Trading Example

Last week, I said I wanted to talk though an example of how I trade a race. I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss it yet but I’ve had a couple of comments concerning yesterday’s race, so I’ll do a quick post describing how I traded Ashdown Express in the 3.40 at Windsor on Saturday.

A few quick points:

I don’t use any software such as Bet Angel or Bet Trader. I only use the standard Betfair interface.
I don’t use any graphs or weight of money indicators when I am trading.
I don’t use any standard staking plan. I change my stakes on a race by race basis and depending on how confident I am about the horse I am trading.
I only trade horses which I think can win each race.
I always back first and then lay.
I never green up (or red up).
I never cut losses short.

OK, any horse-racing trader reading this blog is probably shaking their head in disbelieve at the moment as I appear to break every golden rule of trading. I think the biggest thing is probably the fact I don’t use any software or any indication of trends such as weight of money or graph techniques.

So, what do I use when trading a race?

I only use 3 things. I use the normal Betfair interface, the Racing Post and the Oddschecker site.

I never trade a race without having a quick look at the RP card and a quick look at some of the form. I do mean a quick look though (i.e. 5 mins max in most cases).

I hadn’t looked at any races before I started trading on Saturday. I was chatting to Andrew on MSN and I asked if he had any potential fancies coming up and he mentioned Ashdown Express in the 3.40. It was currently 3.20pm, so I had 20 minutes to trade it if I wanted to.

I had a quick look at its form and the form of the favourites in the race. I decided that Ashdown would be an OK horse to trade as I could give it a chance.

I quickly checked the horse’s odds on Oddschecker. It was 10/1 with every bookmaker. I then looked at Betfair and brought up its graph to see what it had been trading at. The horse had barely moved from 12.5 all day, which is pretty standard for a 10/1 shot.

On Betfair, the horse was looking quite weak with lots of money available to back at 12.5 and 12, so it was likely to drift. I sat and watched for 5 minutes…..

It drifted to 13.5 and was still available at 10/1 with all bookmakers. I snapped up £50 at 13.5 when it became available. The horse then drifted to 11/1 with the bookmakers and looked very weak at 13.5 on Betfair. I thought about scratching the trade but I stuck with it. It then shortened to 10/1 again and went to 11.5 on Betfair, but I decided to stick with my initial bet.

I then quickly noticed the horse had drifted to 12/1 on Oddschecker with a couple of bookmakers and all hell broke loose on Betfair! Huge amounts appeared at 12.5 and 13 and off it went on a drift.

I backed £50 at 16, £100 at 16.5. I then noticed that it had been cut to 9/1 on oddschecker and I knew it was the wrong price on Betfair. I asked for another £200 at 16.5 and got £75 matched before £2k entered the market ahead of me at 16.

I then said to Andrew on MSN that I had struck the jackpot here as the £2k bet worked its way down snapping up all prices from about 16 to 11 before being fully matched at 10.5. I then knew I had to exit the bet quickly, so I put a lay at 11 for £300 and none of it got matched. I then jumped ahead of the market by about 4 ticks to get fully matched and the horse settled at about 13.5, so I got out at a decent price at 13.

I then weighed up the situation and decided I wanted to have £50 green on the field and the rest on my horse to win, so I laid off another £25 to give me the position in the picture shown in my previous post.

I decided to not lay off in running as I was happy with my £50 guaranteed profit and I would have been even better off if my horse had won!

Obviously, that was pretty much the perfect race for me and it’s never usually as straightforward as this to make money…...