Betting Strategy / Perfect Punter / 21 October 2009 / Leave a comment

The Perfect Punter travels to Cheltenham race course on a quiet Saturday afternoon and watches a horse who failed at the Cheltenham festival last year put in a super performance. All of which gets him thinking about about the concepts of context and betting value.

"It’s a flatter to deceive story as old as Cleeve Hill itself."

The early October gathering at the foot of Cleeve Hill in Cheltenham is a masterclass in anticipation. It's called the Showcase meeting now, and with great respect to the other glittering prizes on offer elsewhere, you can't help but feel that every race with a hint of class about it between now and March will somehow bear relation to the four days of the Cheltenham Festival. And standing in the middle of the parade ring at Cheltenham, which I'm lucky enough to do for a living, is one of the best punting lessons that you'll ever have.

You start to learn the value of patience, of proper knowledge, and of waiting for the right time to strike. And as you watch trainers analyse every move that their horses make, and proper punters take into account every bit of information on offer, you wonder why on earth you don't apply the same exacting standards to every penny that you spend, every second of your gambling life.

So much of it is about context, and a case in point is a horse called Starluck. This was many people's idea of a good thing at a decent price for the Triumph Hurdle at last season's Festival, and travelled down the hill like the easy winner. Then, confronted by two high class rivals in Walk On and Zaynar, we found out that Starluck didn't get back up the Cheltenham hill, that the reserves of energy that the horse had on the bridle weren't really there, and Starluck faded into fourth place. It's a flatter to deceive story as old as Cleeve Hill itself.

On Saturday, Starluck ran again at Cheltenham and produced the most obviously eyecatching performance of the two day meeting. The horse stayed on the bridle, never looked under pressure, and strolled up the hill that had caused so many problems before. A quote of 33-1 for next years Champions Hurdle was quickly gobbled up, and now you'll get no bigger than 20-1 on Starluck winning Tuesday's feature in March. When you watch a performance like that, it's so easy to feel that you're onto something. But I saw a lot of shaking of the head with regard to Starluck and the Champion Hurdle from those that know, because they were bringing context into the argument.

If you want to take a price like that, then forget what you saw on a sleepy Saturday and throw your mind forward to the 19th March at about 3.15. The place will be packed to bursting, the noise as the tape lifts at the start will be earsplitting, and the ground is almost certain to be softer than it was on Saturday. If Starluck ends up running in the Champion Hurdle, he'll travel like a dream once again and bowl around the final bend like the winner. And then the true test will come. And, regardless of what has been said about the horse in the run up to the race, the next three furlongs or so will decide whether the 20-1 you took back in October constitutes a good bet. Because Starluck will be surrounded by class. It might be Hurricane Fly on one side, Celestial Halo just in front, Binocular ranging up, and an outsider like Go Native running the race of its life, all at a hell for leather pace, with tens of thousands of people screaming their lungs out. Now, put yourself in that position and tell me that 20-1 is still value.

I'm not saying that Starluck won't win, just that it pays to get away from lazy conjecture: "20-1? That's a bit of value", and ask yourself what will actually have to happen for a bet to come in. It's a kind of forensic analysis, but it isn't that hard to do, you just have to think ahead and put your bet into context. If you already apply this Starluck test to every price that you back or lay then congratulations, you're on the right track, but I think that a lot of us are lazier than that. How many times have you seen a price for a football team to win an awkward looking away game and thought: "that's value" without really analysing why? Yes, they're trading at 8-1, but what will really need to happen for them to win. Is there an angle, can you put the task facing them into context and work out how they might be victorious? Or do you just fancy them to do a bit better than people think? Remember that an 8-1 losing bet still costs you as much as an odds on loser and you should leave well alone.

So think ahead, contextualise, and imagine how hard it is for the trainer of a racehorse to get everything right, to time any challenge to perfection. If we all start applying those standards to our gambling, if we all pass the Starluck test, then I really believe that we're getting somewhere.

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Tags: Cheltenham Festival, Cheltenham tips, horseracing betting, Perfect Punter, Starluck