I had an unusual bad beat yesterday in this race.
I have an Automation rule, using TPD data, to trigger in a jumps race if a horse makes a bad mistake at a fence or pulls up suddenly. The main conditions are speed and stride frequency related, at a speed and stride frequency that wouldn't possibly be normal for the leaders of the race and to start 15 seconds in-play.
My rule and lay bet was was triggered on all the horses at 15 seconds and I had the stake at 'liability as a percentage of balance' and the first to be triggered was the fav, so the biggest liability was on him with ever decreasing liabilities on the remaining runners as they were subsequently triggered.
As luck would have it, the favourite won and I lost a good chunk of money.
I was working and didn't see the race live and upon checking the replay, I realised why it happened. After the flag dropped and race went in play, all the jockeys just walked the horses for 20 seconds before one decided to start running and the others followed suit.
I'd never seen it before and thought I was comfortable starting my rule 15 seconds into in-play time.
Has anyone seen a race start similar to this?
13.45 Uttoxeter yesterday 8th September
It's very common on jumps races, especially bumpers. Where you have no natural front runners, nobody wants to take the lead. You obviously don't see this on flat races, but you can get some really odd starts on the jumps races.