Ante Post betting is not for the faint-hearted

Events of recent weeks have once again shown how precarious ante post betting can be.

Galopin Des Champs getting beaten by a horse that hadn’t even been among the original entries for the Gold Cup must have been a sore loss to take for his ante post supporters.

Inothewayurthinkin had been a leading fancy for this weekend’s Grand National from the moment betting opened on the race, but his odds contracted considerably when he franked his credentials by winning the Gold Cup. Within days of his Cheltenham triumph his connections had opted out of Aintree altogether.

Fact To File was actually ante post favourite for the Gold Cup at the beginning of the season, but a couple of defeats at the hands of Galopin Des Champs saw him rerouted to the Ryanair Chase. His performance in that race at Cheltenham must have been a hard watch for anyone holding an ante post voucher on him for the Gold Cup.

Brighterdaysahead’s connections opting for the Champion Hurdle over the Mares’ race and Lossiemouth going in the opposite direction wasn’t the most likely scenario for the pair for the majority of the season and many punters will have had their fingers burnt trying to second guess those two mares’ Cheltenham targets.

More recently we had Kevin Blake steal a march on his journalist colleagues by publishing an exclusive stable tour with Aidan O’Brien four days before the rest of the Irish press corps descended on Ballydoyle.

These pre-season visits to Ballydoyle are of huge interest to both the journalists and their audience and the industry hangs on Aidan’s every word.

In Blake’s version, published on attheraces.com, all appeared well with Ballydoyle’s two leading contenders for the English 1000 and 2000 Guineas with Aidan O’Brien quoted as saying with regards to The Lion In Winter: “He had an away day at the Curragh earlier in the week and all went smoothly. We’ll get an idea of how much that has brought him along in the coming days and plans will soon start to come together with him, but he’s an obvious candidate for the 2000 Guineas, with a colt like him all you can say is that he’s very much in the mix for the 2000 Guineas and the Derby.”

If you were a fan of the colt you would be entitled to have added confidence ahead of the 2000 Guineas reading that statement, but unfortunately only a few days later when the rest of the press visited Ballydoyle the story had changed considerably regarding his participation at Newmarket, with Aidan O’Brien saying: “It might come a little quick, he was at the Curragh last week and everything went well, we’ll know in the next fortnight, but could come a bit quick, maybe go to Dante and then on to the Derby.”

Regarding 1000 Guineas favourite Lake Victoria, Aidan O’Brien told attheraces: “We gave her as long a break as we could over the winter and her preparation has gone well so far. She obviously won a Group 1 over six furlongs which would make you think that she would be unlikely to stay much beyond a mile this season, but she’s by Frankel, so you never know. We’ll firm up plans for her next week, but she obviously looks a very strong candidate for the 1000 Guineas.”

Four days later Aidan had gone lukewarm about the filly’s participation in the 1000 Guineas stating: “Lake Victoria is well. She had a longer break than the others through the winter after a long season. She is in good shape. She was at the Curragh last week, didn’t do as strong a work as Fairy Godmother. She could make the Guineas knowing the ability she has and the type of filly she is. She could make the Guineas when we start leaning on her a little bit in the next couple of weeks, she could really come. If she doesn’t she could go to the Curragh for the Tattersalls the following day..”

Not surprisingly both The Lion In Winter and Lake Victoria were rapid drifters on the betting exchanges for the two Newmarket Classics as the news filtered out from Ballydoyle. Lake Victoria’s price has since contracted again for the 1000 Guineas following the unfortunate news later in the week that her stablemate, Fairy Godmother, has met with a setback and been retired to stud.

These two sets of interviews with Aidan O’Brien are basically snapshots into his thinking at specific moments in time. The plans for his horses are fluid and no doubt change frequently as himself and his team process the latest information, but the betting markets react like stock markets to every morsel that reaches the public domain.

It’s difficult to understand why anyone would want to put themselves through the torture of trying to beat the bookies on these volatile ante post markets.

Changing the subject, it was reassuring to read the findings of the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board’s (IHRB) ‘critical incident review’ after the tragic death of Michael O’Sillivan following a fall at Thurles on 6 February.

The IHRB review, which was based on video analysis, eyewitness reports, and post-incident inspections, found no evidence of human error, equipment failure or environmental factors as causing the horrific injuries Michael sustained on the day.

Despite the worst possible outcome, it was most reassuring to hear that the first responders were at the scene of the accident within 14 seconds.

It is vitally important that the sport conducts these reviews and acts on all recommendations for the enhanced safety of participants and the IHRB has pledged to do so in this case.

One recommendation arising from this review is to “prioritise installation of a watering system at Thurles for ground consistency.”

This would suggest that the official going description on the day of ‘Good’ may not have accurately described all areas of the course. Perhaps the time has come for IHRB to invest in some going sticks to help collate consistent measurements of the ground conditions at all tracks, as this data could well prove vital in highlighting inconsistencies.