If you’re a Twitter follower you’ll of seen me post up straight after Ruby Walsh was seen to be walking off the track holding his wrist on Friday. Situations like this become a ‘fastest finger first’ type scenario as it is one of the few occasions where the price will only go one way and is quite literally free money – in the short-term at least.
With such a high-profile jockey injured early afternoon, particularly on a big day prices on his later rides will change – much like if there is a gamble with a jockey landing a ‘treble’ on a saturday afternoon. Above is the initial snapshot of the price movement with the return in the background (matched bets on left). You can see for a £500 stake between 8.4 and 8.8 it gave me an easy £21.11 across the book, however I didn’t quite realise the extent of the injury meaning I left the grade far too early. Once it was confirmed he was seriously injured I tried to re-enter at 9.8 (see additional matched bets on the right) I was too slow so had to take the 10.0 and ended up scalping it out for one more tick as the price settled – it did reach higher but I was a little greedy. All in all I made a bit of a hash of it, although all of his rides for the whole day did drift after that little incident so it’s definitely one to watch out for in the future!
I exited the initial £500 trade as I was cautious of the fact they may then announce on the TV that he was fine and it was a minor sprain – in the event that should happen I would have thought the price would soon return to where it was on his remaining rides leaving me stuck in on a fair-sized stake – something to bear in mind for future reference.
Freak occurences like this come around from time to time and sometimes are more profitable than others, which is why I’d suggest it’s always good to have live pictures of the events going on. In the longer run they will pay for themselves and more providing your quick enough to spot something and act! – On the other hand worst case it’ll stop you from being on the wrong side of those trades!