Galway Races

[Geoff Tipps]

Sh*t racing. Packed pubs that you can't move in and queuing for niteclubs at 9. Will give it a miss this year!

[DennistheMenace]

Not really bother about the racing or the quality of it.

It isn't packed Monday-Wednesday

You don't have to queue on aforementioned days for the pubs.

Bah humbug.

[beer baron]

Loadsa hot sluts about- 'nuf said!

[Donnellys Hollow]

Loadsa hot sluts about- 'nuf said!

Not a patch on the fillies floating about on the Friday of Punchestown

[beer baron]

Haven't been there yet Dh, but think i might next year if that's true 

[Donnellys Hollow]

No need for the Ballybrit beer goggles at Peerless Punchestown BB!

Also the chance to see a few horses that aren't one step away from the glue factory either

[GaillimhIarthair]

Jeez lads, its a predominately NH card in the middle of summer so your hardly expecting the creme de la creme of NH racing to turn up in Ballybrit    Its as much a social occassion during the summer holiday period as anything else and I dont think it pretends to be anything different.  Trying to compare it with Punchestown is a pointless exercise as that is a top notch event and suitably placed in the annual racing calendar to deliver as much.  I actually think Galway should revert back to 5 days and I wouldnt be surprised to see it happen in the next year or two as 7 days is really tearing the arse out of it.  Still though, Ballybrit is always worth a visit for a few small flutters and more importantly a few pints of black gold in the Guinness Tent 

[GAA_Punter]

Free one week trail for one of Ireland's leading tipster services just email info@sportsnewsireland.com

http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/sportsnewsireland-tips-service/

[Donnellys Hollow]

I actually think Galway should revert back to 5 days and I wouldnt be surprised to see it happen in the next year or two as 7 days is really tearing the arse out of it.

I'd definitely agree with that. If anything 4 days would be more than enough when you consider that there has been a massive drop in the number of horses in training in Ireland over the past few years. They've ruined Fairyhouse's Easter Meeting by extending it and the quality of Punchestown has deteriorated since they added the Saturday card to the festival.

Listowel had to be reduced to a 5 day all National Hunt card a few years ago due to the rain and it was a great little meeting especially when you consider the quality of animal running. Instead of learning their lesson from it HRI went back to the 7 day mixed festival the year after.

If I hear any random head on RTÉ (Gráinne Seoige, Tracy Pigg etc.) calling Galway 'the Irish Cheltenham' next week I will scream! Roll on Glorious Goodwood

[Hardy]

I've crunched some favourite stats for the Galway festival since 2004. As suspected, laying favourites can be profitable. In fact, laying all CLEAR favourites (i.e. ignoring joint/co-favourites) since 2004 would have yielded a profit of 46.77 points over 281 races at Betfair SP..

That is, if you had laid each favourite for a stake of 1.00 at Betfair SP*, you'd be 46.77 up.

(* E.g. for a 2/1 favourite, if it wins you lose 2.00, if it loses you win 0.95, including 5% Betfair commission. Also, for these stats, I'm not using actual Betfair SP - because it didn't exist until recently -  but a multiplier of standard SP using a formula based on statistical analysis of the ratio of Betfair SP to ordinary SP).

So, you might say, lay every favourite this week. Well, it's not as simple as that. Most of the profit has come in the last two years. Here's the summary:

Year   Profit
2004    6.61
2005   -0.66
2006    1.49
2007   -0.22
2008   19.24
2009   26.26

So it might seem there's a new trend in the last two years and we should jump on the bandwagon and clean up. But two years' statistics are not enough to reach that conclusion. More likely these were two exceptional years. (Note, though, that it seems unlikely you'll ever lose your shirt laying favourites at Galway, so while the simple approach may be hit and miss, it doesn't seem to be fraught with huge danger.)

So I took a look at trainer stats and the outcome of laying the favourites sent out by individual trainers. You could compute the trainers whose favourites delivered the best lay profits over the six years and lay those trainers' favourites this week.

But that would be back-filling the statistics – i.e. creating a self-fulfilling prediction that wouldn't necessarily hold for this year. We have to look for an indication of whether there's a proper trend. One way to do that is to analyse trends for a set of years and then apply those trends to another set of historical results to see if they hold. 

So I looked at the trainer lay stats for 2004-2008 and listed all trainers (who had at least 5 favourites over those 5 years, in order to preserve some sort of statistical significance) whose favourites delivered a profit by laying them over those five years. This produced the following list:

MEADE N
MULLINS W P
WACHMAN D
O`GRADY E J
OXX J M
WELD D K
HARRINGTON MRS J
SWAN C F
FLYNN P J

Then I looked at laying all favourites of those trainers in 2009. (As it turned out, five of them saddled favourites last year – Harrington, Meade, Mullins, Swan and Weld). This produced a profit of 6.78 to a level stake of 1.00 or a Return on Investment of 13% on the risk, based on the Betfair SPs of the favourites laid. 18 of the 25 selected favourites lost. Four of the five qualifying trainers returned a profit, Jessica Harrington tearing the arse out of it with a winner at 5.52 – Harrington -3.57, Meade 1.90, Mullins 1.27, Swan 0.95, Weld 5.78 (yes, despite the hype, this seems to be the way to make money on Weld at Galway).

Note that one more winning favourite at near 7 would have wiped out the profit. On the other hand, if Jessica's No One Tells Me had lost, we'd have had a profit of 12.25. Also, anyone averse to risking 5 points or more on a race could limit their exposure by only laying favourites below a certain price. For instance laying only evens or lower favourites of the selected trainers last year would still have produced a profit of 1.61 or 21% on an exposure of 7.58, 5 of 9 of these favourites losing.

So it's just a bit of crack, but I'll be laying clear favourites saddled by any of the above nine trainers this week, just to have an interest in he poor fare on offer..

Finally, instead of the small print, this needs to be in big print:

Term and conditions apply. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance. Investments (especially betting investments) can go down as well as up. And the bane of all betting systems - all trends have losing runs. Only gamble with money you can afford to lose. Use a betting bank and set a limit that you are prepared to lose. And if you're not familiar with laying on Betfair, make sure you know what you're doing or you can lose a lot more than you thought you were risking.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Great work Hardy.

Those stats don't surprise me given the intricacies of the track. I've actually ridden there once and it really is a horrible track to ride and there's always plenty of hard luck stories. You can get wiped out on that turn at the bottom of the dip. I shudder to think how the flat lads manage it on inexperienced 2yos. I reckon half of them need a change of breeches after the maidens!

It's the last place I'd run a promising young horse. For all that people talk about DK's great record at Ballybrit I doubt he's ever ran one of his better juveniles there when he can run them in maidens half a mile down the road at the fairest flat track in the world.

[Hardy]

It's interesting to hear that from a jockey, DH. I've never ridden a racehorse, but looking at the 2-y-os  weaving and swerving at breakneck speed on bad bends and bumpy tracks makes me reach for my brown trousers.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Wouldn't be classed as a jockey Hardy! Only rode amateur for a short while in a handful of p2ps and bumpers until the weight got the better of me. I'd fancy my chances against JP Magnier or Barry Connell in a driving finish but Ruby Walsh, I ain't! 

[Hardy]

Ah don't be so modest. You've ridden racehorses in horse races. That makes you a jockey.

(I'd fancy my chances against Barry myself!)

[Donnellys Hollow]

Good old Barry. I remember a horse running away with him at Market Rasen one day and winning by half the track. They must have thought the horse was the reincarnation of Arkle.

I was more of an Anthony Knott stylist:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1EHL4OMlK4