@angus-macleod Yeh i have faith in the short odds lays. Hit a really tough patch at the end of Jan and recovered. I believe it will again. The only worry is thats 2 crashs in the space of a few months, from 2 years of data we havnt seen this happen or close to it. Its co-incided with my others crashing too.
Of all the strats, I reckon short odds is the one i trust. Back the fav im starting to have my doubts though, seems way too volatile
@john-folan said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
@fraser-cord said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
Hello all traders. Looking for a bit of insight from those of you who have been trading for a while on the horses. Ive been trading in some form for 6 months now so have a rough idea (only 2-3 months on horses), but im becoming concerned with the current downswing (i know they happen but the extent of it).
I know the software is a guide and can never predict the future. But the short odds lays and back the fav have not had a profitable day now in close to 2 weeks (short odds lays is more than 2 weeks). I've checked the software and cant find a spell like this. Yes both were points up this month until then, but now are massively down. They say madness is keep doing the same thing but expect a different outcome. When do you start to become concerned. And as it happens, this totally coincided with my football strategy going from points up to down during the same period so the last 2 weeks have been shocking for my trading.
Any advice much appreciated
I’ve had bad spells like this before in my live trading. I’m 5 points down for the month (I was a few up at the start). Not bothered in the slightest.
Have to agree having a bad couple of weeks, but long term profit is good for me. If you actually look at some of the strategies you can have runs of 20 losers, but like everything you have to look long term, Rome wan't built in a day as the Old folks used to say, only problem is I say it now!
@william-maynard said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
why is it when we get the e mail for back favourite at the off it obv says wait until the off, but when you look on strategies software it actually names a horse ? is that just the fav at that time of checking?
yes, rather than list every horse like the layshort.
Yes. I think most people use 2 filters for strategies that list favourite, number of runners etc. The filter that provides the qualifiers has those removed as they might change through the day.
Must admit I struggled a bit earlier with this too regarding the short odds lays, my bank took a whopping great hit and must have been seeing stars at one point 
Since then however it has indeed come back to a healthier balance but still technically under the balance that I started with but I am not too worried.
After having some chats with the horse racing whisperer @John-Folan I personally think that working on the mindset side of things is huge. Now I'm not trying to sound like one of these motivational videos you see on youtube (if you or anyone else has fallen into that rabbit hole of watching loads of motivation videos, you'll know what I mean
) but what helped me was changing my perspective; looking at this type of trading as a longer term thing and not (like I was at the start) thinking I could withdraw profit nearly every week.
I can't speak too much about footy trades as its not something I do...yet... but as far as the short odds lays, the way I see it, bookies have been cashing in laying horses forever so in my view, I reckon long term thinking is the way to go.
Hope this unintentional ramble is of some help pal
why is it when we get the e mail for back favourite at the off it obv says wait until the off, but when you look on strategies software it actually names a horse ? is that just the fav at that time of checking?
Look at the creation dates on the strategies. That might give you a clue as to the issue (if there is one).
@john-folan Yeh im the same on the short odds lays. But all my others have tanked so im significantly more than 5 down, hence my concern.
@martin said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
@fraser-cord could do with some details on your strategies, if you want to use private coaching instead of posting that on here, please do so
I just have @Martin, well i think I have, the only topic said J Wright, so posted in there.
@fraser-cord could do with some details on your strategies, if you want to use private coaching instead of posting that on here, please do so 
@fraser-cord said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
Hello all traders. Looking for a bit of insight from those of you who have been trading for a while on the horses. Ive been trading in some form for 6 months now so have a rough idea (only 2-3 months on horses), but im becoming concerned with the current downswing (i know they happen but the extent of it).
I know the software is a guide and can never predict the future. But the short odds lays and back the fav have not had a profitable day now in close to 2 weeks (short odds lays is more than 2 weeks). I've checked the software and cant find a spell like this. Yes both were points up this month until then, but now are massively down. They say madness is keep doing the same thing but expect a different outcome. When do you start to become concerned. And as it happens, this totally coincided with my football strategy going from points up to down during the same period so the last 2 weeks have been shocking for my trading.
Any advice much appreciated
I’ve had bad spells like this before in my live trading. I’m 5 points down for the month (I was a few up at the start). Not bothered in the slightest.
Hello all traders. Looking for a bit of insight from those of you who have been trading for a while on the horses. Ive been trading in some form for 6 months now so have a rough idea (only 2-3 months on horses), but im becoming concerned with the current downswing (i know they happen but the extent of it).
I know the software is a guide and can never predict the future. But the short odds lays and back the fav have not had a profitable day now in close to 2 weeks (short odds lays is more than 2 weeks). I've checked the software and cant find a spell like this. Yes both were points up this month until then, but now are massively down. They say madness is keep doing the same thing but expect a different outcome. When do you start to become concerned. And as it happens, this totally coincided with my football strategy going from points up to down during the same period so the last 2 weeks have been shocking for my trading.
Any advice much appreciated
@david-milligan Oh yeah for sure! I was just intrigued by the idea because I joined BTC just as the WC was starting in Nov/Dec and we know what that did to the football presets
I think if there'd been a really obvious tanking of, say, both the back strategies in the week after the festival then that would have been kind of interesting
But even then, due to the sample size, there are no "patterns" to be seen here one way or the other (misuse of language from me in my original post). Essentially that spreadsheet is just a list of "a bunch of stuff that happened". It was really boring and fiddly to put it together though, so I didn't want to just chuck it in the bin lol
Referring to the previous discussion of "Fooled by Randomness" I'm tempted to say it's well within the realms of random fluctuation, I think we would need a much bigger sample to draw any meaningful conclusions from it!
Hiya
I was intrigued by the idea that big festivals (like Cheltenham) might have an effect on the results, so I did a little digging in the software
Here's what I did for Cheltenham;
I've filtered the 5 presets that Martin sends out by:
The 3 days of the festival itself
Festival Week
The week before the festival (when things are getting prepped) and,
The week after the festival (when ppl might be really hungover or something)
The only pattern I can see in all this is that Back the C&D does quite well in the week of the festival, and not so well the week after (i.e. the week we're in now). But that's only based on 2 years of data.
You might be able to see some other pattern though
Important to say; some of my data might be wrong (it was really boring to do this and I started to fall asleep),
and I was using my own presets versions, which have been very slightly tweaked from the originals
Anyway, this is what I got.
@jonathan-jones also you have to think about the quality of racing when so many horses have veered off to Cheltenham
@martin I think there is logic behind it. It could just be luck but there is logical reasoning that you could apply. With the strategies we need our selections (based on historical stats) to trade within specific odds ranges. If the traders responsible for most of the volume are making hay on the festivals then that means less volume to determine the odds 'correctly' on other events.
Basically for our strategies (which are purely stats based and play the numbers over a sample size according to normal conditions) we need everything to be 'normal' to ensure the same conditions. If there is a major festival thats obvioualy not going to be the case.
I could be totally wrong but it seems reasonable.
@matthew-sheehan said in The BTC Horse Racing Thread:
@Martin it all racing. I decided to up my stakes a bit and then hit a losing streak on a few strategies, but it happens, I suppose. I've had plenty of losing streaks before. @John-Folan thanks I have just downloaded the book and will give it a read
that's good to know because I think massive festivals probably do have an effect on the other racing going on. I'm starting to think it's like leagues that carry on through an international break! Something to monitor moving forward
@Martin it all racing. I decided to up my stakes a bit and then hit a losing streak on a few strategies, but it happens, I suppose. I've had plenty of losing streaks before. @John-Folan thanks I have just downloaded the book and will give it a read
