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Managing and Utilising Your Black Book
Friday, 08 April 2022
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Do you know how to well-manage and utilise your black book?
In this interview conducted by John Thwaites on RSN - Racing & Sports, Dean The Trial Spy discusses some tips on how to manage and utilise your black book.
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Read the Interview transcription here:
John Thwaites: Rick can't be with us today, but Dean the Trial Spy can, to have a look at black bookers, Dean's criteria and how to spot good runs and to put them into your black book. How are you Dean?
Dean the Trial Spy: Yes, very well thanks, how's things with you?
John Thwaites: Yeah pretty good, thank you mate. This is a very interesting subject, black bookers are something that all punters love to put down. What type of criteria or what type of horse fits into your mold for a good black booker?
Dean the Trial Spy: The use of a black book is something that I rely on heavily with my Trial Spy service. The whole premise of that service as discussed previously is finding winners from barrier trials, and a black book is a key tool I use to mark top quality triallers and then be notified of when they are racing.
Firstly one of the key secrets that I wanted to share is something that myself and my members have benefited from greatly, which is the concept of actually keeping a horse in the black book for a large number of starts, or at least until a win, which is something that I know, surprisingly, most people don’t do, and I’ll touch on that a bit later.
Most people will black book a horse that say got back and was either held up or absolutely flew home with the flashing light on them. The first point I’ll make is generally horses that are held up in running are often the most overbet by the public at their next start, as so many people will have black booked that runner that in the end the market overreacts and overrates that performance. And two key points to consider when black booking a horse that was held up is firstly, where would the horse likely have finished were it not held up. Oftentimes a horse may be held up but if you look closely often you can discern that the horse may not have actually finished much closer anyway. Another element to consider is whether the prevailing track bias or pace of the race had actually more to do with the horse being able to amble up from the rear into the race before being held up, rather than the horse actually being full of running.
It's important to remember that the vast majority of races are won by horses on pace, so if you’re always black booking horses who get back and fly home down the outside, or get back and are held up, you’re actually backing the lower percentage play horses in the long term. Obviously one of my specialties is black booking horses from trials, but some of the great things to look out for when black booking a horse from a race include was the horse caught wide without cover, was the horse involved in a speed duel, or sitting on a suicidal pace where it can be forgiven for tiring, and one of my favorite’s is; was the horse just a victim of the prevailing track bias on the day, and there are plenty of great value priced winners you can identify from that.
John Thwaites: Well, those are very good points Dean. You touched on the issue that we tend to jump off black bookers very early, we give them one or two runs, if they don't perform we sack them for want of a better term, but you don't agree with that, you keep on persevering?
Dean the Trial Spy: No, we keep on persevering, certainly through Trial Spy service, we have found numerous examples of horses that run down the track often with no rhyme or reason. We had a horse Berna win for us $14 that came off a run where it finished 12th beaten 6.5 length for no reason, but another great example, recently of that was Lauterbrunnen, a horse we blackbooked from its trials, but many could have black book the horse from one of its runs in its prior prep where it ran a close 5th as a maiden in an open 3yo race. Now it had two runs this prep, it was backed in from $13 into $4 first up, and ran 7th beaten 5 lengths, and then was backed from $7 into $4 and went even worse running from 10th beaten 14 lengths, and the stewards reports gave no real explanation about the performance. Hence when the horse started again 3rd up last week, this time he drifted out the $17 and duly saluted, and we stuck with him whereas most people dropped off him, and the key difference was they rode the horse cold back the field and that allowed him to show his turn of foot and replicate his trial form. But that’s a great example where clearly there was stable support along with support due to the trial performances early in the campaign but even the ardent stable supporters seemingly dropped off him 3rd up.
John Thwaites: So a case of persevering is there ever a time where a horse has so many chances that that’s it and you will drop off, or do you really stick hard and fast to that rule.
Dean the Trial Spy: Yes, absolutely, there comes a point in time when sometimes you need to let them go. But I stick very solidly, and try to look for the excuses as there are so many ways for a horse to get beat, whether it's track conditions, whether it's track bias, whether it's jockey error, whether it's a gear chance change or whether the horse isn’t being ridden the right way or whether the horse has just trained off. I tend to look for every potential reason why that horse may have not been performing up to the original reason why you black booked it.
I think it’s more about, when you black book a horse, having the courage in your convictions to stick with it and not black booking every single horse that you see, but saying I’m black booking a horse for a reason, I really believe that, well, generally the reason should be I believe it's a horse of far greater class than it's currently running in. And if you're backing your ability to assess that, then you shouldn’t be dropping off until you’re certain that the horse isn’t living up to what you believe.
John Thwaites: Yeah fair call Dean, so it’s the selection of the horse and then when assessing its performances when it does not win, careful analysis to makes sure you unearth every single point as to why that horse lost and if they’re legitimate you keep on going.
Dean the Trial Spy: Absolutely, another example based on the track bias premise is a horse called The Da who Trial Spy members have backed 3 times for 2 wins. We backed that horse at Newcastle on May 6 after it had trialled very well winning a Warwick Farm 1200m trial by 6.5 lengths. It ran 6th in that Newcastle race, but I provide a summary of our runners the day after each betting day, and I wrote the following about The Da.
It drifted on Betfair from $5 out to $10. It was nothing sinister, it just simply reflected the wicked track bias of the day where no on pacers nor anything near the rails won. This horse pushed forward to lead, stayed on the rails in the straight, stuck on gamely, shook off a couple of the challengers outside, but was swamped very late by the wider swoopers and ran 6th. It was excellent run in the circumstances, and one way of denoting that when assessing the meeting, the leaders in the first 5 races were beaten 6L, 8L, 11L, 13L and 13L. So for The Da to be only beaten 1.7L was a mammoth effort and you can forgive most horses on pace or who raced in the inside 2 lanes on the day in the straight, it was off but plenty of the jockeys were asleep to it.
We followed up on The Da at Muswellbrook a couple of weeks later, and backed him in from $9 into $4 and he led all the way to win by 2.5lengths. It's just a good example where, it doesn't matter how good a horse is, if the bias or the conditions of the day aren’t going to suit, or the pace, then you need to forgive that horse and stick with him.
John Thwaites: Very interesting talk Dean, so we must make sure we identify the correct horse and then make sure we stick solidly with them, and in assessing every run that doesn't win, making sure that we are not discounting the horse because it could have had bias or just things didn't go its way and things just didn't turn out to plan.
Dean the Trial Spy: Absolutely correct.
John Thwaites: Good on you Dean, thank you.
Dean the Trial Spy: All right, thank you very much.
John Thwaites: That is Dean the Trial Spy looking at black bookers and also the criteria of selecting the black booker. Oh so important, and then as we go through its prep, don't jump up too early because no sooner than you jump off than they just tend to find the winners stall.
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