By way of example and because I anticipated writing the previous post today, I traded a likely horse. It’s the Grand National meeting at Aintree and there aren’t many opportunities for flat racing on the turf today. There’s a meeting at Leicester and there’s really only one race worth looking at and that’s the 5.10. There are a couple of likely candidates in the race but the one I used for the example is the most obvious. A horse called Guilded Warrior. I was actually going to write more fully about it but I was beaten to it by a mate of mine over at The Form Analyst , so I didn’t bother.
When I looked at the prices on Betfair Guilded Warrior was trading at 9.6 to back and 10 to lay. Effectively 8.6/1 and 9/1. I joined the queue at 10 with £10.00 and was quickly matched. I was pretty certain that the price would shorten during the morning so I went away to do other things, leaving a lay at 8.8. If I was trading more ruthlessly I may have put my lay in much lower. When I returned a while later my lay had been matched and I had a risk-free bet on Guilded Warrior with a return of £11.40 should it win.
At the time of writing the race hasn’t been run yet so I’ll either make the profit or break even. The important thing to note though is that I won’t be losing any money. Which is seriously cool.
[Result horse="Guilded Warrior Won @ 7-1"]
OK so I’m typing this out after the race. Guilded Warrior did the business and I traded off at 1.10 IR. I got my sums slightly wrong because I was using the Betfair Web Interface instead of the trading software that I normally use. It actually meant that I won less on Guilded Warrior than I would have done on any other horse but I wasn’t that worried, I was only doing it for example purposes. The image below shows the amounts against any horse no matter which one won.
Now imagine doing that with £50.00. You’d have to tread very gently on the exchanges in the morning to get that amount on but the profit would have been 5 times at much. In truth Guilded Warrior traded two full points lower than the point at which I exited the trade. Had I waited I could have made 3 times the profit, £30.00 for my £10.00 staked or £150.00 for a £50.00 stake. With no risk because you’d be out before the off.
That’s what I’m attempting to do all this summer!
