulder. “CHANGE IT”. “NO LEAVE IT”

So true!

John Folan

@angus-macleod said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:

@John-Folan

Yeah mate, like you've made reference to before, fight the urge to react when things aren't going exactly as planned.

It’s like you have a devil and an angel on each shoulder. “CHANGE IT”. “NO LEAVE IT”