Betfair Official Blog

Jockey's body language is a red herring, pace of the race is not

Our girl in the yard tells us why in-play betting punters must be sleuth-like when analysing the clues that can lead them to success

Bespectacled, beard-wearing, philosophy-types call it ignoratio elenchi. It means presenting something that might be true in itself, but has no relevance to the point in question.

Normal people are more familiar with the whodunit equivalent, a red herring, where the audience is led down a perfectly plausible, but ultimately incorrect, path of guilt.

It takes the mind of a Morse, or perhaps a Jessica Fletcher (my own favourite), to filter all the extraneous information that confuses us mortals, and focus on the pertinent clue that leads them to the murderer.

When betting in-running, you'd be well served to analyse, Morse-like, the clues you are receiving and decide which are relevant, and which are the red herrings.

Because I'm certain most people, even those with years of race-watching experience, focus on the wrong clues when trying to decide the most likely winner.

By far the most likely suspect to distract in-running punters is a jockey's body-language. True, on the whole, you would rather have backed the horse whose jockey is sat motionless toward the end of a race. But the market undoubtedly overreacts to this.

Numerous horses I have been involved with would down tools as soon as a rider pressurised them. The only way to get the best out of them was to kid them into thinking they weren't racing. A motionless rider might not have as much underneath them as an onlooker thinks.

Studying the past performances of horses and understanding their idiosyncrasies is crucial if you are to avoid the pitfall of believing a horse has more left than it does. When a Brave Inca or Inglis Drever comes under pressure, it's a very different thing to when a Harchibald or Ouninpohja comes under similar pressure.

But even if you are fairly certain a horse doesn't fall into the shirker category, you still have to contend with a jockey who might just be showing off. And do you really want to risk your money on the fragile ego of a midget whose whole subconscious is dominated by wishing they had been born taller?

The single most important factor when betting in-running is to have an understanding of the pace that a horse has run. It's a complex topic that I intend to go into in detail next week, but as a starter, follow this simple rule... If they've gone quick, the horses at the back are at an advantage, if they've gone slow, the ones at the front are at an advantage.

Just using this as a simple guide will bring far more profit than the red herring that is a jockey's demeanour.