This is the second in a series of articles researching the tricast. To recap I decided to confine myself to 12 runner handicaps on the flat, and split the runners into “thirds” based on their market position. By splitting the market positions into “thirds” this started give me a decent overview of which type of horses reached the first three (in terms of market position) without getting too complicated. There were 10 potential combinations (“T” = top third of the betting; “M” = middle third of the betting and “B” = bottom third of the market):

 

TTT	MTT	BTT	BBB	BBM
BBT	BMM	MMT	MMM	BMT

 

When finishing the first article I had looked at two months – January and February of this year. At that point I had looked at 43 races and the “thirds” split was as follows:

 

TTT 9 tricasts	MTT   13 tricasts	BTT   7 tricasts	BBB 0 tricasts	BBM 1 tricast
BBT 1 tricast	BMM 0 tricasts	MMT 7 tricasts	MMM 1 tricast	BMT 4 tricasts

 

After the first two months therefore, “TTT”, “MTT” and “BTT” combined for 29 of 43 tricasts (67%). Clearly having at least two horses from the top “third” of the betting was looking crucial. I also noted in the first two months that the top three in betting had produced 6 wins and if backing all such runners in full cover tricasts a profit of £138.27 would have been achieved. That equated to a profit of 53.6%. Could that be kept up? Could I find some sort of perm involving a mixture of runners from different “thirds”? These questions would hopefully be answered eventually, but it is time to get back in diary mode!

 

March - in March there were 26 qualifying races and the “thirds” split was as follows:

 

TTT    3 tricasts	MTT   6 tricasts	BTT   3 tricasts	BBB    0 tricasts	BBM   0 tricasts
BBT   1 tricast	BMM 2 tricasts	MMT    4 tricasts	MMM    0 tricasts	BMT    7 tricasts

 

A more even spread this month with the combination “BMT” rather surprisingly being successful 7 times. “TTT” provided only 3 winning tricasts, but 2 of them were a 1-2-3 for the top three in the betting with payouts of £57.44 and £83.44. Hence, a small loss of £15.12 would have been made in March if perming the top three in the betting in six full cover tricasts, but overall this bet was still £123.15 in profit for the first three months. 

 

At this juncture I think I should explain that the 10 tricast combinations I have been examining do not all produce the same number of possible combinations. Now we need to remember that I am not really concerned with all possible combinations in the right order, I am concerned with all possible combinations in any order. The finishing order whether it is “MTT” or “TMT” is irrelevant in terms of the focus on my research – I am trying to get three horses to finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd in any order. Here is a table illustrating the possible combinations for each “thirds grouping”:

 

Combination	Possible combinations	Cost of bet using £1 unit stake
TTT	6	£24
MMM	6	£24
BBB	6	£24
BTT	24	£144
MTT	24	£144
BMM	24	£144
MMT	24	£144
BBM	24	£144
BBT	24	£144
BMT	64	£384

 

I do not want to get heavily involved with mathematics here, but using “BMT” for example seems the worst combination to use as it would require so many bets and cost so much money each time you made the bet. However, I cannot categorically make this claim yet, as the number of bets is all relative – if a combination produces enough wins with the right payouts then it does not matter how many bets you have make each time.

 

As yet I have not analysed average payouts for each combination – that is something that will be done when more races have been collated.

 

April - in April there were 27 qualifying races and the “thirds” split was as follows:

 

TTT    3 tricasts	MTT   9 tricasts	BTT   5 tricasts	BBB    0 tricasts	BBM   0 tricasts
BBT   0  tricasts	BMM   1 tricasts	MMT   6 tricasts	MMM    0 tricasts	BMT   3 tricasts

 

As with January and February the three tricast combinations with at least two “T”s (2 from the top “third” of the betting) did well with 17 of the 27 winning tricasts (62.9%). However, the top three in the betting failed to produce a single winner and hence that potentially winning avenue had been seemingly closed with avengeance. From a profit of £123.15 at the end of March, the top three in the betting were now showing a loss of £38.85. For anyone who has spent time researching horse racing, you would have come across similar scenarios. You start researching an idea, you find a potentially profitable area, and then after more research you realise that you were going down a blind alley all the time!!

 

After four months there had been 96 races with the following results:

 

TTT   15 tricasts	MTT   28 tricasts	BTT   15 tricasts	BBB   0 tricasts	BBM 1 tricasts
BBT   2 tricasts	BMM   3 tricasts	MMT   17 tricasts	MMM 1 tricasts	BMT 14  tricasts

 

It should be noted that there is strong domination from the upper end of the betting market. 58 of the 96 races (60.4%) have had at least two horses from the top “third” of the betting in the first three, while only 3 of the 96 (3.1%) have seen at least two horses from the bottom “third” of the betting in the top three. Clearly one would expect a strong market bias, but 58 winning tricasts to 3 is quite a significant edge.

 

Digging a bit deeper, 60 of the 96 races came from these three combinations - “TTT”, “MTT” and “MMT”, and hence at this stage I am beginning to think that the best idea may be to try and perm some horses from the top “third” and some from the “middle” third. It would not have been viable to perm all 8 horses (4 from the top, 4 from the bottom) in tricasts as the table below shows:

 

Number of bets perming all 8 runners	Outlay in 96 races at £1 per individual bet	Returns from “TTT”, “MTT” and “MMT” in analysed 96 races
336	£32,256	£16,956

 

Now there are two points worth immediately noting – firstly losses incurred using this full cover permutation would have considerable at around 47%; secondly I am not advocating £1 per bet, as this would mean an outlay of £336 on each bet!!!! It is simply easier to use pounds than split the bets it into pence. From here, it is clear that if you could cut selections down from 8 to either 5 or 6, then this method has possibilities. 5 horses would require 60 individual bets, 6 horses would be 120. However, the following table I believe is an important one to look at before we move on:

 

Combination	Winning tricasts	Payout total	Average payout
TTT	15	£1,254.17	£83.61
MTT	28	£5,728.33	£204.58
MMT	17	£9,973.52	£586.68

 

It is clear from this table the value lies with “MMT” with an average payout of nearly £600; meanwhile “TTT” seems to offer extremely poor value. “MTT” has had more winning tricasts than the other two so that is important to note also. Hence, any permutation that I consider should surely have at least the same number of horses from the “middle third” of the betting, than the top. Indeed, there is a strong argument that you would be better off with more horses from the “middle third” than the top.

 

The question now is, what split shall we go for, and should we go for 5 horses or 6 in the perm? At this juncture, more research is needed. When I wrote the first article, I commented that this idea could spill into a few articles and this is definitely the case! Next time I will expand on these latest ideas; hopefully getting close to the optimum permutation.