wot happened next? No: 4

[barjon]

neil,
I heard this story many years ago too. His 'edge' as I recall, was that he observed that the horse that won photo finishes was, in every case, the inside horse nearest to the camera. It was a glitch in the system that no one else spotted. Once the racing authorities cottoned on to this, Bird's edge was gone, but he had managed to make a fortune by that time. I've no idea if the story is true or not.

"I couldn't get a bet on the third horse I suggested because the whole of Berwick Street market was on it - it lost and I never dared to get my hair cut again."
Jon - I have this image of you with hair down to your ankles!
:cheesy:
Tim.

tim

Not a glitch, but an optical illusion that favours the near (or was it the far) horse unless (like Bird) you position yourself smack on the line. He made plenty from that . Also the Grand National when the fences were really tough by the expedient of weeding out all those runners who wouldn't finish the course and then playing the ante-post odds on the remainder so, by the time of the race, he would win whatever won (unless it was one of the no-hopers). However his main source of income was two year old races - he had a super information network and paid for films of all 2yo races which he studied endlessly (yes, the real hard work as always). He packed it in as a business when betting tax was introduced since that destroyed his profit margin.

No long hair - my wife's cut my hair ever since :cheesy:

jon

 

[temptrader]

professional turf speculators wait and wait and wait - until there is a horse with a favourable outlay. (his calculated odds are better than the bookies odds). a professional speculator (turf speclator or market speculator) does not put money on every race/tradable event. he must be certain the probability is in his favour.

this is where you misread me. My friend did try to be a turf speculator as you call it. He only managed to break even. It was very intense work, and yes, most days he would not get a selection on. He tells me that if he had continued he would eventually be in profit consistently, but it was just too much work - it was really intense. You can talk about probability in your favour on an event, but it will be just that and it will only be a statistical edge, which is why you can get the top horse racing gamblers only breaking even for the year despite doing everything perfectly. As an example my friend back a horse call Kicking King last year in a race that he knew - note the word knew - was going to win, so confident was he that he laid down £400 on it. It lost, did a bad jump and was later found to have a bad shoe fitted by the blacksmith before the race.

Think about how the quants come up with indicators: they are usually made through back testing. and with probabilistic methods you get a concept known as "drawdowns". Trading by price and volume has no "drawdown" as long as you get it right - the concept has no meaning. If you read Reminiesences of a Stock Operator there is no mention of the word or concept of "drawdown".