We first had Nick Pinkerton on the show in July 2013 and he talked about how his experience in financial markets helped shape his approach to punting. He also gave some solid tips on how to find value as a punter and how to keep the odds in your favour by managing risk. Nick learned the trade with Ferncourt, Mark Read and Con Kafataris to hone his form analysis and risk management skills.

So we've got him back on the show to find out exactly how he's been going over the last 18 months and he is honest enough to explain why it hasn't all been plain sailing.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

Why punting is like an extreme sport

The key lesson he learned from successes and failures in the last year

Why excellent form analysts can still be very poor punters

The profile of horse he is looking for when doing video replays

How he deals with losing runs

A link to the case study mentioned: Lessons From The Brain-Damaged Investor

Today’s Guest:

Nick Pinkerton

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Good day, Nick, and welcome back to the show.

Nick Pinkerton: Hi, David, how are you?

David Duffield: Going very well, thanks and looking forward to having another chat with you. We had you on right about 18 months ago and have followed you up until that time as well. Yeah, just wanted to check in with you, see how things have been going, and also we've taken some questions from our members on some of the most pressing issues and what they would like to ask of someone that's been in this game for quite a while. We'll run through those in just a moment, if that's OK?

Nick Pinkerton: Yep, no problems at all.

David Duffield: All right, the first range of topics that came up was just to do with getting started, and one of the common questions was: How do you gain the confidence when you're starting out?

Nick Pinkerton: I think in regards to confidence, I see punting as a bit of an extreme sport. If you use skiing as an analogy, lots of people can enjoy green runs and have fun. Some can go down a green run and tumble, and others don't like to tumble. Yet, there's plenty of people who with a bit of practice can go and tackle a black diamond run, but it takes a completely different type of attitude and application to get to representative level or whatever it is you're doing.

Betting is all about confidence. If you've got skills and a plan, you'll get there, but nothing builds confidence more than having that intimate knowledge of what factors provide you with the edge that you've got and helping you make that money. The most important thing is just trying to identify what your edge is.

I'm not all things to all punters, but I manage to find out what works for me.

Although it hasn't always been that way. Since we last spoke, I've actually just got back from a long break from racing, only in September of this year. I come back from Caulfield Cup Day in 2013, and one of the reasons I took that break from racing was I actually had a dent in my own confidence. We're not immune to it, even after 20 years of successful punting. I had my first extended losing period in sort of middle of 2013 through to Caulfield Cup. Then at the time, it seemed inexplicable, but funnily enough, when I stepped away, as most things do, when you get out of the heat, you can see the trees for the forest.

I realised a few things.

Basically, I got away from the things I used to do and do well. I got confused between what my strengths were, and I tried to incorporate a lot of things that were just not my natural way of doing things. I got further and further away from the things that I was confident about. Even to the point that I started to question whether I even had an edge in what I thought I did.

David Duffield: We might expand on that a little bit later, just to get you to see the journey that you've been on, but in terms of getting started for a lot of guys that would dream about going from what they're doing right now,

Matchem Racing hit the headlines recently when Fontiton demolished the field in the $250,000 Inglis Banner race.

They use prediction modelling including DNA and cardio testing to try and identify racehorses that have the genetic and physical characteristics to become elite performers.

The technology has been developed by Byron Rogers who spent eight years at Arrowfield Stud in Australia as Stallion Nominations and Bloodstock Manager where he was part of the team responsbile for guiding the stud careers of Redoute’s Choice, Flying Spur and Danzero amongst others. He also has extensive experience in the USA and has been based in Kentucky for a number of years. Combine that hands-on experience with a computer science background and you get a very interesting way of assessing yearlings.

Byron's on the podcast this week to explain their unique approach.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

The varying characteristics of sprinters and stayers

A very simple yet often overlooked breeding factor

The underestimated importance of the trainer effect

Whether any of this applies to the betting market

Today’s Guest:

Byron Rogers - Matchem Racing

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Can you start by filling in the listeners on a bit about your background just to let them know your experience in the racing industry. Then, we’ll talk about Matchem Racing and obviously Fontiton being the headline horse at the moment.

Byron Rogers: I started off working at Arrowfield Stud many moons ago. Going back to when Redoutes Choice and Flying Spur were just starting their careers back then. Actually I'd been to university and I'd done some computer science background at University so I've worked with data and all that stuff at University.

I’d been doing stuff with various companies up here in America and got more interested in how really to measure a horse. If you do the same thing that everyone else is doing you get the same results. I took the view of let's try something different.

We started looking at measuring cardiovascular capacity in horses. That's where we started with it and we took an ultrasound and just measured the cardiovascular capacity; how big the heart is. That’s what led me into then looking to genetics as to why these horses were running certain distances.

Obviously my background at University of Technology I took that feel of data, aAt the end of the day when you start measuring everything it all just becomes down to data and data modeling is what I was good at.

We started to build more and more data. We got to, geez; we’re now at 3500 data base where we've got known racing outcomes. We've been able to model different things in terms of how far does a horse really want to run and that's just not genetic in terms of that you can get these horses that are genetically milers but they end up being sprinters because they’ve got slightly different cardiovascular capacities.

We've done a whole lot of modeling on really what makes a race horse tick. Now, it’s been four or five years we've been doing that. We've had a lot of success up here in America with horses like Verrazano who was a horse we bought as a yearling, helped selected a yearling for clients. New Year’s Day who won the Breeders’ Cup juvenile two years ago. This year we had two runners in Breeders’ Cup races out in California.

We've taken that technology and said what is the best application for it and that's where Matchem Racing came from and that's where we are today.

David Duffield: With the data base that you’d mentioned of 3,500 racehorses is that on a global basis?

Byron Rogers: Yes, that's horses all around. We've got horses like Winchester who raced in America here and ended up racing in Australia. We've got horses like Icon Project that are all American based horses and all these, very good Tis Now and a bunch of those horses. We’ve also got horses in Australia like Rebel Raider and horses in Japan and horses in Europe.

Yeah,

"I'm not just hungry for success, I'm starving"

Archie Alexander left school at 16 to spend more than a decade working for some of the very best trainers in the world. His experience in England, Ireland, France, USA and Australia has given him a great head start in learning what it takes to be a successful trainer.

His Ballarat stables opened for business in July of this year and he has already tasted stakes success with the win of Renew in the Sandown Cup.

OTI had planned to send Renew to Chris Waller after his spring campaign, but changed their mind following the Sandown Cup win so he'll stay in Alexander's stable.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

What he learned from the world's best horsemen and women

Why Ballarat is the ideal training base

A typical working day for a trainer

What he loves most about having his own stable

Today’s Guest:

Archie Alexander

Get the Transcript:

David: Welcome to the show, Archie, and congratulations on the Sandown Cup win with Renew.

Archie: Yeah, thank you very much. That was a great day.

David: I'm sure it's what dreams are made of. You haven't had him all that long though, have you?

Archie: No, I've had him for just over a month, so it's all been pretty, sort of whirlwind I guess. He came to me as a surprise really after running below par for Marco Botti and they just needed a sort of change up, and maybe a different scene for him, and Ballarat seemed the place to go, and we just changed up his routine, jumped him and turned him out, and kept him sweet. Didn't really work him too hard. Just changed things, and he's done really well.

David: So in that change of environment, and change of preparation, how soon did you know that he had been rejuvenated?

Archie: It's always hard to know because you don't really know the horse beforehand, and you don't really know him when you you've got a complete stranger on your hands, it's tough. But he just, he seemed to be working well, and I had a bit of help because the vet who works up with me closely in Ballarat, he actually looked after the horse in quarantine and then looked after him in Ballarat. So he was the only one that saw the horse in both scenarios and he said he was a lot calmer and a lot happier when he was in Ballarat.

So he was probably our guide, and the horse just seemed, you know pretty happy to me, but I had never seen him beforehand. When he was a bit sulky. He was training well, eating well, looked well, and so really going into the first race the Caulfield Cup I knew he had no chance. He was 200/1, but then the second time, I was really confident and didn't think he should have been the $13 or $14 that he was. I was confident his work was pretty good. He's always a tiny bit lazy in his work, but I was confident and then going into the Sandown Cup, he was just the same as he was the time before.

David: You mentioned, obviously the fitness improvement, but also the fact that he was a happier horse. How important is that in terms of the horse being able to perform at its best?

Archie: I think it's everything, isn't it? It's like a human, you know if you're happy, you work a lot harder because things are well at home, and you know you perform well.

But if you're sad and you know, things aren't going well, you got to work and you don't put your best foot forward. Definitely on an eating front, horses eat a lot better when they are happiest. You know if a horse is box walking, weaving, worried about where they are, they're not going to eat, but they're happy and loving life, they eat well and obviously eating well is the key for any sportsman.

David: He came to you from the guys at OTI. How long have you known Terry Henderson and Simon O'Donnell, and how did that relationship develop?

Archie: I've known them both for about a year, and really it was a bloodstock agent that buys a lot for the guys overseas, that put me in touch with them.

We first had Chris on the podcast in February of this year as a lead-up to the launch of our NZ tips service.

Thankfully Chris' incredible private success has transferred to the public domain and members have enjoyed very consistent profits.

But as a relatively new professional punter, what has he learned this year that he will apply to his betting next year?

Punting Insights You'll Find:

Why he digitally times races

How his form analysis has evolved in 2014

His recommended approach to getting a bet on

A NZ horse to follow in Australia next year

Today’s Guest:

Kiwi Chris

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: It's been a pretty successful year so far, it's probably a little bit early to review the year overall, but how do you think it's been going?

Kiwi Chris: I'm relatively happy, I've been on quite a steady upward curve, I guess, profit-wise. I'm quite content.

David Duffield: What about the mid-winter blues? You tend to be fairly disciplined when it's really wet tracks, or at the very least, like to watch a race or two before getting involved.

Kiwi Chris: Yeah, that's right. I mean, there's probably more opportunities, I think that's what it is, in sort of spring summer. There'll still be a few in that winter time but I guess they're a little bit more sparse.

David Duffield: Early in the year, you had mentioned that you'd learned a bit from various people including someone like Dean in terms of the trials and I think that things have evolved since then and I know that you've taken on doing some of your own timing and that's quite a pretty integral part in the way you do things now.

Kiwi Chris: Yeah that's probably the main factor when I'm looking at horses, you know, their ability to run a certain time, relative to other horses on the same day so you can get a really good guide as to the untried horses, their potential ability.

David Duffield: And so you mentioned on the same day, the way Vince does it, he has to suffer through a number of variables in terms of the rail, not the rail position but just the rail markings can be off, different camera angles and the like, so you simplify things and you only really look intra-day, you only compare horses on the same day rather than having a multi-year benchmark figure.

Kiwi Chris: That's right, I think there's so many different variables from day to day, obviously from track to track, but even on the same track on a different day you can get so many different variables, from weather, to rail out, to track conditions, all sorts of things. So I only compare performances from that same day.

David Duffield: What are you looking for in doing the timing yourself? Are you looking for closing sectionals, or horses that were really sent out a good clip and had a reason for tiring late, given the overall times? What are you focusing on?

Kiwi Chris: A bit of everything really. I mean, the closing sectionals are only good if they're running decent time at the start. Because you know, if they're jogging to start with, and then sprinting late very often the format of that can be a little bit false, so that's a sort of combination of all those things that you mentioned.

David Duffield: You're doing your own timing and what else has changed, or evolved since you started the year, if you can cast your mind back to then?

Kiwi Chris: I guess at the start I was primarily focused on trials and then I was mainly betting into maiden races. Maybe early two year-old, three year-old racers. Whereas now I’m sort of covering all class of races, still mainly on the North Island, a little bit in the South. I'm broadening the sort of base of races that I'm looking into.

David Duffield: What's prompted that change, the broadening of the races that you cover?

Kiwi Chris: Just getting a little bit more data on every horse and the early trials that I watched, say this time last year, they're sort of running in high grade races this year.

Dreaming of leading in the winner of the Melbourne Cup normally happens pretty quickly after you get involved in our great game.

But Luke Murrell actually lived that dream this week as a part-owner of the emphatic Cup winner Protectionist.

He has...

Luke Murrell is a regular Spring contributor to our site and he is struggling to contain his excitement this week.

Not just because the Melbourne Cup is only days away, but because he is a part-owner of Protectionist who is second favourite for the Melbourne Cup.

Luke joins us on the podcast to explain why he believes Protectionist is a second-to-none chance of winning our biggest race. He also lines up the form of all of the imported runners as well as the two strongest local hopes.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

Why he doesn't think Admire Rakti deserves to be favourite

Why he believes Protectionist is the ideal horse to win the race

How almost half the field have next to no chance

Today’s Guest:

Luke Murrell

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: It’s a pretty exciting time of year but especially this year for you, with Protectionist.

Luke Murrell: Yeah, really excited about it. Counting off the sleeps now like a kid at Christmas. It's all going well.

David Duffield: How is it going? I know that Victoria's chief vet paid you a visit.

Luke Murrell: Yeah, he was one of 3 or 4 that got an extra visit the other day, and he passed in; no problems. I actually had a chat with the trainer this morning. He hasn't seen him for a couple of days, and he was thrilled with how he'd tightened up. He went into that Herbert Power probably I think, by trainers had admission probably a little bit underdone, but that was to be expected.

He's certainly thrived being out here. There was rumor that he was been sore but we are in nearly hourly contract with connections down there, and there's never been an issue. I think it's clearly the opposition trying to put a few doubts and get some of the better chances out of the race. It's happened before.

David Duffield: The Herbert Power run that you mentioned, how exciting was that for him to finish so strongly, because like you said, he wasn't fully wound up for it?

Luke Murrell: It was funny actually. Andreas the trainer, he's one of the best in the world, he was actually quite disappointed with the run. Not in the horse itself, but probably just how the race turned out. You could just tell after the race, that won't be happening again. He'll be cherry ripe on the day. Yeah, that's what he reported this morning.

The horse even to the eye, he did have a little bit left in him, looked little bit burly and not completely tucked up that you want you see in a stayer. We were thrilled with the run. 20 metres past the post, he's obviously clearly in front.

The pleasing thing is he was getting quicker as he got balanced up. Certainly didn't handle that Caulfield turn. Thankfully we'll be at Flemington on Tuesday.

David Duffield: Once you'd reviewed the sectionals, did they confirm what you were impressed with by the eye?

Luke Murrell: Just amazing look. I know nothing improves ownership like a horse, but being subjective, he was outstanding. I'd suggest if that was a Geelong Cup type run, everyone would be all over him. It's fair enough that everyone pots the Herbert Power but a lot of people probably aren't taking into account that it’s only in the last couple of years that the internationals have been allowed one week less in quarantine they have to spend, so that race has been an option, I suppose.

There was a temptation to run in the Caulfield Cup, and I think he would have run very well, but for a lot of these Europeans, it's completely foreign for them to run within 2 weeks.

Even 3 weeks, our connections had some reservations about him, because that's not done over there. Not that he wouldn't handle it, but it's just not done and it's an unknown. We see every year, all these horses come for the Melbourne Cup, and try and go and do a first-up. That's been proven time and time again, that just doesn't work.

It's interesting grouping the horses issue. You look at the Caulfield Cup; from first to end,

The focus of the racing world is on Moonee Valley this weekend with the Manikato Stakes meeting Friday night followed up by the Cox Plate on Saturday.

So this week on the podcast we're focused on finding value at what is a unique track and Rick Williams explains his approach to betting at the Valley.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

The best spots to be in the run

How the rail position affects his analysis

Whether experience at the track is a bonus

A surprising negative to look out for

This discussion is a follow-up to this week's 'Horses for courses' analysis.

Today’s Guest:

Rick Williams

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: The focus this week is Moonee Valley, so let’s have a chat about the track itself and how you approach analysing a race and formulating your ratings there. Obviously it's a unique track in a few different aspects but do you do anything differently when you're betting there?

Rick Williams: Well the first thing I do is just go through the normal process and that's highlighting and basically doing the market and working out who's the best horse. From there obviously you can make some little adjustments or just mental notes regarding where the rail is. Generally it's a pretty dry track at Moonee Valley. It doesn't normally get too wet so you're generally working on a good to dead surface. Sometimes it's slow but generally it's pretty well draining. Certainly the rail, wherever that is, is probably the thing that you have a look at.

David Duffield: And that gets talked about a bit. When the rail's out, that it tends to favour on pacers and that's not the same for every race, because sometimes there can be an over-reaction but how do you change your assessments depending on the rail position?

Rick Williams: Not enormously. I think if you've got a leaders track and you've marked the horse that's going to lead quite short and you really like it then there's certainly reasons to be giving that a couple more ticks.

The other side, if you've got a slow horse and it's going to lead it doesn't necessarily mean because it's a leader's track it's going to win. I guess good horses or stand out horses in a race can generally, most of the times overcome moderate issues. Whether it be a moderate bias or moderate block in the run or different things. If it's a severe bias or if it has a severe check then certainly a lot of horses would struggle to overcome something severe that happens.

It's just balancing out the ability of the horse. Looking at where it will be in the run, or whatnot and what it has to overcome to win and basically making a judgement call. Is the horse good enough to overcome this issue? Or the fact that the horse, you've got it rated on top and it looks really strong and it’s going to have all the favours in the run. It's how much more do you bonus this horse?

David Duffield: And speaking of positions in the run, with the new database we can run a report and have a look at the lengths behind the leader and the average margin for those winners at Moonee Valley and also depending on where the rail is. How do you incorporate that into the work that you do?

Rick Williams: It's just nice to know. It's not really anything that there's a column for in the spreadsheet or anything like that but it's just nice to run the report and you get an idea of where the rail is and generally what happens. As the rail gets out further there's generally not a lot of racing. We're not dealing with huge samples but certainly there does tend to be patterns and I guess as the rail gets out further at Moonee Valley generally the closer you need to be to the leaders upon settling.

David Duffield: When the rail's true or close to it, if a horse has raced wide, how do you bonus or otherwise assess that horse as opposed to when the rail's been out a fair way?

Rick Williams: You just go through the runs and generally you look at the sectional. Even if they've ran wide,

Champion trainer Darren Weir saddled up his first Melbourne Group 1 winner last month when Trust In A Gust took out the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes.

Like so many other Weir runners he was a cheap buy at just $45,000, yet he took out the Melbourne train...

Matt Tripp knows a thing or two about bookmaking, having bought Sportsbet in 2006 for just $250,000 and then selling it five years later for more than $300m.

That sale triggered a three year 'non compete' clause, but he's now back in a big way with the launch of BetEasy.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

Why the much maligned Betezy was a worthwhile acquisition

How BetEasy will be different to other bookies

How they will look to manage winning players

The type of punter that bookies most fear

The future of the Australian betting industry

Today’s Guest:

Matt Tripp

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield: Good day, Matt. Thanks for joining us on the podcast.

Matt Tripp: Pleasure, Dave. Thanks for having me.

David Duffield: Good to have you on board. Busy time of year and all with the launch just recently but I wanted to kick things off just by asking how do you have the hunger to do it all again?

Matt Tripp: Dave, three years on the sideline taught me that this is the industry that I know and love. I like to think I know it fairly well after being in it for quite some time. I think there's an opportunity there to jump back into it for a host of reasons, but I guess the main one is I believe there's an opportunity to service a very large portion of the market that's currently not being serviced in my mind appropriately.

We're having another go. I've assembled a fairly strong team here at Beteasy. We've got about 125 staff, all specialists in their respective roles and we've built a system from the ground up. So yeah it's exciting times.

David Duffield: How different is the wagering landscape today compared to, say 2006, when you bought Sportsbet?

Matt Tripp: It's extremely different, Dave. It's probably the most competitive industry in this country to my mind. You look at the pricing of advertising and you look at the competitive landscape with a lot of these big PLCs coming across from Europe and trying to gain market share. It's unbelievably competitive.

Back in 2006 when we started to turn the screws on Sportsbet and try and build it, it was ourselves and Sportingbet and I guess the TAB were our main competitors, whereas now I've jumped back in and, as I've said, there are some big PLCs with big pockets and pretty smart operators steering them.

It's competitive, but at the same time I'm going in with my eyes wide open. I'm under no illusion that it's going to be a bit tougher this time around. As I've said, we've got a few things up our sleeve that we think will separate us from the pack, so to speak, and find a way to effectively service those punters that are probably a little bit disgruntled with the current landscape at the moment.

David Duffield: Why did you buy Betezy? Because it's a company whose reputation has taken a battering at times from punters over the years.

Matt Tripp: No doubt about it. There were a host of reasons that we acquired Betezy. One was the fact that I think to be an effective start up, I don't think you can start from a base of zero. I think a lot of these European operators that have come in without a base, such as the Bet365s and the likes, I believe BetFred are now out here and promoting a new app that they're rolling out, I think it's a very difficult task to do it without a base at all.

Betezy had a very sticky database of clients, five or six thousand active customers a month. They turned over $250 odd million a year, and while they had a lot of shortcomings in the way that they handled certain things over the years, at the same time they stood the test of time and didn't do a bad job of maintaining that turnover.

To my mind, you need probably triple that amount of turnover, that base to even get to break square on the back of product fees rising, on the back of general overheads through advertising and so forth, because of the competitive landscape going up.

I think we needed a base, I think that we've acquired it at the right odds.

Australian Bloodstock's Luke Murrell, a regular Spring contributor to our site, joins us on the podcast this week to assess all of the imported runners for this year's Caulfield and Melbourne Cups.

Most Australian punters struggle to line up the overseas form so Luke is well worth listening to. At Australian Bloodstock he has identified and purchased Group performed horses including Lucas Cranach, Mawingo, Master Of Design and Reliable Man.

On the podcast this week he is as honest and opinionated as always and it's fair to say he believes it's a very weak batch of imports this year.

Punting Insights You'll Find:

Why he isn't buying the hype around the Japanese runners

Why this year's European horses are the weakest in years

The importance of the imports adapting to our unique style of racing

One standout horse for the Cups

Today’s Guest:

Luke Murrell

Get the Transcript:

David Duffield:It's been probably a year since we last spoke. I just wanted to run through the major contenders for the cups for this year and get your take on how the imports stack up against the local form. It's a pretty early stage, but what's your view about it’s all shaping up?

Luke Murrell: I think you can get the best guide from a guy like Greg Carpenter where he’s issued the weights and there's obviously no of the good old super stars running around anymore that we've had in previous couple years. It's basically just a glorified set weights and penalties race. Especially the Melbourne Cup this year. I think the highlights probably quite a lack of depth in the race. You go back a couple years to American and Dunaden and personally I think we are 7 to 8 lengths off that. It's a massive drop down this year. But I think that's worldwide. The quality of horses just seems to just be in one of those patches where it's probably not as strong. We don’t have the normal superstars that we normally have.

David Duffield:You think that's just a cyclical thing that we're going through?

Luke Murrell: Yeah I think so. Even for Europe's standards their Arc field if you have a good look at that at the moment. You got your handful of sort of good horses but previously this time of year, in previous years, you could get out and back something confidently at 20/1 that was a real chance but I think in all our majors coming up the chances are very, very skinny. It doesn't mean they're easy to win but I think from a punting point of view there's a lot there that you could put a line through straight away and be confident in doing so.

David Duffield:Where do the Japanese runners fit in to the puzzle then?

Luke Murrell: On your world handicap ratings their probably the D graders compared to what we've seen out here previously. I suppose the two that everyone's talking about are Bande and Admire Rakti. Well Admire Rakti’s the better performed of the two but if you have a look at his form, he's so inconsistent and there are certainly two of him. I don’t know. If it wasn't for the Japanese factor you'd be really happy to put a line through him but they're renowned for their toughness, those horses over there. You've got to respect them but it's an unusual prep for a horse like that. He's only had two runs this year.

I understand they’re walking, as we speak, sort of four hours a day in quarantine which is just amazing compared to, say for example, the Aussie horses how they get trained. He's only had the two runs this year at 3000 and 3200. It'd be an unusual prep. There's not many horses that would win a Melbourne Cup third or fourth up. Personally, I think if you're having a wide sort of bet you got to include them but it wouldn’t surprise me to see him run down the track as well. The form, you know, back in December, he ran eleventh of sixteen and this last run he ran thirteen of eighteen. He's a very hard horse to get a line on from that angle.

The other horse, I think is a typical slow maturing horse.