Another World Cup, another disappointment – but a far more cohesive showing from the Three Lions and the One Waistcoat.
I will be ignoring the third-place play-off tomorrow. As for Sunday’s final? The last three finals have seen 90-minute scorelines of 1-1, 0-0 and 0-0. The last two World Cup finals have been decided in extra time.
I am taken by the ‘to win in extra time’ odds of 8/1 for France and 20/1 for Croatia, at bookies such as William Hill.
Remember, Croatia have the likes of Perisic (scores and hits the post regularly!) and Mandzukic up front. No slouches, these two!
Add ‘to win on penalties’ bets at odds of France at 15/2 and Croatia at 9/1, and I think we’ve got some decent value.
Doubtless a player will score a 93rd minute penalty to make it 1-0 fulltime to scupper all of my hard-thought-out plans!
The horse racing this weekend features some high-quality fare.
Newmarket and York see Group Races today. I have written before about how I’d attack these races.
Look for past trends to be replicated. These trends can be found for free at sites such as www.thestatsdontlie.com and www.trendyrich.com; and at www.attheraces.com’s racing cards. Look for past patterns to be repeated.
An example of these kinds of trends can be found here: http://www.thestatsdontlie.com/horse-racing/flat/falmouth-stakes.
The Falmouth Stakes is run at 15:35 today. Here are the patterns I can see from the above link:
- First or second-favourites have won four of the last five runnings. The value call will therefore be an each-way back of the second-favourite. Clemmie at 13/2 is the call.
- The highest-odds winner since 2007 was 16/1. If you are looking for a big-odds play instead of the likely stingy odds about the two market leaders, then I would select a 7/1 and a 10/1-odds horse each-way. These two odds have occurred a lot with winners. Threading and Nyaleti would be the value each-way calls.
If you want a shortcut to these top-quality races, go to https://www.racingpost.com/racecards/ and click on WORLDWIDE STAKES RACES.
Then go to one of the three above-mentioned websites to check out the past trends. You’ll notice generally with these past trends that selections are odds-based. Sometimes there is a pattern with jockeys and trainers to follow. Ryan Moore, for example has won three of the last four runnings of the Falmouth Stakes. He is riding second-favourite Clemmie today.
With meetings such as Chester with us today, it is also a reminder to you can some race venues have an extreme draw bias.
Using the race cards at www.attheraces.com you can be guided to the draw bias. At Chester the draw bias is low, so factor that into your calculations.
Do get into the habit of checking out race cards at websites other than www.racingpost.com. Did you know there are free race cards at www.attheraces.com, www.racinguk.com and www.irishracing.com – all providing unique information not found at www.racingpost.com?
I’ll do one last past trend analysis for you, for the July Cup at Newmarket tomorrow. Follow along with me at http://www.thestatsdontlie.com/horse-racing/flat/july-cup and you’ll see how easy it is to do this. Here are my conclusions:
- The third-favourite has won three of the last seven runnings.
- The first three in the betting have won seven of the last eight runnings.
- Adam Kirby and Clive Cox have won twice in the last five runnings on third-favourites!
- There does not seem to be a stall advantage: two of the last four winners came out of stalls 13 and 16, and two others from 7 and 6.
- Aidan O’Brien has not won since 2006 as a trainer.
The value may lie in the third-favourite each way here – Eqtidaar.
You may like to use the past trends to look for someone to buck the trends. A shock for me that Aidan O’Brien has yet to win. Perhaps go in mob-handed with Fleet Review, Intelligent Cross, Sioux Nation, Spirit of Valour and US Navy Flag each way? The first four horses are at extremely big odds.
Good luck, whatever you play.
I’m off now to sell my job-lot of ‘football’s coming home’ waistcoats at the local car boot sale. I’ll throw in a copy of the Waddle/Hoddle Diamond Lights single for free!