![\"Steamers](\"https:\/\/www.ukgamblingsites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/steamers-drifters-horse-racing-400px-1.jpg\")
Many components combine to make the sport of horse racing so popular all around the world. The sight of the finest equine athletes on the planet in full flow is chief amongst them, with the stars of the sport providing moments of magic and enduring drama year after year. One thing that is absolutely key to racing\u2019s existence though, and possibly more so than in any other sport, is the betting activity that surrounds it.<\/p>\n
Horse racing and betting are simply made for each other and continue to enjoy a thriving partnership centuries after they first joined forces. The horses and jockeys may be the stars, but for many, it is the punting element that really makes the sport tick. And just as with the sporting side of things, the betting market also features its own peculiar jargon and terminology \u2013 with which the uninitiated may be unfamiliar but which is really pretty straightforward once you get the hang of it.<\/p>\n
And it is to two of the more frequently used betting terms to which we turn here: the steamer and the drifter. We will be looking both at the definitions of the terms and how they fit into the overall betting picture.<\/p>\n
In order to get to grips with this terminology, we first need to be aware of how the betting market operates. And specifically the fact that, far from being set in stone, the initial odds provided by the compilers are in a state of flux almost from the moment they are made live to the betting public. And what makes these odds move? None other than the driving force of the betting world: money!<\/p>\n
With the aim of the bookmaker being to come out on top no matter what the outcome of a particular race, it follows that the layers should aspire to attract business for each of the runners in the field. However, this doesn\u2019t always happen, and in the face of an uneven spread of stakes, the bookmakers will react by adjusting the prices; shortening the odds of the well-backed runners in an effort to deter future bets, and lengthening the odds of the less supported runners in order to attract investment.<\/p>\n
And much of the time, this constant price tweaking has the desired effect, with a significant percentage of runners continuing to hover around their initial price right up until the moment at which the race begins \u2013 perhaps lengthening a little, or shortening slightly. There are however those horses whose price continues to move in a particular direction, forcing the bookmakers to shorten or lengthen the price over and over again. And it is these runners who have come to be known as the steamers and drifters of the racing world.<\/p>\n
![\"Horse](\"https:\/\/www.ukgamblingsites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/horse-steamer-800px.jpg\")
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In relation to the above, a steamer is simply a horse that is very well backed in the market and continues to be well supported even as the bookmaker continues to shorten the price. For example, a runner being backed at an initial price of 12\/1 and continuing to be punted at all prices down to 6\/1 or perhaps even shorter.<\/p>\n
The exact origins of the term \u201csteamer\u201d appear to have been a little lost in betting history, but it seems most likely to be related to the fact that the odds appear to be steaming in \u2013 in the manner of a steam train arriving at the station, or a steamboat powering to shore, possibly overloaded with excitable punters honking the horn.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s what a steamer is. But why do they come about? What causes the betting public to latch on to these runners in such a manner, moving their odds so far away from the professional odds compilers\u2019 initial assessment. In truth, there can be several reasons, but the following are amongst the most common:<\/p>\n
![\"Horse](\"https:\/\/www.ukgamblingsites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/horse-drifter-800px.jpg\")
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Drifters are the runners at the opposite end of the spectrum to the steamer. The term refers to those horses who attract very little support at their opening price and continue to be ignored by punters even as they are made available at longer and longer prices, for example, a horse opening up at 10\/1 and being pushed out to 12\/1, then 14\/1, 16\/1 and so on.<\/p>\n
Going back to our boating analogy, the drifter is the steamboat with the engines switched off which, rather than powering along in the direction of the shoreline, is merely allowed to drift further and further out to sea, with the punters paying it very little attention at all.<\/p>\n
So what is it that results in a runner being so unloved by the betting public? Again, there can be several factors that contribute to a drift, many of which are closely related to those which cause a runner to steam.<\/p>\n
The answer to this question largely depends on two factors. Firstly, how close are we to the start time of the race? And secondly, how big is the race? The key point in each instance is just how much money it takes to move a price.<\/p>\n
The odds for the majority of events are made live on the evening before the race \u2013 and at that opening point the total amount staked on the race is, of course, zero. Whilst it doesn\u2019t take long for the first bets to placed, the initial flow of stakes will often be little more than a trickle, beginning to increase on the morning of the race and continuing to climb further right up until the off time.<\/p>\n
As such, a \u00a3100 single placed the night before the race could be a fairly significant bet in relation to the total amount staked \u2013 and it could be possibly enough to result in a price change. If placed 10 minutes before the off, however, that same bet is likely to be a mere drop in the ocean and would be unlikely to affect the odds at all. The general rule to note here is, the closer we are to the off time, the more money it takes to move a price and the more significance can be placed upon a steamer or drifter.<\/p>\n
And related to the above, it is considerably easier to move a price in a small race than in a major contest. A \u00a31,000 win single in the first race at Southwell on a Tuesday afternoon for example is likely to send at least a ripple through what is likely to be a relatively weak market. Whereas in a huge public race such as the Grand National, the same stake would barely have any impact at all. The bigger the race, the more money is required to create a steamer or drifter and hence the more significant the steam or drift is.<\/p>\n
![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.ukgamblingsites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/on-course-bookmaker-800px.jpg\")
Common sense dictates that a steamer should be taken as positive and a drifter as a negative \u2013 at least in terms of the chances of winning the race. A runner shortening from 5\/1 into 4\/1 for example has moved from a perceived chance of winning of 16.67% to one of 20%, whereas a runner moving from 5\/1 to 6\/1 has shifted from a 16.67% perceived chance to one of 14.28%.<\/p>\n
Remembering that the odds are at their most accurate at the moment at which the race goes off, it is clearly more desirable to see your runner shorten in price as that off time approaches than it is to see the odds on your selection lengthen.<\/p>\n
An increased chance of winning the race is all well and good, but in and of itself does not make a steamer a better bet than a drifter. And the reason for this is that when determining the best betting option, it is not the win percentage that matters but rather the long-term success rate.<\/p>\n
Take for example a backer who achieved a 50% strike rate with his selections \u2013 an admirable figure, but not much good if every horse he backs is priced at below even money. Now consider another punter who manages a strike rate of only 10% \u2013 not so good on the face of it, but easily enough to secure a long-term net win should all of his bets be placed at odds of 12\/1 or higher. Bearing that in mind a move towards a shorter price does not automatically represent a better bet and a drift to a bigger price does not necessarily signify a worse bet.<\/p>\n
What matters is how closely the odds correspond to the actual winning chances of the horse. The exact chance of a runner winning any given race is all but impossible to determine with 100% accuracy in advance, but we can study the win percentages returned by runners within certain odds ranges after the event. Do runners priced at evens win roughly half the time on average for example? 10\/1 shots win one time out of 11? And so on.<\/p>\n
Helpfully, the aforementioned study has been undertaken on numerous occasions in the past, and time and again it returns very similar results.<\/p>\n
In an unbiased market, there should be no benefit derived from blindly backing all runners at a certain price overall runners at another i.e. the long-term returns generated by a \u00a31 single on every 100\/1 shot should be the same as those resulting from a \u00a31 single on every 5\/4 shot. The 100\/1 shots will of course win far less frequently, but this will be levelled out by the much greater returns when they do win. However, when looking at the returns generated across the range of prices in horse racing, this is not what we find.<\/p>\n
What the results instead show is a significant bias in favour of the shorter priced runners, a phenomenon which has come to be known as the favourite\/longshot bias. The table below, which shows the returns generated from backing all runners across a range of prices during the 1989 season serves as a good illustration of this bias in action.<\/p>\n
![\"Punters](\"https:\/\/www.ukgamblingsites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/punters-at-the-horses-800px.jpg\")
![\"Betting](\"https:\/\/www.ukgamblingsites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/betting-exchange-800px.jpg\")
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