Worth going to ?
Tempted to go this year.
seriously tempted to go this year, just back from a weekend in galway there. unreal spot for the rip. cheaper than dublin too!
Was checking hotel's/B&Bs they are well overpriced for the Races
Quote from: ross4life on July 15, 2010, 06:59:04 PM
Was checking hotel's/B&Bs they are well overpriced for the Races
Supply & Demand at it's work.
Fantastic week's craic.
Probably heading for the Monday and Tuesday.
Try a hostel - stayed in Sleepzone a couple of race weeks, basic but dead handy.
If you're there on the piss - happy days!
If you're a racing/betting afficionado - get a €50 note and throw it in the fire, if you can stand watching it burn then you're ready for Galway.
Quote from: Rois on July 15, 2010, 10:17:06 PM
Fantastic week's craic.
Probably heading for the Monday and Tuesday.
Try a hostel - stayed in Sleepzone a couple of race weeks, basic but dead handy.
Stayed in Sleepzone basic but ok for a bed for the night, another basic place would be Corrib Village it's student accommodation open to the public in summer
Coincidence - stayed there too! It was pain in the ass/feet to get home to though.
brilliant weeks craic would defiantly recommend to go
heading for the week and cant wait proably go racing most days staying in tir na gcapall 600 euro for the week which is not bad value between 3 just across the road from the racecoarse bit of a distance from city center but plenty of taxis about
Ah it's great craic but if you're a heavy gambler don't bother your hole.
Put on a little 1 euro e/w lucky 15 or something for the interest and just watch the races and have a few drinks,don't go expecting form to count because it doesn't.
In Saying that i got 2 12/1 winners on the thursday last year but was purely fluke :D nothin to do with checking the form-the place is a graveyard for punters.
As for accomadation i wouldn't even bother thinking about booking a place,this year im either gonna crash in a friend of a friends house or get full and hope some young las will feel sory for me and give me a bed for the night :-*.
The only actual tip id give ya for backing horses is give each of dermot welds horse a second look!
Going for 4 days, can't wait. Hope the weather is decent but will probably be indoors most of the time anyway.
Its good crack but average racing. No Ruby this year either.
There are usually good deals to be had in halls of residences - the main hotels are still in bubble land.
Hard to pick winners but Tony Keenans blog probably worth keeping an eye on ...
http://www.irishracingtrends.com/index.html
Main trends for plate from his excellent book published last year are...
Respect C Roche, Noel Meade, W Mullins
6 and 7 yos best
Need an in-form horse, preferably a last time out winner
Oppose suspect stayers
Below 11st best
Unexposed horses NB
not sure if that would have had Ballyholland on shortlist ...
Anyway I am sure Hardy can sort the winner out from those few snippets :)
Anybody get anywhere booked at a reasonable price lately Looking somewhere cheap as possible not too fussy for the weeked. Leaving it a bit late I know!
Stay at home and watch Goodwood on the telly instead.
Not really going for the racing to be honest more for the craic. Anybody booked somewhere to stay recently?
Sh*t racing. Packed pubs that you can't move in and queuing for niteclubs at 9. Will give it a miss this year!
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.
Loadsa hot sluts about- 'nuf said!
Quote from: beer baron on July 20, 2010, 11:53:52 PM
Loadsa hot sluts about- 'nuf said!
Not a patch on the fillies floating about on the Friday of Punchestown
Haven't been there yet Dh, but think i might next year if that's true :)
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
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 :)
Free one week trail for one of Ireland's leading tipster services just email info@sportsnewsireland.com
http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/sportsnewsireland-tips-service/
Quote from: GaillimhIarthair on July 21, 2010, 08:26:41 AM
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
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.
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.
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.
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! :D
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!)
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 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1EHL4OMlK4) :D
Ha - Brilliant.
"Who do you base your style on?"
- Nobody.
"the handicap was me because I need about three stone in hand" :D
Quote from: Donnellys Hollow on July 25, 2010, 07:46:56 PM
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.
I presume thats the Curragh your on about DH and not a track half a mile from Ballybrit?? Ya had me puzzled there for a minute.
Great work alright Hardy. It might be best to stick to a system like that because backing blind or on form would lead to the poorhouse.
Yep. DK's yard is a stone's throw from the track.
I think he actually objected to some aspect of the proposed redevelopment a few years back. Something to do with the sale of the Standhouse to the Aga Khan or something?
Some betting advice
Galway Festival betting preview – Monday 26th July
http://www.sportsnewsireland.com/2010/07/25/galway-festival-betting-preview-monday-26th-july/
Fancy Northern Rock in the next, just a fancy
After all the talk about Dermot Weld, Force of habit takes it.
First of many for the Master of Rosewell no doubt.
I don't like them easyfix hurdles at all. I've no figures on it but I'd be fairly confident they claim more casualties than the conventional hurdles. Some amount of fallers in that race.
Glad to see him win that one since I'll be laying his favourites. So if he's gonna have winners (and he is) let it be his non-favs.
There's one down Hardy.
I missed O'Grady's fav in the first. 2 out of 2 for my selected trainers. Early days.
I don't think I'll risk 6 points on Mullins's fav here, though. Lay for half a point, maybe.
Should have had the cojones to go the whole hog.
you should have taken your own advice :-X
20p Lucky 15 today,
One Cool Tornado 12/1
Ninety Two Team 6/1
Ephorus 18/1 NAP
Maundy Money 10/1
QuoteEphorus 18/1 NAP
Have you word on this?
Quote from: highorlow on July 27, 2010, 01:27:29 PM
QuoteEphorus 18/1 NAP
Have you word on this?
No, but all of the Sharks horses are more or less primed for Galway, so I always believe everyone of them has a sniff, so I back most of them. Yesterday the money started to come late for Acclaimed, another of the shark's horses, but it was stuffed, I think he was confident but the horse got a bad start and never really settled.
Weld wins the 1st this evening again
4 for today
Jettymarc
Maundy Money
Decoy Daddy
Northern Rocked
50p ew lucky
5.45 Galway Natal..... Heard a whisper!!
That was good craic.
Ted is a geg.