Don't be scared of big market drifters - and be prepared to go in again

Betting on Racing is an app-exclusive daily punting guide from three of the Racing Post's most renowned experts: Tom Segal, Paul Kealy and David Jennings. A new instalment will be published every weekday for the next three weeks.

What do you do if a horse you have backed has taken a big walk in the market?

For every person who says "back it again" you can bet your life there will be ten times as many who tell you to avoid it like the plague, but there is no logical reason to run scared.

The reason so many do is because punters are inherently conspiracy theorists who believe a small number of people have the game carved up and that racing is essentially crooked.

There will, of course, always be gambles landed and some of those will smell of connections pulling the wool over punters' eyes, but in general racing is far straighter than many think and there will always be more value in backing horses the market dislikes than those it it does, particularly if you are getting on at the tail end of a gamble.

Way back in 2005 Betfair commissioned a study of 2,000 races from the last six months of 2004 and what they found is that punters would have been far better off backing horses that drifted than those who shortened, with a profit of 570 points on the former and a loss of 345 on the latter.

A drifter was deemed to be a horse whose price had lengthened by a minimum of 20 per cent in the minutes leading up to a race, while the reverse was true for shorteners.

Things are unlikely to have changed since, but it's also near certain that punters' opinions on the matter haven't changed either.

There can be any number of reasons for a horse to drift in the market, but by far the most obvious is that something else is being well supported.

Prices move one way or another, and if one horse is strong in the market others are going to be less strong and will subsequently drift. It has no effect on its actual chance, it's just that others have another opinion.

Picture perfect: Greaneteen produces a fine leap at the last

Greaneteen: easy Tingle Creek winner despite a big market driftCredit: Edward Whitaker (racingpost.com/photos)

On a personal level some of my best ever wins have come from stepping in again after a horse has drifted, with the most recent at the time of writing being Greanteen's Tingle Creek Chase win.

Here was a horse who had finished second in the race the year before, had beaten two Champion Chase winners over course and distance on his only other course start in April and had been prepared specifically for the race by a trainer, Paul Nicholls, who was going for his 12th win in the event.

When I tipped him at the start of the week in the Weekender he was a 7-2 shot, but by off time he'd gone right out to 12-1 and was even bigger on Betfair.

There was no earthly reason why he should have been anywhere near that price, so I kept topping up, and he duly won, easily as it happened.

Of course, it doesn't always happen that way, but if you think a horse is value at 7-2 then it simply must be an incredible bet at nearly four times the price.

Have more confidence in your own judgement, leave conspiracy theories to the nutters and you will have some big days to remember.

Tomorrow: David Jennings on dispelling the myths