In-play price moves – Hedger Pro

Introduction

Hedger Pro has four statistics based on how far a horse’s price came in during the race, compared with its Betfair starting price (BSP). They use the same two prices but answer slightly different questions:

Statistic	Question it answers	Scale
PD: Price Drop	How much of the possible price drop did it achieve?	0-100
BR: Book Reduction	How many percentage points of win chance did the price gain?	0-100
HP: Hedge Potential	What percentage profit could a back-to-lay trade have locked in?	0-400
IV: Impact Value	Did the price come in more or less than is typical for that BSP?	0-100, with 50 as typical

Impact Value and Hedge Potential have their own guides: Impact Value and Hedge Potential. This page covers PD and BR and how all four compare.

For all four, the in-play low is the shortest price the horse traded at during the race. If the price never went below BSP, the run scores 0. Form figures are averages of the single-run figures over the period.

PD: Price Drop

The idea

The biggest drop a price can make is from its BSP all the way to 1.01. PD measures what fraction of that drop the horse made.

PD for a run = (BSP – in-play low) / (BSP – 1.01) x 100

BSP	In-play low	PD
5.0	3.0	50
5.0	2.15	71
5.0	1.5	88
5.0	1.01	100

Rolling figure

rolling PD = total PD / number of runs

Reading it

PD is a straight line from BSP to 1.01, with no adjustment for what is normal. Most fancied horses shorten noticeably in-running, so a fairly ordinary run already scores well above 50. In the table above, a 5.0 shot reaching its typical low (2.15) scores 71 on PD but 50 on Impact Value.
Winners usually trade at or near 1.01 and so score close to 100, so a high PD goes hand in hand with winning often.

BR: Book Reduction

The idea

BR is the in-play probability gain: it expresses the price move as a change in win chance. A price of 5.0 implies a 20% chance and 2.0 implies 50%. A horse that goes from 5.0 to 2.0 in-running has gained 30 percentage points.

BR for a run = (100 / in-play low) – (100 / BSP)

BSP	In-play low	BR
5.0	3.0	33.3 – 20.0 = 13.3
5.0	1.5	66.7 – 20.0 = 46.7
2.0	1.5	66.7 – 50.0 = 16.7
20.0	10.0	10.0 – 5.0 = 5.0

Rolling figure

rolling BR = total BR / number of runs

Reading it

An outsider that halves in price from 20.0 to 10.0 gains 5 points, while a favourite moving from 2.0 to 1.5 gains nearly 17. BR naturally favours shorter-priced runners.
Winners usually trade at or near 1.01, a 99% chance, so a winning run typically scores close to 99 minus its starting chance. A high BR reflects both winning often and strong in-play support.

HP: Hedge Potential

HP measures how far the price shortened as the profit a back-to-lay trade could have locked in: back at BSP, then lay at the in-play low.

HP for a run = (BSP / in-play low – 1) x 100

BSP	In-play low	HP
6.0	4.0	50
6.0	3.0	100 (the price halved)
6.0	2.0	200
2.0	1.5	33

See the Hedge Potential guide for how the trade works and how to read the figure.

Which one to use

If you want to know…	Use
Whether a horse attracts more in-play support than is normal for its price	IV
How much of its available price range a horse uses in-running	PD
How much win chance the market gives it in-running	BR
How much profit a back-to-lay trade could have locked in	HP