Dean the Trial Spy employs a revolutionary approach to form assessment by focusing on barrier trials identify great priced winners and generate excellent long term profits.

He started the Trial Spy service with us in February 2013 and the consistent, long term success has been incredible, with over 460 units profit in just over 2 years. So we’re going to have a chat with Dean today about a variety of topics.

Punting Insights:

Why there is still a big edge betting on barrier trials

Some of the common mistakes most trial watchers make

What changes he's made over the last 2 years

How exotics are incorporated into the service

Today’s Guest:

Dean Trial Spy

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: I want to talk about the Trial Spy service. It's one of the better known services we've got that's for sure and definitely one of the most successful ones. What is your process in reviewing the trials?

Dean: I go through the trials in an intense level of detail that I would say few, if any, do. I do the form for a trial like I do for a race and do the form across all of the trials on a day, and set a picture of where I expect horses to finish within each trial, but also looking across say a set of 10 900m trials at Rosehill.

Also looking to see which trials I'm expecting to run quicker times as opposed to others, and identifying the class and speed ability and characteristics of each runner so that I know what I expect. Then it's a case of often looking for what surprised me or wasn't expected, the sneaky trial that others missed. Watching each trial over and over again multiple times to view each runner individually. Knowing the form of each runner and utilising sectional data that isn't publicly available verifying across two independent sources. That enables me to do it at a level that others simply don't bother with. You get to know the horses and their ability level, their improvement levels from preparation to preparation, and their idiosyncrasies really well. It's then a case of taking into consideration the nuances of various trainers.

The trainers whose horses and good triallers are generally over-bet, versus those who are under-bet. The existing class of the horse, the times they ran, how much they were or weren't exerted, and where they're likely to head in their preparation. I then determine whether they fit the criteria of the horse that we want to follow for their preparation, which is essentially a horse whose speed or class isn't truly reflected in their existing form.

David Duffield: Most edges gradually disappear over time but that hasn't appeared to be the case with the Trial Spy. Why do you think there is still such a big edge doing barrier trials?

Dean: I think for a long time the performances in barrier trials were enormously undervalued. Very few people were watching them, and the ones that were probably weren't aware of the value of what they were seeing.

These days, most of the largest pundits in Australia are data-driven. That creates a great opportunity. Speaking with these guys directly or listening to them speak, they all admit that they simply can't find an acceptable way to incorporate trials into their figures. The horses aren't running for prize money. They aren't all trying. The jockeys are carrying different weights. They simply can't find a way in their data or rigid computer-driven calculations with little to no human intervention to incorporate trial performances into their numbers. They either don't incorporate it at all, or some databases or computer ratings try and incorporate it based on the times run without any additional input, which is clearly flawed, or they watch a trial once and try to fudge some sort of manual overlay in there, but probably they're not putting the relevant time and effort into it.

They're simply getting it wrong, either under-cooking or over-cooking the manual adjustment they should be placing in there.