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Do owners pay a penalty for withdrawn horses?

Posted: Fri May 20, 2016 10:36 am
by shakeshuck
I'm currently working on an angle for trading price movements, and although yesterday went reasonably well for me, I noticed that there were rather a lot of withdrawals - this can really mess up my methodology quite badly.

I then got to wondering why there would be so many horses withdrawn, which brought me to the idea that the owners of these horses potentially have the ability to make no-risk money.
If they backed their own horse at early prices, and just waited to see what happened to the price of their horse, then if the price has shortened they can lay off the bet for a profit. If the price has drifted and they don't want to risk their money after all, all they need to do is withdraw the horse and get their money back. Money for nothing, so to speak.

Is there a penalty for withdrawing a horse, to stop owners milking the system in this way?

Re: Do owners pay a penalty for withdrawn horses?

Posted: Sat May 21, 2016 8:58 pm
by shakeshuck
To answer my own question, I'm guessing they can't do much about it; it wouldn't be fair to give the owner the choice of running an unfit horse or paying a penalty.

Re: Do owners pay a penalty for withdrawn horses?

Posted: Sat May 28, 2016 10:51 am
by steveH
Hi, I think the 48 hr decs are the main reason for all the withdrawals now. Owners have also been known to do what you are saying in reverse so to speak. When their horse has taken a plunge in the early market and the owner intended to back it on course they have sometimes pulled them out as the best price has long gone. I guess they pay the bills so feel they are entitled to do it really.

Re: Do owners pay a penalty for withdrawn horses?

Posted: Wed Apr 19, 2017 1:48 pm
by Kingshu
I did read once but haven't researched it that withdrawals occur more when there are 12 runners to bring it to 11, or 8 to 7.
The theory was that this was done for the bookies as it effects the place market, 2 places instead of 3 and 1/5 odds rather than 1/4 etc

It may be worth checking number of withdrawals when there are 16,12,8 horses compared to others to see if it does occur more often in these.

If it does it means you know which races to be careful in.

Re: Do owners pay a penalty for withdrawn horses?

Posted: Sun May 07, 2017 8:20 am
by SteveV
'If they backed their own horse at early prices, and just waited to see what happened to the price of their horse, then if the price has shortened they can lay off the bet for a profit. If the price has drifted and they don't want to risk their money after all, all they need to do is withdraw the horse and get their money back. Money for nothing, so to speak.'

If they backed their horse they expect it to win, if the price drifts then they would back it again rather than withdrawing the horse. After all, they know more about it's chances than anybody else...

The only caveat to this is if the ground changes drastically overnight, but then thats a valid reason to withdraw a horse anyway