Bookie Breakdown – Addington Premier Night, May 22

By Ben Grimstone, the TAB's Trading Manager for Harness Racing

In this column I delve into the why, how and what behind our tactics and results on the biggest harness meetings in New Zealand. Today it is Addington's Premier meeting last Friday night.
 
Off the back of my last column and the hiding we received, I naively assumed the next one I wrote would be back in the bookies' favour.

The punters had other ideas. I'll go through a handful of the Addington races, including the features. We got more wrong than we got right.

Race 1 :

This was a good example of a well-priced and traded favourite, and a positive start for us as the bookies. We opened Axel Rose as a clear odds-on favourite at $1.75, feeling he had lengths on this field. The betting suggested we opened too short and that he was vulnerable, drifting from $1.75 out to $2.30. He only held 27% of the money invested in the race which, from our perspective, was a cracking way to start the night.

Race 5 :

We were a bit unlucky here. We opened Master McGoogan as second favourite at $3.50 and drifted out to $4.20 as he was under-supported at the time. However, once we hit $4.20, we sold a handful of very large bets which made him our clear worst result in the race. He held 33% of the total hold and won impressively.

Race 6 :

The Group 1 Welcome Stakes was a clear three-horse race and it was priced and traded as such. Between Roger That, Travel Agent and Chiggsy, they held 91% of total fixed win investment. The winner Travel Agent held 28% of the hold, suggesting the $2.50 closing price was actually too short and could have closed north of $3. A good result for us.

Race 7 : 

The Box Seat team got us good here. In hindsight, we opened Eurostyle too big at $2.80. She held 61% of total bets in the race, suggesting she should have closed below $2. On top of that, the Box Seat Boost on Eurostyle to win (paying $3) cost us $40k. She never looked like getting beaten. Well played punters.

Race 8 :

Jumal's races price themselves, especially when he draws where he did. We opened $1.18 and closed $1.18. He ran through a stack of multis. Our book with Jumal "out” had Forever Miki as the best backed runner, so punters got a bit there when he fought on for second. However, Sonofamistery was the best backed in Same Race Multis around Jumal, so we got some back there. All in all, this was a bit of a nothing race from the bookmakers’ desk as Jumal was way too good.

Race 9 :

A tough race to price. I have said it a few times before, but quantifying handicaps in races like this is one of the more difficult parts of our roles as pricers. Obviously, It’s Tough is the best horse in the race but predicting his winning chances from 30m back in a strong field was difficult. We opened $2.80, where we thought we had him well covered. The avalanche of money from opening to closing suggested we were wrong. He held 67% of total investment in the race, meaning even our closing price of $2.20 was value.

Race 10 :

Sounding like a broken record but another hard race to price. I feel that if you gave this race to anyone in our team we would have come up with a similar looking opening market.

Mostert looked the clear favourite but the punters disagreed, holding just 21% of investment in the race suggesting on weight of money alone he should have been closer to a $4 chance. We opened the winner Seeking Clarity too big at $13 and ended up holding 17% of the money invested. This suggests even our closing price of $7.50 could have been a touch big, and she ended up winning very easily too.

Wrap :

This was yet another night where the punters came out in front. Friday night was a cracking night’s racing, where a mixture of high-profile favourites that were heavily supported ended up saluting, and a couple of wrong calls were made trading wise, resulting in a tough night at the desk.

With feature racing winding down for winter, this is my last column for a while. I hope you enjoyed getting a look behind the curtain of the harness trading and pricing team. At its core, it still very much comes down to our opinion versus yours, and as the past couple of months has shown, we make our fair share of errors.

Enjoy the winter racing and I hope you back a few winners to help with the power bill.