Consequences of EI To The Punter

As authorities headed by the DPI in all states endeavour to control the spread of EI within their designated zones, while trainers and jockeys in NSW and Queensland wonder when and where their horses will next race, while breeders despair over whether their broodmares will be served by stallions, we punters have been left lamenting as the forgotten misfits in the entire crisis.

Let's have a closer look, state by state of what punters are being dished up on daily basis compared to what we should have had if EI had not infected the country.

Firstly in Queensland, there has basically been no racing in SE Qld of any consequence since 24 August. There were a few closed meetings, however due to the break between races for most horses, it was difficult for punters to line up which horses were or weren't fit, and which horses had coped with the training retsrictions the best. So even in these meetings, punting was fraught with danger, and we certainly were not using them as potential betting meetings. Now, with no racing whatsoever in SE Qld, we see the focus move north to Rockhampton who are racing most Saturdays now, along with Townsville and Mackay. The form as these will meetings usually stack up, ansd the meetings at these venues in recent weeks are proving reasonable betting propositions as they always do. The meeting at Cairns yesterday, and for that matter future TAB meetings at Cairns will also fall into similar categpry with the other north coast tracks in Queensland. However, last Thursday the TAB allowed betting for the first time to our knowledge on a meeting at Charleville. On Thursday of this week, a TAB meeting will be conducted at the old mining town of Mount Isa. Now, I've been to a race meeting at the Mount and what a great day it was. Great for socialising and meeting the locals, having a cool ale or three, but not great for putning. Run on brown dirt, the races were very biased toward leaders with some horses carrying massive weights, a real horses for courses track. At Charleville last week, large, evenly matched fields abounded, so along with the dirt surface punters faced a herculian task to finish in front of the leger. I know a few punters who, starved of a punt on Queensland races, had bets at Charleville just for the sake of it, despite not knowing any of the horses, most of the jockeys, nor knowing the form or how the track might play. Good luck to QR for putting on these TAB meeting in an endeavour to salvage lost turnover, however, most are truely not punting propositions, and punters must take extreme care if they decide to outlay their cash on these meetings. Stick to Rocky, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns where we know the horses, know how the tracks play, and which form lines will stand up.

The "closed" NSW TAB meetings that have appeared since the outbreak of EI are even worse for punters. Mainly because most horses racing have not raced for several months, giving the punter little hope of knowing if each individual horse is fit enough to win their race. Not only that, the fields are massive, giving horses drawn out wide virtually no chance of figuring in the finish. Then last Friday, punters were given a meeting at Canberra, the first for two years on their course proper. Now, because of EI, and horse movement restrictions, most of the horses at Canberra had been racing on the Acton (inside) track at Canberra. On Friday, we saw form reversals galore as horses who were handling the Acton surface, found the grass too difficult for them, and conversely plenty of horses who struggled on the Acton, found a new lease of life back on grass. What a conundrum for punters !! Winning on the punt anywhere in NSW will be a nearly impossible task for the punter until racing resumes a normal schedule, we certainly will not be punting on any NSW race until at February, possibly longer.

One may wonder how the EI crisis could affect Victorian racing. They have totally ignored NSW and Qld to continue on regardless as close to their normal schedule as possible. However, we have noticed a few things occurring out of the norm. Firstly, over the early wekks of EI, say 25 August to mid September, there were a lot of meetings abandoned. For example instead of having 2 or 3 meetings on a Saturday or Sunday, only one was held. Now this meant plenty of horses were missing runs, and in the early days plenty of horses missed some work as well. This caused a lot of upset results, and still is. The fitter horses, those who didn't miss work, and continued to race are now much fitter than those who did not race. Now also consider the fact that NSW horses from Albury, Wagga etc are unable to travel across the border to race in Victoria as they normally would, as was the case with South Australian horses earlier in the crisis. What this has done, is encourage the trainers with larger stables to travel further around Victoria to try to win a race with their horses. So we see trainers like Lee Freedman, Colin Alderson, Peter Moody etc turning up at obscure meetings. Now their horse may win, they may not, but this throws form out the window not only for these races, but their next couple of starts. I have noticed a couple of Freedman horses win in the bush lately, he then puts them straight into a city race and they fail miserably, usually well in the market too. Punters see Freedman with a last start maiden winner for example racing at Sandown, and thinks Freedman must have an opinion of the horse bringing him straight to town after an easy kill in the bush. These types of horses are not going on with the job when facing tougher assignments as would normally be expected. And the massive form reversals and upsets during the Spring carnival so far have been glaring. Whether this has anything to do with EI, the fact no Qld or NSW horses are in Victoria for the carnival, whether some horses have taken longer to get fitter, it is hard to say, however never before has their been so many upset reults in the major races as we have seen so far this Spring. And this will continue.

The impact in other states, it must be said has been negligible. However another issue that has caused issues for punters is the introduction of Ratings Based races in SA, WA and Tasmania. These races continually turn up unusual results, as they have done in Victoria and NSW for the past 12 months. Treat these races as if they are a class race, using the most number of wins by a horse in the race as the real class. For example, in an RB72 races, of the 12 starters, the top weight has the most number of previous wins at 5, treat the race as a "pseudo" Class 5 race. So a horse who won a miaden at it's last start, racing against Class 5 or Class 4 horses, will usually struggle to win, despite any favours in the weights. And remember, the weights are decided on the horses rating, not decided on what class of horse he really is. A horse in this RB72 race might be a Class 1 horses, however has a rating of 70, therefore will still carry close to top weight, usually at least 57kg. And we would not want to be backing a Class 1 horse against Class 5 horses with almost top weight. Use 1.5 kg for each class a horse is below the horse with the most number of wins. Now this might seem like an exhorbitant amount, however it will save you backing horses unless they are most favourably weighted. So if a Class 5 horse is against a Class 1 horse, you should only back the class 1 horse if he gets at least 6kg from the Class 5 horse, and this will rarely happen. Of course, sometimes the Class 1 horse will win because he is an up and comer at his peak whereas the Class 5 horse is older and leg weary, however in the long term you will go broke backing a class 1 horse against horses who are of higher grade. Mares get a distinct advantage in these races too, usually a 2.5kg advantage which is equal to around 1.7 lengths. That is quite a lot considering they are rated on the same level, yet receive such a huge weight advantage.

We averaged almost 65 bets per month last racing season, showing an overall profit of just over 2% on turnover. In August we had only 30 bets, in September only 43, and look like having around the 40 mark for October well down on last years average. We are slightly in the positive for the year so far, after losing in August and making it up since then. However, having fewer bets due to EI and the RB races will in the long term affect our overall profits.

Not much we can do other than to be ultra patient and wait for the good things to come along. Come along they still do, however not as frequently as we are used to. Punters should be betting on meetings where there has been little or no disruption to racing. Races in WA, SA, North Eastern Queensland are certainly still good profitable betting propositions. Meetings in NSW, Western Queensland are certainly not betting propositions. Meetings in Victoria should be attacked with extreme caution at present, especially where the fields are inordinately large, try to stick to races which have smaller fields and there are only a couple of realistic chances in the race. And beware of RB races in all states, analyse the form and weights very carefully before deciding to bet on them.

PASS members are showing nice profits this racing year, with profit levels over 33% overall so far from only 25 selections. Our horses to follow are flying too with recent Group winners like Bon Hoffa and Master O'Reilly. So if you would like to be part of the action here at PASS, please contact us profselections@austarnet.com.au and we will show you how to become involved.

Good luck and profitable punting to all.