Wizard Daily Report and Research - Thursday, 16 November 2023.

• Better betting - Specialise - Sydney classes.
• Research - Trainers  - Trainers Notebook.

Better betting - Specialise - Sydney classes

Over the past two days I have discussed the opportunities that await us on the provincial and country tracks, in addition to the well-known menu of races offered up at the metropolitan meetings.

For some, the knowledge that provincial and country racing can be rated as accurately as the metros, and that horses there have form histories that can be evaluated as confidently as their metro counterparts would have come as something of a surprise. This (new) information might have suggested the value of expanding their range of betting options. However, it also raises the issues of having access to the right information and having time to evaluate an ever-increasing number or races.

There needs to be a solution to this dilemma, and there is - specialise; either on one aspect, or a limited number of areas of special interest.

And there are various opportunities to specialise, given the amount of racing that confronts us on a weekly, even daily basis, in our search for potentially the most profitable opportunities.

Just some of these specialisation options are: geographical (local and preferred/limited interstate), level (metropolitan, provincial, country), trainers (but not individual jockeys), trainer/jockey combinations, types and classes of races, various form factors (specialising on horses with proven form cycles, distance specialists, speed mappers, etc), market movers (matching with form/ratings), switchers (distance, class, location). The list of possibilities is extensive.

Today, I will make a start on providing background information for those who might want to concentrate on certain types or class of race, either in one racing location or across more than one area.

First, Sydney metropolitan tracks. Just what type of races and classes are available for specialised attention during a racing season? The figures below will give you an insight into how many might be assessable. To make the specialisation option viable you do need a reasonable number of betting opportunities, so that you can eliminate non-viable races and still have an acceptable amount of betting action. Not much use just having 6 or 7 possible bets over a year!

                                    Race classes and types - Sydney Metropolitan - 2022-2023 racing season

If you are not interested in 2yo racing, and lukewarm about the 3yos, there is plenty of 3yo+ racing in Sydney alone.

Group racing for 3yo and older horses in Sydney, for example, delivers 68 possible races, mainly concentrated during the carnivals. Adding in the F&M and Mares Group races we have 86 in total. So, for those who want to concentrate on the higher end of the class spectrum there will be plenty of opportunities when you factor in the Group races in Melbourne, and other major metropolitan areas.

One of my long term subscribers to Superform, who has been successful over many years, will only bet on the Group races. He has developed an in depth understanding of what is required to win each of the various types of Groups, and made a close study of the trainers who successfully set their horses for these black type events. He concentrates on Groups 1,2, and 3 in Sydney and Melbourne, and Group 1 races only in Brisbane.

Then there is the sub-set of 3yo+ Benchmark handicaps. Here there are plenty of opportunities. In Sydney there is a limited range on the metro circuit, mainly BM72 and BM78, which makes the comparative analysis more straightforward than in Melbourne where, as you will see, a greater range is programmed.

Bottom line is, you can specialise and still have a satisfactory level of betting action. (And you can specialise in more than one category, of course.)

Wiz-Ed

Research - Trainers - Trainers Notebook.

Today the Wizard Trainers Notebook examines the trainers ranked 11 to 20 on Queensland metropolitan tracks in the 2022-2023 racing season.

For this notebook presentation I have broken down the overall stats into age groups (2yo, 3yo, 4yo and older) as there can be a difference in how these various age groups are prepared and perform. Also, I have limited the analysis to only those runs that were at odds of 10/1 or less, thereby removing the noise created by the longer odds runs which are really of no relevance in this exercise.

The results shown are only those where the trainer had an impact value of 1.3 or better, so a significant performance, and one can say under these conditions the stable has outperformed its expected result.

Note: It is possible to have more than one entry for a single factor. For example, the stable may have outperformed when backing up both within 8-14 days and 30-60 days.

Because the data is drawn from the Wizards national database, the form factors will be the same for trainers when they appear in the top trainer list in more than one state.

Wiz-Ed

                        Wizard - Trainer's Notebook - Trainers 11 to 20 in the Queensland 2022-2023 metropolitan premiership table