I’d say 98% of my trades are Lay to Backs (L2B) but today I did a rare (for me) Back to Lay (B2L) trade.
As luck would have it I’d left the recorder on my screen going so I was lucky to catch a relatively successful B2L trade. In truth I didn’t trade it anywhere near perfectly but I’ve posted the video on YouTube and in this post because I think it has some merit in discussing it.
Also if you wait for me to do a perfect B2L it with the recorder going you might be waiting a long time!
I just happened to have the recorder going because I was trying to film a bit for another video I’m planning as I’ve decided to post a bit more on YouTube.
Anyway onto the trade.
My Betfair Trading Stakes
My B2L stakes for ages have been a flat £10 stake because I just wasn’t confident in my ability, but recently I’ve raised them to £25.
To give you a benchmark for L2B I use a £250 liability on races over obstacles and assuming I’m in the swing of things. By that I mean I’ve been trading regularly most days, for a period of time.
If I’ve had a bit of a lay off due to work commitments (I’m only an amateur trader) then I’ll reduce them. Also I generally have smaller stakes through the flat season but this year I probably won’t reduce them as I’m feeling pretty confident lately.
So the fact that my liability is 10 x less on B2L should show you where I think my level is with them.
Anyway the video is here and I’ll put some more of my thoughts below it.
Thoughts on the trade
Obviously hindsight is a wonderful thing, so I shouldn’t beat myself up about not entering earlier. Yes it would have been much better to get in at1.85, but the bigger mistake was clicking for the 3rd time when the price was 1.65.
Photo by Ken Hawkins Racing Photography *See below
As I said in the video if you enter at 1.5 the horse has to be trading close to 1.01 to get fully matched, so it ceases to be a trade and turns into a straight punt.
Minor notes on the video
I also mention the Enable colours on the 3rd fav. I’ve done a quick google search to find the info. It’s the Juddmonte stable. The late Prince Khalid Abdullah was the owner of Frankel, Enable & Dancing Brave amongst many other great horses.
Andrew always pisses himself laughing that I do so well at trading horses, when in truth I know sod all about horse racing! Luckily for me the skills required to trade horses in running doesn’t rely on a great deal of racing knowledge.
I mention Andrew (Banthorpe) in the video, who is the owner of Back for Profit Trading Academy, and you can read my review of it here.
A couple of times in the video I mis-speak when I say Bet Angel when I mean Betfair (or visa versa). If you have a Betfair account you’ll know that you can’t hide your account balance anymore for videos or screen grabs, like you could previously.
I might also say L2B instead of B2L on one occasion.
*Ken Hawkins Racing Photography
Special thanks to Ken Hawkins, who I’ve been friends with for quite a while, for allowing me to use one of his images for this article. You can follow Ken on Twitter or like his Facebook page for more great images.
