Warren Block's Daily Report Tuesday, 8 April 2025

• Wizard MATRIX Selectives  -  True or False?
• Daily Wizard Freebie - Wizard Raceday report
• Wizard Ratings, Raceday, Matrix and Selectives Results

Wizard MATRIX Selectives True or False?

Over the years I have read many, many books on horse race betting and selecting. (In December 2023, I published list of those I recommended as worth reading Check out this Daily Reports archive for articles covering December 7 to December 10.)

One issue cropped up frequently in the better books. The issue of the false favourite. The false favourite can arise for any number of reasons (assessing off one run, hype surrounding a trainer or jockey, expectations based only on old form, etc etc). The consequence of a horse being installed as the race favourite when not entitled to that position in the market is a runner being under the odds and performing below (market) expectations.

When we look at the results being recorded by the Matrix Selectives, I think they reflect the fact that the Selectives are effectively filtering the true from the false favourites. I have to say that I am really pleased to see this as, for me, the identification of the true favourites has always been something of the holy grail of form analysis. Holy grail, as these true favourites offer one of the really genuine ways to maximize strike rates and minimize losing runs; these two critical factors, when working in our favour, make betting and (planned) staking a much more reliable exercise.

The filters that Matrix applies to identify the qualifying Selectives basically revolve around ratings (Wrat 100 and MaxR 100) and the Raceday and Magic qualifiers.

Last Saturday was pretty typical of the results produced over the 15 weeks of Matrix operations. The table below shows Saturdays runners that were rated 100 and were qualifiers from both the Raceday and Magic Reports.

We know the long-term strike rate of race favourites is around 33%. The strike rate of this particular Selective (R/M 100) over the first quarter of Matrix operations was 47.2%, a 42% improvement.

In the table I have shown the (average) odds offered by corporates at 30 minutes and 5 minutes prior to race start, and the final sp odds.

With respect to acceptable odds, I have indicated in the past that I see no value in backing odds on runners; and, with respect to Selectives, that position stands, despite the likely higher strike rate. (If you missed getting $2.00 but, say, $1.90 is on offer there might be a case for taking that price, but no shorter, and not if $1.90 was the best on offer at any point during betting.) If the horse opens odds on, and stays odds on, then the rational decision is to stay out. By concentrating on horses in the black, and employing a conservative staking strategy, the odds are much more likely to be tipped in our favour. (During the past month, whilst the majority of winners were in the $2.00 to $3.00 range there were Selective winners that had sps around $5.00 and were backable at longer odds during the last 30 minutes.)

Australia and NZL's "winningest" jockeys last week.

This list is being held over for a day. The Jockey list will be published tomorrow, and the Trainer list on Thursday.

Wizard Freebie - Wizard Raceday report

The Wizard publishes on this page one of its Wizard reports or special features, either completely or a part thereof, and today the Wizard Freebie is the Wizard Raceday for Sale. The full Raceday Report and the other Wizard reports for all meetings are now available to subscribers.

Click here for a full explanation of the Wizard Raceday Report.

Wizard Ratings, Raceday, Matrix, and Selectives Results

We publish these full results daily so that subscribers can see the results of the Wizard's ratings options, and Report-content, and thereby formulate a selecting and betting strategy that suits them individually. The Wizard ratings should not be seen as "tips", rather as objective assessments that can be used to inform one's own judgement as to the relative chances of the runners in a race.

The full day-by-day results for Wizard (Wrat) top 4 rated runners, the Raceday Qualifier, and the Matrix (MaxR) 100 pointer and the MaxR top-two this week so far. The (4 weeks) column shows the results for the four weeks prior to the current week and the 2023-2024 column shows the WRat results for the full 2023-2024 racing season. This results summary is colour coded so that it is easier for readers to track the relative performance of the Top Rated (blue) and Top-Two Rated (green) ratings options on a daily, and longer term, basis.

The following table shows this week's results of possible Matrix Selectives combinations. These combinations are accessible via the Wizard MATRIX report which is posted to our website around 10:30am each day.

(Key: The first of the two columns for each Selective combination shows number of qualifying races and the second column shows the strike rate. Headings: RWM is Raceday,Watch,Magic,  RWM 2/3 means two or three qualifying, Rday is Raceday report qualifier , Magic is Magic report qualifier, R/M is Raceday and Magic, WR1 is Wrat 100, MR1 is MaxR 100.)

The following table shows where the winner of each race run yesterday was rated by WRat, WMod, WHcp, and WExpk and was the qualifier in the Wizard Raceday Report. (Note: The Wrat [W] winner results report on both the top rated and top-two rated winners.) The Raceday Report winners under the Top Rated column are from those races where there was only one Raceday qualifier, and under the Top 2 Rated on the rare occasions where there were two qualifiers in a race.

Header: WMHER = WRat (W), WMod (M), WHcp (H), WExpk (E), Raceday (R).

For a full explanation of the table click: How to read the Wizard Ratings Results