Lay, Back, and enjoy the days racing

With a great day of racing ahead, both here at home and in Ireland, rather than find myself waiting for the three All Weather races on Lingfield Park’s evening fixture, I found myself going through each of today’s cards systematically looking for 'Back to Lay’ opportunities.

As a novice in this arena, I set out a strict criteria that has worked favourably over the past week but find myself questioning whether I am I opting for a false safety net that provides such a poor return. Yesterday was a stereotypical day with 9 selections of which 7 returned a 1 point profit leaving me 5 points ahead.

Here is the rub! Three selections went on to win at backed prices of 33-1, 11-1 and 8-1. In essence, I had turned what could have been a 46 point profit in to just 4 points by adopting a ‘Back to Lay’ approach.

Why Saturday is different than any other racing day

During my ‘Back to Lay’ considerations, it became apparent that there is a high number of what I would term as ‘Target’ races (where a trainer has campaigned a horse with a particular race in mind).

This is little help to us when making our selections as several trainers have the same races as an intended target. Perhaps it’s a day when the form book should be thrown out the window in favour of trends and patterns.

No doubt the toughest races of the day to predict will be the 30 runner 6f Paddy Power Sprint at 4:45 Curragh. Here patterns abound and I have plucked two from the pack at the bottom of the handicap that play a part in a ‘Back to Lay’ strategy and could go a lot closer than their odds might suggest in ARBITRAGEUR (33-1) and SPRINGINMYSTEP (25-1)    

Have fun today and good luck to you ALL