Our relative success with RePete's selections for Caulfield (Australia) last Friday night - see the previous two posts - got us thinking. Are we really adding any value by tipping other players who probably have their own methods and opinions? And if we are, how will we know? For that matter, how will they?
Let's take the example whether someone like RePete (in Sydney) adds value to U.S.-based wagerers on Australian racing. On its face, there should be no question - his local knowledge is almost certainly better than ours because: a) he lives there; b) he handicaps races from every state in Australia every week; and c) he has a remarkable racehorse memory. But there's many a slip 'twixt cup and lip, as they say. Just because he knows his stuff doesn't necessarily mean we can profit by it. From our experience, the opposite is often true - readers end up more confused at the end of a tipsheet than at the beginning.
How to avoid this? Timeliness is one solution. We've all had the experience of reading a tipsheet the night before pointing out a hot 15/1 shot only to see it open at 5/2 the next day. By contrast, holding tips back until a few hours before post lets the tipster include significant market movements. This is especially so in countries in like Australia and the U.K., where fixed-odds betting is legal. Remember: Money talks, bullshit walks.
Openness is another. Twitter users are very familiar with the amateur tipster who shouts loud when he scores big but keeps strangely quiet the rest of the time. Even some of the better professional handicappers in horse racing don't publish open records of the results of all their tips. But if you go public with your tips then we think you are obligated to report openly too, in a way that makes it clear how much or how little value you added to your readers - not just brag about your big scores.
So let's turn this into an action plan. When we post tips we pledge to do it at a time that will optimize wagering, or have a good reason why not. When we post, we'll make it clear which is the winning pick and which are for the minor money and we'll try to limit the picks in each race to three unless there appears to be a superfecta in play.
Once we post, we have a duty to follow and report. We'll post our results as soon as possible after the card is over - both for individual picks and for overall results. That said, we don't want to make the common mistake in handicapping of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. So although the primary result we'll report will be how many winning picks actually won and at what starting price (SP), we will also include a category for the ratio of place picks that also won and their SPs.
But we will drill down further than that. Hitting minor place-getters as well as winners is essential to players of the vertical exotics (exacta, trifecta, superfecta, etc.) and to most contest players, which pay second place. So we will also note how often the tipped horses actually hit the board and at what average price. We'll note if we hit a big play but will avoid howling at the moon (too much) if we land, say, a big trifecta. Long-term value is what we're trying to add here.
Let us know if you think there's something important we're forgetting. We will post RePete's complete results for Caulfield Cup Day following this. Good luck at the Cox Plate this Friday.
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