Summary: Rick Williams, our Senior Form Analyst, is back with more of his great insights for punters. This week he's sharing his thoughts on how we can make the most of an often overlooked class of race and that is maidens. There are more maidens than any other class of racing, which allows for plenty of opportunities, but lots of room for error as well. Rick has some important tips on making them profitable. Punting Insights You'll Find The rationale behind betting on maidens. The number one consideration when looking at maidens. How to assess the qualities of a race to determine if it's worth your money. When to not place so much reliance on the speed of a horse. Why there can actually be a ton of value in maidens. Today's Guest: Rick Williams Rick's Closing Tip: " If you've got a horse that's going to be running in the city, you've gotta punt on those things." Get the Transcript: Episode 30 : Rick Williams on Betting on Maidens David: Hi this is David Duffield and welcome to episode 30 of the Betting 360 podcast. I’ve got Rick Williams our senior form analyst back as our special guest today and he doesn’t need an introduction but what we’re going to talk about is betting on maiden races. There are more maidens than any other class of race so it’s worth exploring them in detail and seeing where the value might be. Some people think there are some poor quality runners going around but there are times when there’s some good value there, so lets have a chat with Rick. Thanks for joining us again Rick. Rick: Yeah, no worries mate. David: Good to have a chat with you about maiden’s today. I wanted to run through a few of the reasons why we get involved and others that we might avoid. There are some people that don’t like maidens at all but obviously they’re the most common form of race in Australia so what’s our approach to betting on maidens? How would you summarize it? Rick: I think maidens can sort of be good or bad. I’ve certainly found probably a few years ago that maidens weren’t really a type of race that I wanted to focus on a lot but since working with the Times and creating the data base and I guess having the information at hand, it really does paint a clear picture that there’s certainly a lot of good opportunities to be made through those types of races if you do have the right information. I think obviously there’s a correlation in all racing between class and speed. As you get up higher in grades, your Saturday races and group races class becomes a lot more prominent, but when you’re dealing with lightly raced horses that are finding their way, and are yet to win, I do think your class figures in that are certainly less prominent. Speed certainly is the key indicator there is the best way to highlight a horse’s ability early on. For the maidens and I really don’t pay much attention to the class figures because it’s not where the edge is. The edge is in the speed. That’s where I’m at with all that it’s heavily based towards speed the lower grade of the race. David: With the speed figures, are you assessing I suppose the benchmark for maiden runners or is it more about relative to other horses on the day and in part times or what people would call part times in terms of the last 10, 12 years? Rick: It’s got nothing to do with maidens as such it’s looking at all the horses that say performed at Yarra Glen over 1400 meters then looking at some different factors and coming to a conclusion as to where that sits in the pecking order. We’re not doing a maiden versus a maiden. When I’m looking at the results on the day it could be the maiden versus the rating 68 or something like that. They’re all in the bucket together as such and it’s trying to pick the right one in the right race. Also, it’s okay to have a speed number but I think it’s very important that you understand why that number was produced and how that number was produced.
