Jugs, Economy, and Best Practices

The Little Brown Jug is in the books. Big Bad John made a few left turns and won fairly easily over the top rated colt in the country, Roll With Joe. The race, unlike many LBJ Finals was fairly interesting because Jody Jamieson took a shot with North America Cup champ Up the Credit. This allowed for fairly honest fractions, and gave Pierce a chance at daylight with Roll With Joe.

The Jug handle (I read from Pacing Guy) was $1.2 million, with an attendance of almost 50,000. The Jug is like Industry Day up at Grand River. Lotsa folks, lotsa insiders, and lotsa fun, but not much betting. Thank goodness for slots; and thank goodness for the Jug.

Racing and Trades

Bill Shanklin has a nice piece about playing the markets and playing the races.  One item explains nicely the stumbling block to gaining market share in horse racing:

• Stock broker commissions can eat away at profits if you trade frequently, although the advent of online trading has greatly diminished trading costs. On the other hand, the relatively high takeout percentages on horse-race bets (as opposed to other gambling games of skill) have generally not diminished in the Internet era—which is why wagering on horse races can be an entertaining diversion but is an unattractive way for making money. Unless you bet enough to demand sizeable rebates, you are almost certain to lose over a sustained period of time.

I was reading a trading book recently and the author hit the same points Bill did in the piece. It is amazing how similar stock trading and horse betting is in terms of best practices. The parallel is a little clearer with betfair I guess, because you can trade out positions at a low rake. We, pari-mutuelly, are bringing an exacto knife to a bazooka fight.

It's not the Economy Stupid

Every time handle goes down in racing all we hear is "it's the economy". H/t to Caroline for a link to a graph of Personal Consumption Expenditures. Notice where we are now as compared to 2008? People are not playing racing ...... because they are not playing racing. In fact, GDP in 2011 is higher than 2010.

I wonder why the argument ever took hold in the first place, and that people swallowed it. When the economy from 2002-2007 grew at 4% per year and casino's and everything else was smokin', handles shrunk about 30%.

It is the Economy Stupid

I know the Keeneland sale went well, but how will the sales be from here on out if the S&P takes another haircut, and Europe implodes in a debt crisis? Massive liquidation of stocks (and everything but treasury's) was the MO for the week. It's been a tough market to make money in, even if you were a bear, because it's been crazy.

The Waples Kid

Randy Waples hit the $100 million mark. I can remember being a punk upstairs at Greenwood with the some of the regulars calling him a young driver with no skills. They called him that when they lost anyway.

Mountaineer Calling

I've been busy and have not gotten into one of my favorite thoroughbred tracks to play - Mountaineer - for awhile. I am watching tonight and realize how much I like track announcer Peter Berry. I could listen to that dude all day.

Have a good weekend everyone.