#racing3 – Fully invested into analytics!

It’s funny, when growing up I was always fascinated with data in general, I would assume that’s where my current IT knowledge came from, looking at data, trying to work things out in a logical way and I’ve always enjoyed working out problems overall.

During the Christmas period, I stumbled over the Geegeez horse racing data platform, I took out the try-for-a-month deal and gave it a go, initially, I was overwhelmed with the amount of data that was collated into one place and dissecting it, even with the guides it threw me off balance, I stepped off it and gave it a few months before returning.

One thing I’ve noticed, in general, about racing is that every bit of data counts, from the trainer to the jockey, the horse itself and its Sire background, even the link between jockey and course is a big factor as well, and more.

I am by far a racing expert, when I was younger my father would have a flutter, and those days it was smokey rooms with forms and races pinned up on the walls, hardly seeing what was on the screens in the distance, fast-paced and scribbled betting written down on what I could only describe as an Argos order form (even the little pencils).

So back up on the platform, I’ve been pulling late nights to get my head over the features that the platform offers, and also starting to read the blogs and other user’s own text and systems they perhaps use.

Starting early, like most, I’ve adopted a mixture of the Shortlist, Instant Expert, and trainer/jockey forms to try and give me an extra deciding factor, it doesn’t seem much but today I had my first 2 winners after actually studying a little bit before my day kicks in… I have a busy life and working it all around work and parenting can be challenging but achievable with the right attitude!

I wanted to try and give a few screenshots of what I looked at today, how I came to make the decisions on what to place the bets on, and where I think parts of the platform helped me as well (pretty much all of it).

We’re not talking mega money, for now, as I get my head around the platform more I’m starting slow and building my system of what I enjoy the most, before opening it up more after understanding the acronyms and other quick-fire dataset information it gives me.

I will try not to give everything I do and each bet I find interesting as that would make a saturation of posts, but at least for the first few, I want to try and make a note to myself, on the blog, as what and why the tools I used stood out – and if anyone else takes information away with them – great!

The system…

I’m starting basic, I managed to find a Play series on the GeeGeez articles which outlines some real basic mechanics of how to use the tools and what to look out for when betting.

For now, as I mentioned above, I will be using the Shortlist and Instant Expert as my primary gotos, at least to find horses that stand out from others in a race itself, I know it sounds obvious but when you start to go in-depth with the data it does start to give you a small advantage to creep in those possible breaks in the horse, or the jockeys personal ways of handling courses, etc.

Date: 25/03/2024

Early look this morning, I woke up early (usual school day getting kids out of bed) and managed to grab a coffee while booting my systems up for work, I get a short period before my work life kicks in so I took a gap, 30 minutes looking over today’s shortlist and off I went.

First thing I noticed was the Win section of the shortlist was low today, the shortlist report looks at a few things I believe which include a mixture of the form, conditions, and course win rates amongst other things to try and pick out some good ‘lookers’ for the day.

I had already taken a tip from Matt (owner/creator) on one of his videos that if you get multiple horses in the same race it can be very competitive, albeit not impossible to work with, but keeping it simple for now was my goal.

I initially looked at the 17:30 / Newcastle / Asguard’s Captain and straight away went to the Instant Expert:

You could tell it looked pretty competitive, Matt has a whole blog on this which I need to read up on about contrast and what to look at fully, but I decided to pass and go over to the place report:

Sorting by time to group up the competitive races it narrowed down a couple that stood out:

16:35 – Kansas Du Berlaid @ Huntington

Sticking to my basic system, I went to the Instant Expert

It was pretty sporadic on the board but I went straight to the form and started to make some basic notes on the data that came, one thing I do like is the tracker, I can add my notes when I track a bet so I can look back and see what I looked at… important!

Notes: TJ combo (place 31.58) / RT Hurdle Turf (place 32.26)
Bet: £1 EW (big spender eh…)
Price: 15/2

I liked the TJ Combo place strike being over 30 and the Race Type for the Trainers form also over 30.

18:30 – Pallas Lord @ Newcastle

This one stood out a little more, not with the Instant Expert but the underlying stats again with the Jocky and Trainer, I have already learned to use the additional as qualifying factors to back a possible, give me that extra 5% of data to try and boost my confidence.

Lots of color here again, if it wasn’t for the shortlist I probably would have avoided it from the off, but I persisted in delving again into the form and see why it stood out.

Notes: RT (pace 53.57) / 7 Days (place 88.89 / TJC (place 50.00)
Bet: £1 EW
Price: 7/2

The Race Type and the 7 Days stood out here for me, with my previous selection just topping just over 30, these values shone out on the Trainer form, they seem to favour Flat All-Weather and that turnaround with the 7 days gave me the edge.

Moving onto the Jocky form, the only one that made me a little nervous was the TJC this time, you might say 50 was good but with the other figures so high for some reason it felt more of a risk, perhaps not…

These were enough stats to give me better confidence over what I felt would be some sort of return in the placed bet, and it paid off:

It’s been quite exciting studying for a little bit today and seeing how it goes, with a couple of winners out from it I’m looking forward to getting more in-depth with the next ones, it’s going to be a constant learning process with trial and error… and this was just in my very limited gap before life kicks in!

Speak soon.. happy betting!