Irish Racing / Wayne Bailey / 05 August 2009 / Leave a comment

Following the jolly when it was beaten before can often reap rewards writes Wayne Bailey...

"I’d give an educated guess that a lot of people don’t like the beaten favourite symbol, and perhaps the memory of losing money on the horse before can be off-putting. But anything that puts punters off can often result in the price being a couple of ticks higher than it should be."

I don't spend a lot of time in the bookmakers these days but when my internet connection went down on Tuesday, I decided to visit one of my local offices and watch the racing for a couple of hours.

Of course, it was full of the usual characters who can be found all over Ireland and the UK, and I always find it amusing to listen in to their ramblings. Opposing the majority view can often reap rewards in this game, and I was reminded of a strategy I used to employ with good success when the horses were on parade for the 6:50 at Roscommon.

The favourite (a Sadler's Wells filly named Estephe) was a short price - but looked to me to be the proverbial 'good thing' of the evening. However, the punters around me in the bookmakers weren't too keen and one bloke reasoned that the BF (beaten favourite) symbol beside her name was a good enough reason to oppose.

I'd give an educated guess that a lot of people don't like the BF symbol, and perhaps the memory of losing money on the horse before can be off-putting. But anything that puts punters off can often result in the price being a couple of ticks higher than it should be. So, with that in mind, I delved into the stats to check if my maiden races strategy still proved profitable.

Basically, it involves following the favourite in Irish Flat maiden races if the horse was a BF last-time out. By my reckoning, the fact that the animal is favourite gives some level of confidence in the selection, even though blindly following the jolly is generally a short-cut to the poorhouse. But the crucial point here is that while the horse may be favourite it can still be overpriced as a lot of people who would have backed it ordinarily are put off by the fact that it was beaten last time out.

That's just my theory and I'll leave it open for scrutiny but for whatever reasons, the strategy has pointed me towards some nice bets in the past.

Again, I don't want to put this forward as some sort of system - you should still consult the form book and make up your own mind on every horse you bet on. Indeed, I don't suggest blindly backing the qualifiers but it's certainly worth giving each horse serious attention.

So to summarise:

* Race is a flat Irish maiden
* Horse is clear favourite
* Horse was a beaten favourite last-time-out

Since 2003, there have been 141 winners from 282 bets following the above criteria (a strike-rate of exactly 50%) and had you stuck £10 on each, you would show a profit of £158 to traditional SP. My own records show a better return to Betfair SP however. The place strike rate was 79%. Just one year (2007) showed a very slight loss of four points when the strike-rate dropped down to 42%. Once again, it's providing plenty of winners in 2009 but I'll admit that the profits are modest.

Again, I don't encourage anyone to blindly back the horses - you should always do some further form study. But I'd certainly suggest that you give such animals more than a second glance.

Oh, and Estephe won too!

Tags: Betting Strategy, Estephe, Irish Racing