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Have you ever considered laying horses on Betfair?

In this interview on RSN - Radio & Sport conducted by Nadia Horne, Dean Evans discusses some ways to identify a false favourite to either lay it or bet around it.

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Some Reasons To Lay A Favourite Or Identify A False Favourite And Bet Around It

Read the Interview transcription here: 

Nadia Horne: Today we’re going to talk about risking a horse, so some reasons to potentially lay a horse or even to look to bet around a favourite. There are various things that need to be taken into consideration.

Dean, this is a real hot issue because a lot of the times we might get a set against a horse mentally, and we need to really put it into a theory about why we do risk certain animals.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah absolutely. It's asking that critical question. It’s not about whether you should be always avoiding favourites or always backing favourites. It's really asking yourself will this favourite win or can the favourite win, and is the horse value at the price? It's really critically assessing whether there’s quality reasons for why the favourite might not win.

Nadia Horne: Let's talk about a few things and the reasons why these are so important and what we need to take into consideration. So, when you're talking about risking a horse you’ve got to go back through their form and look at a few various factors, and one I think you definitely have to look at is what type of run they had at their last start. We often find horses who received gun run throughout and maybe they didn't win as impressively as that type of run allowed them to do, so they haven’t run up to their full potential seeing that they’ve had every possible chance.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah absolutely. The key is looking deeper into the form. The horse might have a ‘1’ next to its name, but if it had the perfect run and the perfect race shape and only just got up, it may well be under the odds today, particularly as most winners have to take a step up in grade next start. So, unless you feel that it can definitely take that next step and is going to get the same gun run and race shape, then certainly it would be a risk.
Nadia Horne: That's one reason, also you’ve got to have a look at how a horse is going through a preparation and what stage they’re at. A horse might have been up for a long time and form is going to taper off at that stage of the preparation.

Dean the Trial Spy: Absolutely. Horses can get tired and stale as a preparation goes on, and most trainers will tell you if a horse is set for a certain race, it’s very difficult to get them to peak again in the same preparation. So you might want to critically assess horses that have had more than say 5 or 6 starts this prep, and particularly if they have already had their grand final.

Nadia Horne: How much importance and weight do you put on riders?

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah it’s vital. Some riders just have a poor record on favourites, or a poor record at a certain track. Often a jockey on today might be a downgrade from the jockey that was on last start. There are also some horses that simply only run for certain jockeys, so that’s always something worth considering.

Nadia Horne: So, you look at stats of certain riders too, like in particular, and this is taking nothing away from people in riding ranks, but if you’ve got a rider who goes to town, they’ve got one ride on a Saturday. They have not had a winner in town for 6 months and they’re on a horse in the market. You would tend to risk a horse like that?

Dean the Trial Spy: Yes. I look very closely at the stats, and we have got stats in our databases. But even if you look on racenet they’ve got stats for all trainers and jockeys at each track, and you can really glean some very interesting things. There are some trainers that do outstandingly well, and jockeys, on certain tracks, but when they come to the city for example they can tend to fail. So looking at those closely, by track, is a real key advantage.

Nadia Horne: What about barriers? I know that you can sit there and you can look at barriers stats, but you also have to look at how they map from that draw as well because each race is an individual contest.

Dean the Trial Spy: Well, that's the key. When we talked about bad barriers, we don't necessarily mean wide barriers, as we have spoken about previously. Inside barriers are overbet, so you can often consider laying horses with inside barriers particularly if they’re get back types. It's very difficult when they’re get back types. There are just so many excuses when you're getting back and you're stuck on rails to get blocked. And it's also true that most horses really don't like being inside runners, they like getting out and clear running and if you’re stuck on the rails you can't get there. Additionally there's tracks like Warwick Farm where inside barriers can often be poison.

Nadia Horne: What about track conditions, like heavy tracks?

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah, I think we call know wet going can throw up surprise results, so looking at those, if it’s a heavy track that are unproven in the ground, or who have shown a preference for dry ground is one way. You can also consider laying horses that raced on a very heavy track last start, because that can be a real gut-buster that can often impact a horses run and even sometimes their entire preparation.

Nadia Horne: Backmarkers, this is a very interesting point because horses who do tend to get back in a race, they do have their challenges at the best of times as they may need things run at certain tempo, but then they luck, there’s so much more advantage if you’re on an on pace type of animal.

Dean the Trial Spy: Absolutely. The everyday punter loves to back horses with a barnstorming finish, but they’re much more likely to produce a hard luck story than a victory. At the end of the day, horses that get back can be a layer’s best friend because they win a much lower percentage of races than the on pace types.

Nadia Horne: What about horses who have a big wrap on them and a lot of hype, because we tend to see these horses overbet. There’s various ways you can look at this. When markets first open up there's a rally of support and we head to the Saturday morning say for a metropolitan meeting and the horse has halved its opening quote if not more, then everybody else jumps on them and you find these horses are simply overbet and they nowhere near represent their true point in the market. Hype on horses is one thing that you have to come up with a real measure of.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yeah look, boom horses go bust every Saturday and I guess it’s your job if you’re looking at laying or looking at identifying value elsewhere to find the chink in their armour. There’s certainly opportunities that can be found by going against horses that are starting short today based only on limited runs and limited exposed form.

Nadia Horne: What about horses who put in this peak run in a preparation, and we keep on trying to rate them back to that peak performance. It happens time and time again and sometimes it might just be a flash in a pan type performance.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yes exactly. Horses are not machines and will not simply reproduce the same effort as they did last start. Many horses can’t repeat a last start peak, and can actually regress many lengths. One example is horses that run a track record as a whole have a terrible record at their next start due to the exertion of their prior run, so be wary of a horse who has peaked as you’ve probably missed the boat.

Nadia Horne: What about the trainers and their patterns? What do you take and read into this?

Dean the Trial Spy: Some trainers often have their horses ready to go first up like Gai Waterhouse, while others usually let them find fitness before being at their best 3rd or 4th up like Bart or Anthony Cummings. So it’s just important to know your trainers and their styles.

Nadia Horne: And what about sectional times, how much weight do you put on sectional times? Because we often find horses that might come out and win. People sort of say, ok they look like they are quite progressive, but when you analyse the times they’ve only gone so-so.

Dean the Trial Spy: Yes exactly. It’s vital. Our eyes can play tricks on us and some horses may have appeared impressive last start at face value, but have run sub-standard times, so studying the sectionals can often yield the truth that the eye has misrepresented.

Nadia Horne: So when you are looking at laying a horse, of course it’s got to do with favourites in particular, but it’s got to have to do with how solid they are in the market. You’ve got to look at all these factors and see how many boxes they tick.

Dean the Trial Spy: It's like old forms of punting. It's about having that edge. If you’ve identified something that the market may have missed or not considered because they have fallen in love with a horse. Then there's a real opportunity to either lay the horse or bet around it.

Nadia Horne: Brilliant, thanks Dean.

Dean the Trial Spy: Thanks Nadia.

Nadia Horne: Dean the Trial Spy talking about how to risk a horse and things to look for.

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