The Bookie Breakdown - Part 2

Welcome back to the Bookie Breakdown.

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

This week, we’re focusing on the Night of Champions. For those new to the column, this is where I pull back the curtain on how we price and trade our New Zealand harness markets, the decisions we got right, the ones we got wrong, and the reasoning behind both.

What a night of racing to write about. The best against the best and it delivered. 

Here’s our take on the key races.

Race 2 :

This was an interesting race to price. You had to quantify the very public rap trainer/driver Tony Herlihy and his camp have on the filly Our Col, alongside the profile and body of work of Kyvalley Ray. We opened Our Col as the $2.30 favourite, and Kyvalley Ray at $2.90, with the draws being the main factor in that decision. The market saw it completely differently. Kyvalley Ray was heavily backed days out, and it was clear early that the market was going to flip. Kyvalley Ray ended up holding 59% of the Fixed Odds win investment, suggesting the market had her closer to a $1.60 to $1.70 chance, making our closing price of $2.15 still a touch big. Our Col’s passing lane victory was a great result for us, holding just 27%.
One to watch: Kairo held more investment than Tattica despite starting at a bigger price and may be one to keep an eye on next start in a more suitable race.

Race 5 :

It’s safe to say we got this one wrong. We have really struggled over the past year and a half to price this crop of 3-year-old fillies, and that continued on Friday night. When we framed this market, we thought there were a few ways the race could play out. The customers saw one way, and one only. Smackdown was heavily supported early in trading - the $11 opening price was value and the $7.50 closing price on money invested alone was bang on.
We opened Ripples at $2.90 with question marks around the uncertain race map drawing 1 the second line, which in hindsight was much too generous. Even the $2.20 on the close was too big, holding 53% of fixed win bets. In a race where we had little confidence, we needed to trade more aggressively and should have been selling less than $2 on the jump. The lead/trail scenario played out exactly as the market anticipated, and the two best backed runners ran first and second.

Race 7 :

The Garrard’s Sires Stakes 3-year-old colts and gelding semifinal was a great example of a race where most punters would assume we cleaned up, but we didn’t. Allamericanplayer was very well found in this market, priced and traded well, holding around 48% of money invested, which is perfect for a horse at that price point of $2.10. Where we came unstuck was not respecting the money for Lincoln Wave. We penalised him heavily from his wide draw and his big starting prices in previous three-year-old races. The mistake there was that Jumal was in those fields, which explains the inflated starting prices, so opening the Ray Green and Nathan Delany-trained runner at $101 was unnecessary. With Lincoln Wave holding 1.5% of the book, we should have been trading him at $51 to $41, not $91, which would have limited the damage. A losing result on the win book, but when you account for multis and the Box Seat Boost on Allamericanplayer, which held $20k, we came out in front for the race. Some lessons for us in this race regardless.

Race 8 :

These types of races with an extremely hot favourite are largely non-events for us in terms of win market pricing, as they almost price themselves. Keayang Zahara was $1.05 all day long - my nana could have priced her, and she calls harness racing ‘chariot racing’. Where the difficulty comes is in the Extras markets we open around these races. They are complex and do not always directly reflect the win market. The two markets that saw the most action were the market with Keayang Zahara removed, and the first NZ horse home. We got one right and one wrong. We had mapped Jilliby Ballerini to get a good trip and had her as firm favourite in the Zahara out market against Gus, who we knew would have to do plenty of work. Meant To Be at $7.50 to be first Kiwi home was, in hindsight, blatantly wrong and was found by a few astute judges. Overall, though, Keayang Zahara was a great result in our win book, holding just 60% of single win bets. Meant To Be was our worst result, closely followed by Gus.

Race 9 :

Plenty of opinions out there on the market for The Race by Sport Nation, and that is what racing is all about. With this race being Australian dominant, there were a few external factors that helped shape our closing market. Early doors, there was plenty of chatter around the speed map, and personally I think this is one of the weaknesses in NZ harness markets. Once the market settles on one likely scenario, it shapes the majority of early betting. We sold a very large proportion of our early bets on Swayzee and Captains Knock, with customers playing the anticipated lead/trail situation. We opened Swayzee at $4.20 and were more than happy selling bets there, sitting at $4 for as long as we physically could before external factors caused us to close shorter at $3.20. Leap To Fame, with his high profile, was the best backed runner in the race and was our worst result. The Janitor was a drifter in the market, but we knew that would be the case and were comfortable putting ourselves in that position. Merlin was the best backed Kiwi by a margin. I’m happy with how we handled this race from a pricing and trading perspective. It is very easy to listen to the outside noise and reshape your market. We did not on this occasion.

Wrap

This feature meeting was a night where we just came out in front across the 10-race card. Ripples was our worst result on the night, with our best results coming on the undercard, including Bettor Reaction, Leo Lincoln and, surprisingly, Francent. Hope you all enjoyed the racing and the extra betting options we had on offer. Back a couple winners but not too many.