Saturday 27 December 2008

Painful....

Loss since last update £349.65

One of the reasons I’m keeping this blog going is simply due to the fact it has helped me so much this year with keeping my discipline. When I’ve been through some bad times punting this year, the blog has helped a great deal and after the last two days, I’m hoping to use this to let off some steam tonight as I’m fuming with myself.

As I’d said on the last blog post, my own trading hadn’t been going that well recently and being honest, I hadn’t really been on fire with the tips. I seem to go through good spells and bad spells with the tips and you could easily see that by looking at the graph of my P&L.

I was looking forward to Boxing Day as there is a feast of racing and with me being off work, I knew I’d get some quality time to spend on my analysis and I was hoping for a very good day. I also knew today would be a busy day for me also, so I was looking forward to getting some trading time and picking some winners.

26 trading races later and 17 tips later, not a single winner to show for it and as you can see above, a hefty loss to go with it. A £350 trading loss to go with a 16 point loss to suggested stakes with the tips and it’s pretty much a disaster for me and The Form Analyst.

This is painful to look at but here’s the P&L graph after the last 2 days:



So, where do I start? I’m not posting my BF P&L for today as it shows nothing apart from small losses in most races and a couple of hefty losses. I’ve tried my best to not show shitty P&L shots on here as it does nothing for my confidence and I’m not about to start now.

My worst result of the last 2 days was Twist Magic. On the form book, this was about the greatest certainty that you can get in racing in my opinion as it was 2/1 against horses rated far inferior to it and all it had to do was run to the form it has shown many times on good ground and was in the process of showing last time until it fell in the Master Minded race.

Today, I was using £100 trading stakes on it to back and lay and at the off, I had about £180 riskfree on it to win as it was heavily punted pre-race and it was the easiest horse to trade this year! Just before the off, it started to play up at the start and people started laying it. I then got involved again with a few to take some money in running but I ended up taking £100 IR on it and the horse just never travelled. I knew my fate very early on and it was basically a £100 punt that went wrong and the layers were right to lay it at the start when it played up.

This is the sort of result that has me tearing my hair out in racing. All Twist Magic had to do was run to some sort of form to win the race as the eventual winner and runner-up ran to their best form which was about 20lbs worse than Twist’s form from last time. It really is hard to figure out and I’m left with a sizable bet on a horse that ran poorly. I also gave that out as a confident tip today, so that didn’t do the subscribers much good.

The same comment applies to a horse called Pop at Wetherby which gave a horse an
easy lead and the money I took IR was pretty much lost very early on in the race.
My other bad race today was Newmill in the Irish Chase and I again took some money IR to get out as it usually front runs and travels well. The writing was on the wall very early with this one and another hefty loss here after getting caught out by a drift.

My best bet of the day was Harry Tricker in the last race at Kempton today and it was one of the best backed horses of the day. It was going in a 15 horse race and the horse needed a decent pace. I was throwing things at my TV as they went a crawl and was shouting at the jockey to let it go on and take the lead as it was pulling for its head the whole way at the back and had no chance. It was a never nearer 6th I think at the end but it had no chance as it effectively turned into a 5f sprint which is not what it wanted.

Yesterday, I wanted to be against Kauto Star and as the money came, the more I laid and I was happy to gamble a little IR. Obviously, this wasn’t the best decision I’d made and this went belly up. To make matter worse, I had £600 riskfree return on Alberta’s Run which finished 2nd in the race and I didn’t make a penny from this IR at all.

I could go on and discuss another 20 races where I’ve had small losses or small wins but the wins were few and far between and I struggled all day with horses running poorly. I can barely recall a day where I read so many races badly and this will be on my mind for a while yet.

One of the things that I don’t understand about the last 2 days is that I’ve put more work into my analysis and set aside some decent time to enable me to trade properly. I expected to win a fair amount trading and at the least, expected to have a few winnings tips to enable us to finish off the month very well. No idea what happened today and looking at the results tonight, I’m scratching my head a little as I was nowhere near to finding some of the winners today and it worries me a bit.

So much of this game is about confidence and until today, I’d been very confident that things were going well and I was riding the crest of a wave this month with winning tips. Tonight, I feel down and I can’t believe I’m only around 10 points in profit this month. I was looking at a 30 point profit at one stage and that has evaporated very quickly under my nose and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.

There have been various times when I’ve felt under pressure with the tips and obviously, when I had a new subscriber who had 34 losing tips at the start, I felt a huge strain then but I’m probably feeling a bit worse now. I’ve had a few new subscribers recently who joined on the back of decent results and they must be asking themselves why the hell they have bothered no doubt. One guy is about 18 points down after a week and I can’t imagine he’ll be too chuffed with his investment.

I’m so desperate to separate myself from other tipsters out there and I feel like I’ve taken a massive step backwards over the last few days. I’m shell shocked with what has happened and reading JP’s blog tonight makes me cringe when I see all the tips and no winners. Knowing people are losing small fortunes on my poor advice is hard to take and I’m gutted about the last two days.

I’ll no doubt ease back on the tips a little and try to claw my way back into the game but I’m now on a losing run of 19 tips which is another horrendous run. I think it’s one winning tip in about 33 or something and that’s a near disaster for a tipster. Thankfully, I’ve been playing each-way a little and have had a few placed, so it hasn’t been as bad as it sounds but not far off it.

The only thing that keeps me going is I know deep down I’m much better than I’ve shown everyone in the last couple of days. I think I’m much, much better but I now have a lot to prove again. I’ve been here before and I’ll be here again in the future no doubt, so it’s time to stand up and be counted again. Let’s hope I can rise to the challenge.

With regards to my trading, I know I messed up a bit today but I’m not going to be too hard on myself. I’ve done well this year and after last month, I can’t moan too much about a bad month. I’ll get it back next month……………

Monday 22 December 2008

A Disappointing Post!

Loss since last update £34.77 & Subs worth £130 = £95.23 Profit to P&L

This is a bit of a disappointing blog post to be honest and I’m having to include a few recent subscriptions to even post a profit to the P&L on here.

As I hinted at last time, my trading was starting to suffer as a result of the tipping business and my lack of time to concentrate on my trading. I’ve therefore just been trading the races with my own horses and up until recently, this has been a very good income for me. Unfortunately, I’ve had a few selections that have run very poorly after drifting pre-race and I’ve not had the best of times of it. If it wasn’t for Folio winning yesterday, this would have been a 3 figure loss I’m posting and I’d have been really annoyed with myself.

As it turns out, it’s hardly a disaster considering I’ve been on a poor run with the tips. I hit 12 straight losers again which is the 3rd time this has happened since the inception of the tipping service. Apart from the fact I tend to play at bigger odds than most tipsters, it’s difficult to put my finger on why losing runs happen to me. I guess it’s partly because I’m quite cocky considering how good I’m going to do at this game, so instead of looking for a short priced selection when I’m on a poor run, I just continue on with my big priced selections and I end up putting myself under a lot of pressure to finally pick a winner and end the losing run!

One thing I have been doing recently is looking for more shorter priced selections that I feel may represent value. By shorter priced, I’m meaning more single figure odds and less double figure odds! So far, it’s been going OK although I do think it is much more difficult to make consistent profits long-term from backing shorter priced selections and it’s not something I’m going to do everyday. So far, I’ve been very selective with my shorter priced selections and a few have won this month which keeps the P&L ticking over.

Here’s the latest P&L for The Form Analyst:



As you may have noticed at the side of the blog, I’m now appearing on the proofing tables across at http://www.racingproofing.com. I’m still being proofed on racing index but it isn’t a fair reflection on how well I’m doing as I’ve said before since so many of my winners are punted on course.

At the moment, I’m up 61 points to odds available in the morning. I’m 35 points up to Betfair SP and 25 points up to Starting Price. Whatever way you look at it, it’s a pretty decent profit and considering I’ve only been at this tipping game for a few months, the potential is there for me to do something decent at this game.

One of the things that makes me laugh is when you look at my results to level stakes, I’m basically breaking even to BF SP and SP and I’m up about 20 points to early morning prices. This may raise a few eye-brows and people may say I’m using a staking plan to boost my profits but that’s part of the game I play. Because I give so many big priced selections, I need a staking plan to take into account that not every one of my tips is the same quality. When I have 0.5 Pts on some donkey and 3 points win on a strong selection, it isn’t fair to judge both of these to 1 point win. One of them is 6 times a stronger bet than the other one, so it makes no sense to look at the profit to level stakes.

I’ve lost a couple of subscribers this month but they have been replaced by new subscribers and I’m guessing that’s part and parcel of the game. I now have more subscribers than I’ve ever had and that’s a nice feeling. Obviously, the service is still very small and going by the fact the fees aren’t that large, I’m not exactly set up for life but it’s a promising start. I always knew the first 3 months were going to be the most difficult and now that I’m approaching the end of that with a decent profit in the bank and more subscribers than I’ve ever had, it’s looking promising for the future.

I would like to congratulate Alistair across at http://betyourlife.blogspot.com/ regarding the fact that he has made it past the £3k profit mark on Betfair this year. Ali’s blog is a great inspiration to any would-be trader and now that I’m not updating my blog daily, I’d suggest if people want a daily read they give Ali’s blog a try.

I’d also like to congratulate Leon on his blog and the fact he’s past the £10k profit mark on Betfair. As I’ve mentioned before, Leon’s blog was a great inspiration to my blog and was the reason I started a blog. I’m glad he revised his decision to stop updating his blog and I’ve been enjoying his little rants on all things Betfair and the like.

I feel like I’m congratulating everyone today but I must mention JP’s blog and his profit this year. JP uses a portfolio of tipsters to try to make money from gambling and The Form Analyst is one of the portfolio at the moment. So far this year, JP has made over £20k profit from his gambling which is an exceptional return. Obviously, he works hard to get all his bets on and obviously pays subscription fees with no guarantee of success, so it’s great to see someone making money at this punting game.

Lastly, as I said at the end of last month, I’m now past the £5k profit for the year on Betfair. I didn’t show my Betfair P&L at the time as I hadn’t past the £5k net deposit mark due to the fact I’ve used my account for a few friends to have losing bets on Betfair! However, even with my recent loss, I’ve managed to make a withdrawal to make me currently £5,060 up this year which is a nice achievement in itself. I’m up about £150 more but it makes little difference to be honest! I’m happy! :)

Monday 15 December 2008

Sacrificing my Trading..........

Profit since last update £145.54

I’m sorry to say this but the profit for the past week looks nothing like the P&L for The Form Analyst. However, unlike other times, my own profit is much lower and I’ve struggled with my trading over the past week and finding enough time for it.

When I started the tipping, it was always the case that it would run alongside my trading/gambling on Betfair and I couldn’t see a reason why they couldn’t work in harmony. The past week though has shown me that I need to choose which means more to me and concentrate on that. At the moment, The Form Analyst means much more than my own trading and therefore, I’m happy to sacrifice making money on Betfair to put my efforts into making money for the subscribers.

I’m sure a few of you will read this and think that’s what I am paid for by the subscribers but as I’ve said since day one, the time and effort I put into The Form Analyst far outweighed my return for the first 3 months but I knew that before I started. Therefore, I worked very, very hard trading my own selections as well as lots of other selections which included night racing when I got in from work where possible.

You can see the results on my November P&L and as I said at the time, I was putting an amazing amount of hours into form study and trading and ultimately, it started to take its toll and I ended up in hospital with a nasty infection. Thankfully, it was nothing too serious and I’m over it now but I’ve no doubt that the strain of The Form Analyst and my own trading had taken its toll on me.

Part of me working so hard to make money myself was because the subscription fees were so low and I wasn’t even getting anywhere near the minimum wage for my time and effort. Obviously, with the results I‘ve had, I’ve started to attract a couple of new subscribers and I took the decision to increase prices for new subscribers on Saturday night.

I’ve spent a long time over the past week or so checking out my competition in the tipping market and looking at prices and the profits that they achieve long-term. The conclusion was that I believed I was underselling the service in quite a big way and this led me to have a rethink of the prices. I didn’t see too many services out there that can compete with my results and I’ve increased prices as a result.

I’ve said this to the subscribers but one of the reasons I’m only offering a maximum of 3 months at a time is because I believe I can keep these results going and I’m not going to try to tie people in to long-term subscriptions off the back of good results. In 3 months time if I’m not doing so good, I’ll look to reduce prices a little and hopefully convince people to stay with me. I like the way this model works and the better I do, the more I can charge although I won’t ever ‘milk’ it the way other services out there do. If I can increase my membership, I’d reduce prices and ultimately, the aim would be to reach a level of membership and close the doors on new subscribers. I’m not even half way there yet!

I was looking at one service out there that charges £2,000 a year and from looking at their results, I struggle to see how they can justify this sort of price. That looks to be a case of someone living off past results and I can’t imagine that too many people fall for that sort of thing.

One thing I quickly realised in this game is that you are only as good as your last few tips. When I was on a losing run a few weeks ago, people were saying that we were in the shit again and yet, we were up over 30 points in 2 months. I know people get frustrated at losing runs as do I but I would never judge anyone in the short-term at this game. I’m a great example of what can happen in the short-term and why it can be misleading. I’ve had two horrendously bad losing runs in the short-term but bounced back each time.



As you can see, it’s a fairly easy decision to spend less time on my own trading/gambling and I’ll put all my efforts into The Form Analyst now. I reckon I may have been spending 120 hours a month on everything and when you consider I work full-time, it’s not too surprising I ended up in hospital.

I’m going to reduce my trading time considerably and I won’t be trading all of my own selections now. Being honest, I was a bit annoyed in the past week as I’ve hit a fair few winners and all of them have shortened a fair bit pre-race and if I was taking the trading seriously, I could have won over £1k but something has to give. I’m sacrificing my trading.

A few of you may be shocked at this considering the strides I’ve made this year on Betfair but the skill I’ve developed will always be with me now. I will continue using Betfair when I’m in the house and have some spare time and I will continue trading some of my own selections but I can’t go flat out like I was doing for 2 months.

Hopefully, with the increase in prices, this will ensure I feel like I’m being paid for my time now and I won’t need to trade like mad to make additional money. One reason for trading my own selections so much was to prove that I can make money at this game. I had to prove it to myself first and foremost and I have done that now. I know I have a strategy that I can use to earn consistent money on Betfair and it’s a great place to be in. I now need to try to conquer the tipping world…………

I’m currently up 60 points since the inception of the service in October. Lots of people mocked me on this blog when I said I would attempt to make 240 points a year from the tipping game. I can understand why to be honest as very few tipsters in this game would aim for that and even if they aimed for it, very few would achieve it or even look like achieving it. I’ve got a long, long way to go before I get anywhere near that target but the great thing about that target is that it is a big target. If I was to end up with 230 points profit in year one, would that be a disaster? Would 220 point be a disaster?

There are some services out there that would consider 60 points a year a great year. If I hadn’t started off so well with this service, maybe I would have saw 60 points a year as a great achievement but not now. I’m bang on target for my 240 point target and that’s the aim. It’s about 1.01 that I don’t make it but I’ll work my ass off to try to make it.

I hope everyone is doing well and I hope you are having a good time on Betfair and the like. Going by my blog hits, I doubt anyone is still reading this but I’ll continue updating it weekly until The Experiment finishes and I’ll pull everything together at the end and calculate how much I’ve made this year and what it has meant to me.

Saturday 6 December 2008

A frustrating day!

Profit since last update £129.52

I’m trying my best to find time to update the blog and after the day I’ve had, it felt right to do it tonight!

The profit is from this week as I had a couple of trades on Thursday and Friday but most of it is from today. If I traded today again 100 times, I can guarantee you 100% that the least amount I’d win on the day is the amount I’m posting but sometimes, I have to live with the fact that things don’t go my way when I’m trading.

I gave out 7 tips today, 3 winners at 9/2, 5/2 and 5/1 and 2 placed horses at 22/1 and 10/1. Two of the tips were unplaced.

By following my staking plan, you made around 20 points profit on the day and being honest, if you were playing on Betfair, you could have made more.

Clearly, this looks the sort of day made for me but unfortunately, things didn’t quite go according to plan. I made £100 on the first race and then £30 on the rest of the day although I was trading on my Betfair Mobile for much of the day and as I’ve said before on here, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone but it suits me when I’m Christmas shopping.

My errors today were much my own making and I seemed to miss the winners and back the losers but thankfully, I made a decent profit on the day and many of the subscribers probably had a very good day today also, so all in all, I’m not going to complain one iota.

I started off with Fabalu in the 11.40 race and it was very weak on Betfair which got me in a spot of bother and I had to take £40 IR on it. I got out a bit of the bet fairly early on and greened up very early also as I wasn’t sure it would stay the trip in that ground and a £100 green win on the race for me. Taking £40 IR on a 6 chance and winning £100 isn’t a bad result but sometimes, I get myself in a muddle on these drifters and I’d have been really annoyed to lose £40 by 11.45am on a Saturday!

It turned out well and got me in the mood for the rest of the day……

I traded a few of my early races in the house and I lost £16 on Lordsbridge and that annoyed me a little. I knew the way it ran and I just should have taken my medicine pre-race as I was struggling to get out but I ended up taking a little more IR than I wanted to gamble and the whole £16 was lost.

I was very sweet on Pause and Clause and backed it to win against the Nicholls hotpot when I should probably have just laid the 1.3 favourite. I couldn’t get anything out IR and it was another £12 loss and I was a bit annoyed at this point. I’d backed Free World to win in between for £10 and this was pipped by Aruldar on the run-in and at this point, I wasn’t too pleased.

I then struggled to get any money on Polar Gunner as it was too strong in the market and I ended up with £3 on it. Obviously, when one of mines is heavily punted and I can’t get a penny on it, it wins. That pissed me off a little more and I agreed to go out at that point to do some Christmas shopping.

Before I left, I backed Wingman to win and left a lay which wasn’t matched and it was another £12 loss when I checked when I got home.

My biggest error was in the 3.35 where I put up L’Aventure each-way and backed it at 23 on Betfair before I left the house. I knew I’d make it to the bookies in town to watch the race and I thought I’d put in a lay on my phone when I got there. Unfortunately, I missed the start of the race, played around getting up Betfair Mobile, couldn’t be bothered putting in a lay as my phone was pissing me about and watched the race. I had £8 on at 23 and it traded at less than 2 I heard and finished 2nd. I was really annoyed then and was fuming with myself.

In the last race, I’d put up Chiles Cross and backed it this morning. Thankfully, it shortened pre-race and gave me £260 riskfree and I left a lay on my phone to make £60 profit and that turned an OK day into a good day for me.

Some people may read this and think it’s not a great return but as I said last week, I live with the fact I don’t make as much as gamblers when the horses win I tip.

I was really chuffed with the tips today and how they ran and I know a few of the guys made a few quid. JP had an exceptional day as you can see on his blog and the run for JP just goes on and on. I know a lot of people are very sceptical about paying for tips and whether you can really make a portfolio of tipsters pay for you in the long-term but I’d direct them to JP’s blog and ask them to have a look at what he does and how he makes it pay.

I was glad to hit a couple of winners for the guys today and I was on a sticky wicket after my recent run, so as usual, I tend to do better with my back against the wall and feeling like I need to find a winner urgently. I just need to find a way to find winners when I’m doing well! :)

Tuesday 2 December 2008

Strange end to a great month!

Profit since last update £239.77

I wanted to do a post to round off the month of November since it was the best month of The Experiment so far. Being honest, if someone had told me at the start of the year that I could have won this amount from trading/gambling on Betfair in one month, I wouldn’t have believed them.

I’ve came a hell of a long way since the start of March and amazingly, 9 months down the road, I’ve made £5.3k. When I think back to my first 2 months on Betfair when I made pennies trying to scalp the markets, it’s a very long way in a relatively short space of time.

£5k of the profit is from Betfair and a little bit is from subscriptions at the site. Unfortunately, my honesty across there has appeared to annoy a few of my subscribers and when they read this post, I can’t imagine they’ll be happy for me but I’ve been honest since day one on here and at the site and I’m not going to change now.

On Saturday, I put up 4 selections as tips and not surprisingly going by my current run of form, they all lost. However, in two of the races, I backed a couple of others. Due to the fact I knew I was going to post the profit on here when I got around to it, I mentioned it in the daily email on Sunday that I’d cocked up and tipped the wrong horses in two of the races.

I’ve admitted this to Andrew and I’m sure some of the guys who subscribe will read this but I should have really given the other 2 as tips. I went for High Chimes in the Hennessy which was the right decision regardless of where it finished but I should have given Madison Du Berlais as a smaller bet for 1 point win. It was 4th in the race last year and I was going to give Character Building as a point win simply because it was 3rd in the race last year. When that became a non-runner, I made a poor judgement call and dropped the idea of a second selection and it cost the guys a 25/1 winner (was 33/1 in the morning!).

In the other race, Andrew was a massive fan of Helen’s Vision and that was going to be the tip. I then looked at the race, saw the form with Khyber Kim and talked myself into Khyber Kim in a big way. I even backed it to win the Champion Hurdle!

I also made sure I backed Helen’s Vision but didn’t tell the guys to do likewise. Khyber Kim traded at 1.06 but lost it on the run-in to Helen’s Vision and due to the fact I lay off low on all my bets, it won me about £140 but lost the guys 2 points. Obviously, I can’t be held responsible for a horse getting beat at 1.06 I tipped but it didn’t help the guys feel too good to hear that I felt I should have tipped Helen’s Vision.

On the Saturday night, I was looking back at the race to understand why I didn’t back Helen’s Vision and I found out I’d misread the form a little with Khyber Kim. I knew it had a big weight turnaround but it was something like 21lbs for 24 lengths or something and I’d somehow misread this and thought it was 10lbs for 24 lengths or something. I honestly can’t remember but if I had read it the way it actually was, I would have tipped Helen’s Vision as it was 3 times the price of Khyber Kim.

Anyway, it’s water under the bridge now but I held my hands up, said I made a couple of poor errors and cost the guys a 25/1 and 11/1 winner. I expected a bit of stick but I think a few guys mistook my admission of guilt as me gloating I’d backed the two winners and a few words were exchanged in the forum about it.

I maybe got a bit on my high-horse about the fact I’m not really a tipster and I hate to be judged like a tipster and it’s not my fault if my tip loses and my two dangers win. Things have settled down into a reasonable debate now and I’m happy with that.

I’ve said this on here before but it’s vitally important that people separate me from The Form Analyst. TFA is getting judged on how good he is at selecting a horse to win a race and he will be judged on how many points he can win his subscribers.

I’m someone who doesn’t really gamble on the horses but who trades to get a riskfree bet on lots of races (far more than I tip a selection in!) and I make money that way. My P&L won’t match what happens with the tips and when I do well at the tips, I won’t do as well on Betfair and vice-versa.

Earlier this month when I was picking lots of winners, the gamblers were doing great and I wasn’t doing that great from trading my own horses. However, I made it clear on here that I live with the fact my betting strategy will allow me to win consistently small amounts and assuming I don’t mess up the trading part too often, I’ll make money at this game.

I’m sure a few of you must be wondering how the trading is going. Basically, my trading skill has probably plateau’d to a great extent and I’m about as good a trader as I’ll be. However, that still means I’m good enough to get in and out of most markets to enable me to get a riskfree bet on the horse I want. When it doesn’t go to plan, I take a bit of money IR and lay at various odds to get my stake back and then look to eventually make a profit.

Every 30 races or so, I’ll get involved on a huge drifter that I’ve backed and it becomes a case of minimising the damage. It can get a little bit hairy at times but I live with this. It would make a conventional trader pull their hair out if they tried what I do but I live with the fact I’ll lose a decent amount every now and again.

One point to make here is the amounts of money I am discussing. Since I mostly trade horses in double figure prices, I only use stakes of between £10 to £60. Obviously, I’m not looking for 1 tick movements but swing movements. If I can get £10 on a 80 shot and it shortens to 50, I get £300 riskfree on it. Obviously, that’s equivalent to £6 for a conventional trader but I take the £6 free bet.

If I can get that on a front-runner, I’ll leave a lay of £20 at 10 and maybe £30 at 2.1 and if it runs well, I’ll get £20, I’ll get £50 if runs very well but doesn’t win, and £65 if it wins.

That’s an easy example but you get the picture. If it runs crap, I move on to the next race and since it was riskfree, I didn’t lose anything. Conventional traders may say I lost £6 but I’d disagree. The £6 was never mines, so I didn’t lose it. We could argue this point until our hearts are content but as I’ve shown in November, when my horses win, the money soon adds up. Why would you green up at 50 if that’s the wrong price of the horse?

Every 30 races, I may take £50 IR on a donkey I’ve backed but that’s life. As I said, I live with it. Taking money IR on a horse you think will win can work for you as well as against you. Looking back over the year, most of big wins (£100 +) have come from backing drifters and either shortening pre-race to get me out riskfree or getting out IR. All of my biggest losses have come from backing drifters also, but by using smaller stakes, I manage these better nowadays.

Overall then, a great month for me, an OK month for The Form Analyst and an OK month for the subscribers. It should have been better for TFA and the subscribers but I lost a bit of form at the end of the month and I’m not on a poor run again with the tips!

Tuesday 25 November 2008

Getting nearer to the Holy Grail?

Profit since last update £915.65 plus £40 subs (in addition to £140 subs already banked this month)

These blog updates are becoming less and less regular no matter how hard I try to find time to write them but that’s the way it has become I’m afraid.

I do want to try to get in a routine of writing a weekly blog post with some thoughts but it is very difficult to find the time. If I do find a bit of time at weekends, it’s better spent on doing something at the site, studying some results or doing some form study etc. so the blog has dropped down the pecking order of things to do.

However, as I said on the last post, the blog will not ‘die’ until The Experiment finishes, so those of you that like to read blogs and have enjoyed reading mines should keep stopping by to see if there are any weekly updates.

In the summer of this year, I think blog readers were spoilt for choice as there were a number of daily gambling blogs on the go and mines was just one of these. You also had Leon’s blog, Alistair’s blog and JP’s blog to name but a few. Leon is updating his blog as irregularly as I am, so that’s two of the best blogs gone in my opinion.

I still read JP’s blog and Alistair’s blog regularly though and there are links at the side.

So, what’s been happening with me and the subscribers at The Form Analyst site?

I’m sure lots of you keep tabs on my tipping and I’m sure lots of you want to see me do well. I also know a fair number of you want to see me fall flat on my face which always spurs me on a little during the bad times but it’s all part of being a tipster I’m afraid.

My tipping has been very good and the results speak for themselves. Here’s a graph of my P&L for the Form Analyst which looks like the one at Racing Index apart from this graph is to suggested odds and not Starting Price:



I’m not going to rub anyone’s face in how good I’m doing at the tipping as it’s not going to get me anywhere. Most people knew I had the potential to do something pretty special at the tipping game with my knowledge of horse-racing but I blew my best opportunity during the free trial month.

I’ve decided that I’m going to keep the service going into the New Year and I’m hoping most of my current subscribers will stay with me. I’m looking into other avenues to grow the business but I’m being very careful about where I look for potential subscribers.

I don’t want Joe Punter subscribers who look at my results and think I can make them a million in a year. I had a bad experience with these types during my free trial month and I can do without their subscription fees. I’m being very careful about recruiting new members and I’m not going to discuss it on here even. Let’s just say that I’ve a few things in the pipeline.

One of the reasons I keep a blog is to obviously record my own punting activities and it’s been a strange couple of months.

Since I started giving out analysis, I’ve dabbled between trading and punting. I started off punting and switched to trading after being well down during the month of October and having a poor September but it has worked well. I’ve still been continuing to trade my selections this month and it’s probably cost me a fair few quid but I’ve been doing OK on other races where I haven’t given a selection but fancied a horse to run well, so it’s all looking pretty good at the moment.

This is the best month I’ve had this year trading/punting by far and I’m sure it’s no coincidence that it has happened at a time when I’ve been reading races very well and giving out a lot of winning tips. So much of the tipping and trading game is about confidence and I’ve been flying high on confidence for most of this month, so it has followed that I was going to win a fair few quid from trading my own selections.

I’ve written lots and lots on here about whether my trading strategy works or not and people have their own views on it but being honest, when you’re selecting decent priced horses that trade very low IR, anyone could trade these horses and not lose. I gave up on trying to be a good trader a few months ago and I’ll never be a trader that can make money by trading odds movements on Betfair.

However, I have shown consistently on here that if you trade the right horses, you can’t fail to do well and since I’m picking the right horse to trade for many races this month, I’m doing well. Here’s my P&L for the last 3 months:



I’m only using a bank of a couple of hundred pound still (drawing down every week to help pay the bills at the moment!) and my staking size is around £30-£60 on most races I trade, so the returns are off the planet compared to a scalper but I take more risks than scalpers by letting trades go in play in many races, so it’s a simple risk v return game where my risks have worked very well this month. I’m not stupid enough to believe that these returns are achievable every month but I won’t complain about this month.

One of the criticisms that many people threw at me when I was thinking of starting a tipping service was the famous quote “why don’t you just back your own horses with your own money if you’re any good?” and I’ll repeat what I’ve always said. There are punters out there in a much better place financially to be able to exploit my knowledge better than me and it’s these guys that I wanted with me at the site.

I have a very diverse bunch of guys at the site who are playing with stakes from £4 a point to £50 a point. All of them are well in profit this month and overall and obviously, the ones who play with higher stakes are the guys that can exploit me to the full! My target for the service is to make 20 points a month and I’m doing a little better than that after 2 months.

If I can make 240 points a year, that means that the £50 a point guys make £12k and out of this, I’d only take a return £500 or so across the year. Seems like everyone’s a winner and this was always the plan when I started the site.

Obviously, other tipping sites charge much more than my site but as I’ve promised on here before, I’ll never overcharge for the service. If I don’t get enough subscribers to make it worthwhile, I’ll stop the service as I wouldn’t expect subscribers to pay more no matter how good I do at the tipping.

Overall, it’s been a great month for me and the subscribers and I’m now past the £4.5k mark this year with my trading/punting which is a nice achievement. Obviously, I’m not spending much time on the trading now and I’m sort of happy with my own trading strategy on Betfair and most of my time is going to spent on trying to grow the subscription business.

I feel in a great position now whereby if I do decide to stop the tipping, I know I can make a nice sum from just trading my own selections on Betfair which is basically the Holy Grail for most punters. 2009 could be a big year for The Form Analyst……..

Sunday 9 November 2008

46 points profit in 8 days!

Profit since last update £118.76

I’m not sure what happens but every time I write a blog post, it appears I then follow it up with a succession of losers! Thankfully, I stopped the rot yesterday and managed to pull out a 22/1 winner (20/1 SP) which was a nice way to stop a poor run.

One of the most satisfying things that has happened during this tipping spell to me was when I saw that someone had re-subscribed to the site today. Given my current form, this wouldn’t be a surprise that someone had re-subscribed but this person had the worst luck of all time!

Basically, he joined after I had hit 5 winners from my first 11 selections and he probably thought it was the best investment he could have ever made. Unfortunately, his first 34 ‘tips’ lost and he lost 45 points during this run. Before he joined the site, he asked me how many points of a bank would he need and I said 60 points although most people on the site were playing with 100 points in a bank.

Therefore, he had lost 75% of his bank if he was playing with a 60 point bank and I’ve no idea what must have been going through his head. I haven’t heard a peep from the guy to be honest and I’m not sure what I would have said if he had got in touch with me. Anyway, his 1 month subscription was up today and by my reckoning, he must be about 1 point up overall after this month.

Clearly, this isn’t what he hoped for when he joined the site but to be able to get back to level from being 45 points down takes some going and I was pleasantry surprised that he has joined for 2 more months!

The plan has always been for me to have a go at this for 3 months and then see what options are on the table. One thing that is a shame is that I haven’t had a new subscriber apart from the guy above and I’ve now lost a fair few who gave up on me too early, so it’s not like the service is growing at the moment.

One thing I would need to consider in the future would be the potential reward versus the time, effort and mental strain that comes with providing the service. One thing that I decided a while ago was that I would never charge a high price for the service no matter how good the service was. I like the idea that normal people playing small stakes can use the service and this is vitally important to me. I’m in the same sort of boat and therefore, I would never consider pricing the service outwith their price range.

Obviously, this does raise lots of questions about you can run a successful service and charge a low price when you don’t have many subscribers! If I decide I would like to carry on with this, I’d really need to look into growing the subscription list. However, I could somehow try to link the service to profits made in some cases which would help to fund the service. Why should someone playing £4 a point pay the same as someone playing £50 a point? They both value the tips differently, so maybe they should be charged differential prices?

I think there is a lot of trust between myself and all the guys at the site. If I did think of doing something a bit different with subscriptions in the future, I'm sure they'd be keen to give a view of how things can work also. I'm just throwing around some potential ideas in my head but we'll see what happens!

I’m trying to not think too much about the future as things can change in this game very quickly I’m finding and the next long losing run could just be around the corner but that’s the life of a tipster I guess.

I’m sure a few of you are tracking my profits/losses on Racing Index. I decided a few weeks ago that I’d never manage to do well on RI simply due to the fact that all my winners have shortened significantly and therefore, it’s not a true indication of my profit.

Amazingly, I’m now in profit on RI and when you consider I was 28 points down on the 30th of October, to be in profit now shows the sort of form I’ve been in recently. To SP, I’ve made 36 points profit in 8 days and to suggested odds, I’ve made 46 points profit in 8 days.

46 points profit in 8 days...... :)

Wednesday 5 November 2008

Much more like it!

Profit since last update £376.46 + £140 subscriptions

Just a quick post to say that I’ve managed to haul my ass off the floor and start picking some winners again.

It’s been an amazing last week or so and with a little more luck, I’d be looking at much more profit than this. Importantly, the subscribers would have been looking at much, much more profit than this but this will come in time hopefully.

As at last Thursday, I’d managed to select 31 straight losers and being honest, things were looking very bleak. I’d lost all of the profits that the subscribers had won at the start of last month and I was 99.9% sure I was pulling the plug on the service at the year end as I’d have no subscribers left and we’d all be skint! :(

Roll on 7 days, 4 winners later (14/1, 5/1, 5/1 and 11/4) and placed horses at 10/1,13/2,9/2,12/1,10/1,9/1,14/1,10/1 and 7/2 and the world seems a much better place!

As I hinted at above, lady luck has deserted me big time and after seeing Idle Talk (14/1) trade at 1.04 on Sunday and lose on the run-in, I was all for jumping off the nearest bridge but thankfully, I followed it up with a 14/1 winner yesterday which made up for it in part.

I’ve now had 12 horses trade odds-on IR and lose in the past 3 weeks and this includes 2 in the past 3 days at 1.25 and 1.04 which is a killer!

Even allowing for the bad luck and missed opportunities, the P&L for the form analyst now looks like this:



Obviously, we could analyse this to death but basically, I went on the sort of run that would give any tipster a nightmare but it happens to everyone I guess. I’m probably more prone to longer losing runs due to the fact I’m very inexperienced at this game and when I hit the bad run, I struggled to cope with it and it just seemed to snowball and at one stage, my confidence was about as low as you could ever get!

At the moment, I’m feeling good again but probably not as good as JP as you can read across at his blog. http://spenner68.blogspot.com/

JP has been following me with chunky stakes since I started and the mind boggles how he managed to keep on going during the bad run but thankfully, he kept the faith and he’s now on an amazing streak himself and let’s hope it continues for both of us.

I’m up just over 30 points in 5 days which is a great run and I’m now looking forward to every selection running at the moment whereas a week ago, I was dreading it as I didn’t think any selections would win.

As you will have noticed, I’ve stopped quoting figures to SP as it’s not an indication of my subscribers’ profit. Every single selection that I’ve tipped and has won has shortened dramatically in price and Ashley Brook was another example yesterday. It was freely available at 14/1 all day and it opened on course at 14/1 and was backed down to 8/1.

I can see I’m 8 points down to SP on Racing Index now which will put me mid-table on there but a better indication is the fact I’m 14 points in profit to suggested odds. Some people would quote that Betfair SP works better but that only works if some of the winners are drifters. All of mines shorten pre-race, so the BF SP isn’t much different to the SP.

I’ve obviously cost myself a few pounds by not just following a staking plan and by laying off IR over the past week but I can’t have it both ways! Obviously, when I hit lots of winners, I’ll miss out but when horses like Idle Talk trade at 1.04 after being 16, then it makes it an easy decision to lay IR.

Friday 31 October 2008

Draw a new line under this month!

Profit since last update £265.79

After writing a review of the month and drawing a line under the month, the last two days have saw a further upturn in fortune for me and I’m posting another nice profit to complete this month so that it is recorded on the blog and is in my records.

In the last two days, I’ve analysed 6 races which has resulted in a winner, 2 seconds and a third along with 2 horses unplaced. 5 of the 6 have traded very low IR and I’ve made money on each of the 5 races and lost a little on one race.

Obviously, the winner has removed the monkey from my back regarding the losing run I was on with the tipping but being honest, it’s scant consolation for the month I’ve had.

I think the world is a strange place at times and especially where the gambling gods are concerned. For 7 weeks, I was purely punting my own selections and this was partly because I knew that most people at the site were doing this. However, I made the decision to stop doing this after I’d lost most of the subscriptions I’d collected and the world wasn’t looking that great for me or the subscribers.

8 days on, not a losing day in sight for me and everything appears to have ended on a bit of a high for my own personal punting. The subscribers won’t be feeling so great but I’m not going to hide the fact that I use my analysis to win money. That’s why people wanted me to give selections in the first place! Obviously, I’m disappointed with the way most of the selections have run and it’s been a poor month for The Form Analyst but thankfully, I personally don’t need winners to make money from trading the selections.

I’m trying to start discussions across at the site about different ways to make money from analysing a race using basic trading skills and some brains. Clearly, I’m never going to be a great trader and I’m unlikely to have a decent trading bank anytime in the near future as we enter recession and I’m paying a massive mortgage on a house that’s worth less than I paid for it!

However, I’ve made money all year by being smart on Betfair and from limited funds and as I’ve shown myself in the past week, when I’m in form and analysing races well, I can still make money. Obviously, the irony is the fact I was off sick for a few days and started trading again and it seems like I’ve never been away from it at all but I think the break has done me the world of good.

Before I started down on the whole tipping route, I was slightly disillusioned with trading and I was consistently annoyed with my lack of time and opportunity to do it. This hasn’t changed but now my attitude has changed a bit and I’m in no rush to make big bucks at the moment. The whole point of this experiment was to find a way to make money from my knowledge of horse-racing and obviously, any profit gathered along the way was greatly appreciated.

However, it was never the be all and end all and maybe I should have realised this. I’ve been reading back over my posts for May and June and at times, I was making the game seem very easy! Obviously, I then got a bit carried away and was trying to scale it up and try out a million different things when in all honesty, maybe that was as good as I ever was on Betfair. I was making £30 an hour from trading the horses and maybe that’s as good as I can be. If someone offered me that now, I’d take it every time!

Obviously, back then, I knew I wanted to try out different things and get better and be the best I can be but maybe I was pushing for something that I can’t achieve. Earning £500-£1k a month on top of my salary would put me in a hell of a good position and so what if other people can earn much more, they don’t have my job!

Anyway, these are just a few thoughts I shared on the forum at the site and I thought I’d share them here.

The Experiment was definitely an apt name and I’ve experimented with more things this year than any other gambling blog I’ve ever read!

I don’t think I’m finished experimenting yet…………..

Tuesday 28 October 2008

Review of the month!

Loss since last update £13.63

Firstly, where the hell have I been for the past 3 weeks or so?

As I said at the last time of writing, I was really struggling to make time for the blog with everything else that has been going on and trying to find winners and spend time answering posts on the forum was difficult. Therefore, I took the very easy decision to take time away from writing blog updates and I honestly didn’t think anyone would care! The blog isn’t dead………and won’t be until The Experiment finishes.......

I have to laugh to myself as I created the blog and generated the interest in the blog but some people really need to get out more. The number of anonymous comments over the past few weeks has been funny and there are too many to comment on! Basically, let’s just say that lots of people were really keen to see me fail and lose a lot of money from backing my own selections….

Here’s my monthly P&L on Betfair:



Clearly, it’s been another poor month for me and I’m not proud of the month if I’m honest. However, I’ve only traded about 5 days in the month and I’ve backed all of my horses on Betfair Mobile throughout the month, so I haven’t put much time into the trading side of things. To have won over £280 from this month’s trading isn’t a disaster considering how poor the selections have run!

I’m sure all of you have been cringing at the run of losers this month on Racing Index and clearly, it appears tipping isn’t the place for me. This month has reinforced the belief that I shouldn’t be gambling and I should really be adopting a strategy of backing my selections and trading IR which I am doing.

I have made the decision to stop the tipping from the start of 2009 unless things change dramatically. I can’t imagine there will be too many tears but I haven’t enjoyed the tipping aspect one little bit and the thought of doing this permanently doesn’t appeal to me. I will look at it again but it needs to be a spin-off of tipping.

One thing I would say is that I’m really keen on keeping the forum going at the site and the guys on there are a very knowledgeable and decent bunch of guys. Therefore, we will just switch to a forum site I guess at the start of 2009 where we will have very limited members and only invited guests will be allowed to join. Our own little club!

The first question everyone probably wants answered…..how the hell do I make money from backing 29 consecutive losers in a month? Well, without being Einstein, the same way as I have done all year!

If you think back, the only reason I got into this whole tipping game was because people were interested in my knowledge and the fact I could use my race-reading skills to make money from Betfair. However, this didn’t involve gambling and lots of people were saying that with my knowledge, why the hell would I trade and not gamble?

I’ve now wasted the 3 months trying to follow some pursuit of becoming a small time gambler and tipster when clearly, my knowledge is reading races and not picking winners. Therefore, I’m currently playing to my biggest weakness at the moment and not my biggest strength. Not only that, I’m charging people a small fee for that pleasure!

Let’s clear up this thing regarding the fee. I know lots of people weren’t happy with me charging a fee after a very poor free period. However, the fee was for my time and nothing else. If I wanted to rip people off, I would have charged £150 a month for the selections and analysis. I stand by the comment that I could have earned more than the subscriptions this month from working in a supermarket for a couple of evenings a week. I could have!

This month, I’ve been to hell and back for a net profit from subscriptions of around £140. I’ll earn the same next month and the following month. I don’t expect any future subscriptions and I’m guessing the site will stop for a break at the end of the year. £420 profit won’t set the world alight!

I touched on this above but the forum has been the best thing to come out of the last few months. I’ve obviously managed to hook up with Andrew this year which has helped me enormously and now I’ve met a pretty decent bunch of guys on the forum, so it bodes well for the future.

As you all know, the reason I trade horse-racing and not other sports is because it is my hobby. I hate trading and I’m not a trading fan. I’m a horse-racing fan that trades and that’s a pretty important distinction. I’m never going to be a trader and I accepted that a while ago.

So far this year, I’m now past the £3k mark from my activities on here and it’s hardly a disaster. As you all know, I work full-time and I do this for a bit of extra cash and a bit of enjoyment. It’s never been the plan to go full-time or go wild with my trading as I can’t afford to fail.

I’m not wanting to dwell too much on the tipping thing and how bad it is going but it hasn’t gone great. The best example I can think of is last week when I gave 3 selections. I narrowed 3 races down to 3, 2, 3 possible winners and I got the winners at SPs of 14/1, 7/1 and 4/1 but selected 3 losers. Fortunately for me, I was off sick and managed to use my analysis for a change!

I won a fair amount and it recouped all my previous losses for the month. Up until that point, I was odds on to have only my second losing month on Betfair but I turned it around and thankfully, I’m in a small profit again. That’s probably the best example of why I can’t be a tipster. I can’t expect people to pay for someone to narrow races down and choose the wrong selection.

At the start of last week, I narrowed a 16 runner handicap down to 5 and got the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th. My selection was 5th. If I was in the house for that race and on Betfair, I would have made a bomb. 3 of the selections traded odds on IR and all 5 were big prices. How many people can do that at this game? Very few IMO but on Racing Index, it’s another loser on the board!

Clearly, I’m not made for tipping and I’m costing people money. One thing I’ve been saying to people on the forum is that I’d like to continue to share ideas and thoughts on racing on a forum but I wouldn’t really want people to continue backing me blind.

Personally, it hasn’t been the worst month of the year and if you sum my trading winnings to the subscriptions, it’s hardly a disaster. Clearly, I’ve probably put a lot of effort into the month and it may not be worth my time for this amount. However, if I had more time to trade, it would have been a bit better.

I’m conscious of the fact that I’m now eating up my BF allowance for the premium charge and although I have a bit to go before the charge hits me, I should really look at opening up a Betdaq account and seeing how things works across there. That’s what I intend to do fairly shortly.

Overall, not the best month of The Experiment but not the worst month also and I’m hoping next month may prove to be a more profitable month!

Thanks to Leon and Steve for the comments by the way. It’s people like you guys that have been very supportive throughout The Experiment and are great supporters of the blog.

I do intend on updating the blog more regularly again but it will be weekly at best I’m afraid………

Friday 10 October 2008

Taking the tipping world by storm!

Daily Profit £160.50

After a lack of updates on here due to time constraints, I've now managed two posts in a day!

Being honest, it's always much easier to come on here after you've picked a winner and won a few quid, so I didn't want to let this opportunity pass me by! lol

I looked at two races today. You can see the analysis on the site but in the first race, I narrowed it down to 3. That doesn't tell the complete story though as I initially selected the winner last night but I changed my mind this morning to the eventual second after seeing the first shows today as the eventual selection looked a little short at 6/1 and 7/1. It then drifted to 8/1 and 9/1 in a place and I managed to get 10.5 on Betfair as did a few others.

So, I eventually chose the right horse to select and it was heavily punted on course again to win at 11/2. I was discussing the punting of my horses pre-race across on the forum as my horses are shortening an amazing amount pre-race this month which is probably different to last month but I'm sure it's no coincidence that this month is going better!

A few were pulling my leg about the fact it must mean I have lots of subscribers but it definitely isn't this! lol It's simply due to the fact that my horses are fairly solid selections which are well handicapped and primed to run well and this explains the odds shortening.

My second selection was only 3rd after being backed from 11/1 to 13/2 on course (was 15 on BF at one point and traded 2.6 IR) and it ran a great race from the front. It was beaten less than a length, so I won't complain.

One thing I have realised this month is why it is so difficult for tipsters on Racing Index to make decent profits. I'm 5 winners from 11 selections I think (can't remember if I'm honest) but I'm only about 12 points up to SP. I'm a little more to BF SP. I'll need to work out how much I'm up to suggested odds as I've definitely lost a few points this month by horses shortening dramatically pre-race.

I think the difference between today and the last few days is that I looked at 6 races last night and managed to choose which races suited me best. Recently, I've been forcing myself to analyse a race and maybe I was too keen to find a selection. This is probably just down to over-eagerness to prove myself to teh subscribers but I'm starting to chill a little now which can only help in the long-run!

Any ideas?

£20.00 loss since last update

As I thought would happen, the blog has become the least important thing to update at nights now and it is starting to suffer.

At the moment, my nights entail writing a post race review for the day’s selections, answering any forum posts and PMs on the new site, answering any emails from people and lastly, analysing the racing for the following day which is obviously the most important thing!

Consequently, updating the blog has dropped on the to-do-list and it is starting to show on the blog and on the number of readers!

However, I’m determined to keep the blog alive and I’ll need to think of ways to kick some life into it again…..

Since my last blog update, I’ve had two selections and both have run poorly. My selection last night went off like a scalded cat and traded very low very quickly so I took the opportunity to get my stake back IR but it faded quickly at the end.

I’m not too concerned with a few losers as a long-run profit is what I’m aiming for here. Obviously, I’m in profit in the short-term at the moment due to my decent start this month but I’m sure the long-run will be fine!

I’ve started to kick off some discussions on the forum under a thread called ‘Ask Graeme’ where I’m happy to answer any questions on horse-racing form or anything else to do with horse-racing. It’s very early days but I think the guys appreciate this sort of thing as I want to effectively educate them so that they can select their own winners or at least understand my rationale a bit more. In time, I’m hoping they can start to look at races on their own and effectively rely on me less and on other tipsters less.

I’ll keep this post short and sweet today and I’ll have a think over the weekend about where the blog should go.

Good luck with your trading and punting!

If anyone has any potential ideas for the blog, drop me a note.....

Tuesday 7 October 2008

50% strike rate on the day

Daily Loss £40.00

Not for the first time this month, my subscribers have had a better day than me with their punting!

I gave out two selections today with a winner at 4/1 (SP) and a 4th. The winner was easily one of the most interesting horses I’ve selected since I began sharing info with readers/subscribers and I’m really pleased that it won.

In the past, I have spent lots of time analysing selling races and claiming races on the flat. At one time, I got so good at it, I packed in the handicap analysis and only analysed these other races. On reflection, I decided this wasn’t a wise move and over time, I’ve moved more towards handicaps. The reason for this is simply because there isn’t as much value in the other types of races. I end up selecting lots of favourites and short-prices!

Today, I was very sweet on a horse called Dazzling Begum. I spotted it last night and it was trading at 10 on Betfair. I couldn’t quite understand why if I’m honest but the saying “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” springs to mind!

Last night, I sent my analysis off to Andrew to proof read and when I checked this morning, he agreed with me that it was a great spot. It was only 9am, so I had to wait for the first shows before sending out my note.

The very first show I saw was from Blue Square at 7/1. I had to move quickly. By the time the email was set to go, it had already been cut to 9/2 there. I issued the note saying that 5/1 was the best price available (it was on oddschecker!) but I know 2 guys in the forum got 11/2 an 6/1, so it definitely wasn’t the best price in the whole market.

Anyway, the horse turned out to be the steamer of the day and was trading at 2/1 with some bookies. I wrote a forum post saying I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole at 2/1 no matter how keen I was on it. Not surprisingly, it drifted on course from an opening show of 3/1 all the way out to 4/1. It then traded at 100 IR for £117 before getting up to win by half a length! Phew………

In the midst of all this excitement this morning, I forgot to go on BF Mobile to back the damn thing and when I checked at lunchtime, the prices were well gone. I then couldn’t be bothered going on my phone at my desk to back it at the off as I was fairly busy and as luck would have it, it drifted quickly and then won!

Obviously, slightly annoyed I missed a winner to be honest but at least the subscribers backed it. As I said to Andrew straight after, it cost me £80 by not backing it but in the long-run, if I can keep churning out the winners, people will be able to use my info to win much more than this and I’ll hopefully get some rewards down the line!

My second selection was Charles Darwin and it ran poorly in 4th. I was a bit off with my analysis if I’m being honest as I would never have selected the Cecil winner. Won’t dwell on it too much though as I can’t expect to select every winner.

Obviously, I managed to halt my losing run at 1, but I’m back on a losing run of 1 again which equals my longest run, so I need to find a winner tomorrow!

Overall, I’m 4 winners from 7 selections now which is a great start for me. I’m still not appearing on the Racing Index Comparison tables yet as they only update that every so often but when they do, I won’t have too many in front of me at the minute. You can still check my results by clicking on the link at the right and selecting the back box instead of the lay box.

Very early days to be thinking about league tables obviously but it’s a decent start to the month. Importantly, I’m actually really enjoying the banter with the guys at the site and I’m finding it a privilege to be picking winners for them! I think people really believe in me across at the site and that’s a great feeling. Getting off to a good starts helps obviously but I think that they agree that in the long-run, I have enough knowledge to be able to make consistent profits.

A few of the guys are really keen to get started learning about some basics of form reading and I’m hoping to kick this off now. Obviously, it will play second fiddle to my own form studies as I need to ensure that I continue to pick winners consistently but I don’t mind spending a little bit of time helping them understand my methods and what I do. Without them, I wouldn’t be getting this chance to showcase my talents!

Monday 6 October 2008

What? A well backed loser......

Daily Profit £2.60

Before I discuss today's losing selection, I just wanted to mention the forum across at the new site. As I've made clear on here from the outset, I always saw the forum as a pivotal tool across at the new site. So far, we've had over 200 posts in a week and it's being used exactly as I intended.

I actually managed to make a tiny profit today simply due to the fact that one of the subscribers put up a horse called Starlight Gazer. As a few of you will remember, this was my first maximum bet during the 'free' month. It was well beaten that day after staying on late when slowly away. I did see it last night but it was running in a 17 runner race. Today, after 9 non-runners in the race, it suddenly looked a great opportunity for it and I'm pleased to see it won.

I only had a couple of quid on it today as I was trying to pay for my upcoming bet and it worked well! :) I'd like to say thanks to my subscriber friend at the forum!

I initially had two selections today but both were non-runners. I subsequently decided to go for another horse in one of the races and it was probably the correct decision even allowing for the fact it was well beaten. The horse opened up on track at 6/1 (it was about 8/1 this morning) and was backed off the boards to 7/2 second favourite. Clearly, the market saw the same as me but for once, we were both wide of the mark.

Being honest, I really don't mind well backed losers. As I've said many times on here, my intention at this game is to make a profit in the long-run. In my opinion, if you select horses which are overpriced and are backed heavily pre-race, as long as you are not betting at SP, you'll do very well in the long-run.

Since I'm being proofed on Racing Index, I've been looking in depth at how other tipsters do on there. Since this is my blog, I can be fairly truthful on here. The results are pretty much a disaster! In all honesty, I can't believe how bad they are.

Looking at a 12 month period, there is barely a tipster that can generate a 100 point profit to SP. Most can't even generate a profit! As I've said before on here, my target was to make 240 points a year at this game. Having seen the results on there, maybe I misunderestimated how difficult that target may be to achieve!

However, maybe it's just the case that very few of the guys on there are very good at all and don't have a consistent method which will produce long-term profits? I really don't know to be honest and I don't really want to comment on other rival tipsters after 6 days of 'real' tipping but it was quite interesting I thought.

I'm currently down to a strike rate of 60% for the month now which means I can do with a winner tomorrow to get back on track. I've equalled my longest losing run of 1 now, so I don't want to set a new record tomorrow!

Saturday 4 October 2008

A non-runner....

Daily Loss £30.00

I showed remarkable discipline today by only selecting one runner but it was a non-runner.

When I found out, I quickly reanalysed the race on the forum for anyone who was reading it and I came out with a possible 3 winners. I ruled out one which left two. Annoyingly, they have finished first and second but I backed the wrong one!

Being honest, I've not had a great day for punting and that sums it up. My horse hung very badly across the track and chucked it away IMO.

My intial analysis ruled the winner out when I completed it last night but I changed the going in my reanalysis and out popped the winner in the final two.

As I've said many times on here, ground is crucial in race analysis and the ground at Redcar was definitely not riding good IMO. It was at least good to soft and this was confirmed in the results.

Apologies for the short post tonight but I'm getting ready to go out for a housewarming party at a friends!

Friday 3 October 2008

Another Day, Another Winner.........

Daily Profit £76.00

I’m struggling for words to describe the results since I stopped the free trial but all my analyses are across at the new site for people to see……

Today, another one selection and another winner. The horse was available at 4/1 this morning and won at 10/3. Being honest, picking horses that win at 10/3 doesn’t give me great satisfaction but today, I will take an amazing amount of satisfaction from the analysis.

This morning, I first narrowed it down to 4 which included the first 3 home which paid £573 on the Trifecta. Even more importantly, I selected the right horse to select.

As I said this morning, I was very close to selecting the second home (16/1) but I decided against it (phew!). To turn down a value bet at 16/1 to select a value bet at 4/1 is a massive step in the right direction for me and shows a maturity that I probably lacked last month if I’m honest.

The key to the race was the pace and I said the front 3 would go too fast and spoil each other’s chances which was a great call. This set it up for a horse who could travel well and quicken off a fast pace and Louphole and Buy On The Red both fitted this description. The fact they finished 1st and 3rd is good but the fact I chose the correct one to back is even better!

That makes it 6 winners from 7 short prices and even better, makes it 5 winners overall this week from 6 selections (if I push my luck just a little with my half analysis – lol) or 4 winners from 5 if I exclude that. Whatever way you look at it, I’m in decent form again and the fact the guys across at the site are lapping it up is even better.

Andrew used a great quote today in a comment which said that ‘class is permanent whereas form is temporary’ and that’s basically what I was saying all last month when people appeared to be jumping out of windows when I was on the losing run. It’s very early days in this new venture and I’ve got an awful lot of work to do before I get anywhere but you can rest assured I’m working as hard as I can to find winners.

As I said last night, tonight is the final chance for anyone to sign up for £30 a month. I had a few new subscribers today which is nice and they all started with a winner which will please them. I’m really having fun across at the new site and I haven’t asked for any feedback on the site or overall service yet (we are only officially on day 3 lol) but I guess people are really enjoying it. That pleases me a great deal and as I’ve said all along, all I want is for people to get their money’s worth.

To finish tonight, I’m going to offer an apology to Racereader after my comments last night. I’ve been emailing him today and I apologised for the comments and for publishing some comments today. I didn’t mean for people to have a go at him and it all got a bit out of hand today as people were trying to post offensive comments on here to have a pop at the guy.

Last month, I was deeply affected by some of the comments that people made on here and I felt the criticism was unjust and out of order. Therefore, I know what it feels like to have people criticise you for doing little wrong. Racereader had kindly offered to send his analysis to people free of charge like I had done for all of last month and as I’ve said many times on here, I really want to encourage people to read analysis and try to learn. Therefore, I’m not going to let anonymous knobs come on here and slag the guy off.

I had hoped to lift the moderation from the blog soon but clearly, I’ve collected a little bunch of half-wits who are reading the blog and until they go away, the moderation will have to continue.

Thursday 2 October 2008

5 winners in 6 selections on shorties!

Today, I analysed one race fully and it was another winner on the board. Annoyingly, there were a few non-runners in the race which made the price half from when I analysed the race but I won’t complain about another winner this month. That’s 2 winners from 3 selections this month and I’ve finally managed to hit a bit of form.

As was discussed on the forum tonight, that’s me now had more winners in the last 5 days than I had during the whole 26 days free period which sounds crazy but all it shows was how easy it is to pick losers when things don’t go your way.

Yesterday, I narrowed the race down to 2 and got a 14/1 forecast and selected the winner. Today, I narrowed a tricky little race down to 3 and had the 1st, 3rd and 4th. Again, I chose the right horse to select and it makes a nice difference from last month.

I had 2 points win today at suggested odds of 4/1 but it won at 7/2 although it was over 4/1 on BF I believe.

One stat I find absolutely amazing is that on horses I’ve selected at 4/1 or lower in the last 6 weeks, I’ve had 5 winners and a 4th from 6 selections. The winners have been 4/1, 5/2, 10/3, 7/2, 7/2 at SP. Without being Einstein, as I keep saying on here, I’m never going to select short priced horses unless I think there is value there. Anyone who likes shorties can't lose at the moment and long may it continue.

Out of courtesy to my current subscribers, the £30 a month offer will end tomorrow night. I’ve given people enough of an opportunity to subscribe and after tomorrow night, the price will revert to the standard price of £50 a month.

The forum across at the site is being used regularly and I’ve got some great ideas about things to use it for in the near future. This will include lessons in how to unpick races and I’ve already started work on these. I’m also working on a trading paper as somehow was very keen on learning about trading IR and in time, I’m hoping the forum may be the place for people to come to learn about trading/gambling and picking winners.

Away to get stuck into tomorrow’s form now and I’m hoping to find a selection or two. Remember that you can read today's analysis across at the other site tonight! I want to post up each day's analysis on the site post race so people can see how I did. As I keep on saying on here, I really don't have anything to hide. I have an 'edge'!

Wednesday 1 October 2008

3 winners in 5 days.....

I’ve been away on business for a couple of days, so that explains my lack of blog updates!

Well, the site has got off to a decent start and I’ve managed to grab enough subscribers to make it worthwhile in month 1. Being honest, I’ve actually grabbed enough subscribers for 3 months since most guys have signed up for the maximum duration, so let’s hope I can repay their faith in me!

As you all know, I had a winner on Saturday. On Monday, I was in the process of doing an analysis of a race someone else had looked at and I ran out of time to finish the analysis. The horse I was sweet on won at 9/1 though although I posted the analysis up 2 mins before the off (lol), so I won’t be saying I had a winner there!

On Monday night, I was going through the cards for Tuesday very quickly as I should have been working on my analysis for today since I was down in London last night and didn’t have access to my laptop.

I noticed a horse going at Southwell called Majuro. As all of you know, I have a huge sweetspot for Mick Easterby and I can read his horses better than any other trainer in Britain. This was another one of his ‘special’s where it had shown no form all season but it had been running on the wrong ground, wrong trip etc.

Anyway, it was an obvious spot so I decided to post the horse on the forum and tell everyone to keep an eye out for it since I was away and couldn't do a full analysis. It was the only ride that Graham Gibbons had all day and he’s only used by Mick on horses he fancies blah, blah, blah.

I’ve said all of this during the free trial when I couldn’t get anything right and most people probably thought I was making it up. Well, the horse absolutely bolted in at 12/1 (15) on Betfair and it made me smile to myself in London when I saw the result. I was going to have a tenner on it but I couldn’t get near a bookies all day and it really does sum up my month. I’ve never been so glad to see the back of a month in my life to be honest but finishing it off with a 12/1 winner was a good way to end it.

So, that led us onto today. Today was the first ‘real’ day of the subscription service and I spent about an hour analysing the 5.20 race. I don’t think I’ve worked so hard to ensure I could pick the winner and I narrowed it down to two horses. Thankfully, they finished first and second and even better, I chose the right horse to select! Yipeeee……

The forecast paid 14/1 and the winner paid 7/2 at SP(less a R4), so it was a nice start to the new service.

My other selection was my old friend Malapropism. If you remember, after doing the post race review on here last time, I begged the stable to put the visor back on the horse if they were reading the blog as it was crying out for it. Amazingly, (not for the first time may I add!), a stable listens to what I have to say and throw the visor on it. Annoyingly, it didn’t make a jot of difference and it ran way below form.

Even more annoying, the other two horses on the form line were second and third, so Mala has let the side down again and I’m giving up on the horse for the time-being! It had perfect conditions today and at 14/1, it was a decent bet. It ran well for 4f but faded badly and if the stable are listening to me again, put the horse away for the season now. You have a well handicapped horse that is badly out of form and by running it, it’s just making poor souls like me continue to back it! Please put me out of my misery….

Overall, my first day of being proofed as a tipster has led me to a winner and a loser. Not bad. Obviously, I don’t get any bonus marks from the proofing site for selecting the 14/1 forecast or for saying other horses couldn’t win but that’s the way this tipster market works I suppose.

I’m obviously just back from London tonight and I had a quick look in on the forum. I can see we have had 100 forum posts already (only been live a few days!) and things look very good in there. I know the guys who have signed up want to learn and I’ve got lots of ideas about how we use the forum to help each other. At the moment, time isn’t on my side for things like this but as we get past this week and the month starts to move on, I’ll be spending much more time in the forum and in the chat room and it should be a lot of fun!

As you all know, I’ve had major issues with Paypal this month (teething problems) and I’m guessing a few of you maybe got annoyed that you couldn’t sign up for the start of the month. Therefore, I’ve decided to keep the price at £30 for a month for anyone who still wants to sign up in the next week. After that, the price will revert to the standard price of £50 a month.

I’ve also decided to share all of my race analyses after the event on the site for people who read the blog but haven’t subscribed. As I’ve said before, all my selections are being proofed on Racing Index also, so you can check how I’m doing on there. I’ll put a link on the side of the blog for you.

I still laugh when I think about the free trial. I had 4 winners in 26 days and yet, I’ve had 3 winners since Saturday (at advised prices of 13/2, 14/1 and 5/1 (less R4)). This really is a strange game and I feel a bit sorry for a few of you who followed me last month and haven’t subscribed but I tried my best last month and didn’t have much luck. Maybe I’ve saved a bit of luck up for this month!

Annoyingly, due to the fact I was down in London, I couldn’t back Majuro or today’s winner, so my members are doing better than me…lol

Sunday 28 September 2008

A sad day & reply to recent comments

As all of you know, I have very strong views on not moderating comments on this blog and I’ve been lucky enough that I haven’t had too many idiots reading the blog. I think my blog is one of the last few blogs I read that doesn’t moderate comments but I’m going to have to enable moderation for the time-being.

As I’ve said many times on here, I really don’t mind people having a go at me or slagging me off. I’m a big boy and I can take it. However, an anonymous poster has continually been posting offensive comments and last week, I had to delete 3 comments which were abusive. Being honest, this sort of thing happens on blogs and if the comments are aimed at me, I don’t really mind.

This morning, I had a quick check of the blog before I popped out for the day and I saw that some idiot had tried to answer a question that George asked by imitating someone else and the guy is clearly an idiot of the highest order. Therefore, I’m left with no option but to moderate comments.

However, my principles still stand. I will publish every single comment that anyone makes even if they are having a go at me. I also don’t mind anonymous comments, so you won’t need a Google account to be able to post. However, no abusive comments will be posted and no comments from anyone pretending to be anyone else.

I can’t believe how stupid some people can be but isn’t it always the case that some knob spoils it for everyone…….He has even gone to the bother of getting a Google name pretending to be someone else! What an absolute tosser…..I can only imagine his shock today when he attempted to post up again and I intercepted it. lol

Apologies for the time it’s taken to reply to the recent comments but as the guys across at the new site know, I’m trying to take a few days away from things before the start of next month. This month has been a draining month both physically and mentally. Doing a quick calculation, I reckon I’ve spent 50 hours on form analysis, and 60 hours on emails and website design etc. 110 hours out of anyone’s life in a month is a fair chunk. 110 hours out of someone’s life who is out the house from 8am-6pm 5 days a week is too much…….

I have changed my profit for the month to take account of £83.67 profit yesterday. I won 7 points to suggested stakes yesterday (not 8 as quoted elsewhere), so as someone rightly commented last night, I’m actually -6 points on the month now. I stupidly decided to halve my stakes yesterday as I was worried about losing too much this month and as luck would have it, I have a winning day. I really haven’t got much right this month……

As someone also commented below, it’s Murphy’s Law that I have a winning day as soon as I stop emailing everyone on my distribution list. However, I really don’t think this proves anything new to anyone. I’ve given a free trial of 26 days this month. If people haven’t got the gist of what I know and how well I’m likely to do in the long-run, I really don’t see how one extra day makes a bit of difference.

Here’s my reply to all the comments made on the last post:

Hi Cassini.

I don’t want to dwell too much on your point mate as I know you were highlighting the irony of the fact I’m trying to start a subscription service off the back of a very poor month for me. It was maybe lost a little in translation!

I agree with what you are saying about the additional free month but that assumes that the 26 day trial didn’t give people a chance to see what I can do. I worked my ass off to ensure that I gave people a flavour of what I can do but in the end, time beat me and my results suffered a bit at the end.

Giving up another 60 hours of my time next month for absolutely zero reward doesn’t really appeal and I know it would get me a lot more subscribers in month 2 but all of my tips are being proofed independently from next month anyway, so people will be able to see how I’m doing and can make their own decisions regarding future months.

Only point I want to reiterate is that I’m not charging to make a profit. At the moment, I’ll be struggling to cover the cost of my own time and that excludes any website costs etc. Charging £30 a month was only to say thanks to everyone who has been reading the blog. There are quite a lot of people out there who charge five times the price who don’t have a tenth of my knowledge and that’s fact. Lots of people who buy tips have told me this.

Thanks for the comment mate and for wishing me good luck. I can do with some luck for next month!

Hi Racereader.

Excellent plug mate. I’d be really keen to post some of your free analysis on the blog. My email address is on the profile page. Drop me a note and I’ll post it on here. Why don’t you start up a website and try to charge people mate?

Good luck with your venture and I look forward to reading your ‘free’ analysis. I see you set your account in the last few days. Are the anonymous person in disguise? I’ll let the readers decide……

Hi Dave.

lol @ humble pie….

I really don’t feel like I have much to prove mate. The way some people have reacted to me having a losing month is great in a sense as it shows that they thought I was capable of much better. I agree with them!

I mentioned the price point above to Cassini but once I’ve proved myself over a longer period, you can be sure that the price will be going up! :)

However, as I’ve said before on here, people who are with me from day 1 will always be well looked after. Differential pricing is something that happens in the insurance world everyday and I don’t see why it won’t work here. No Claims Discount is a popular one and I’ll have a loyalty bonus for members. The longer you are with me, the cheaper the discount on the price that Joe Public will pay!

It’s not surprising that I had a good winner yesterday as it sums up my month. I really need to stop using that phrase but I really can’t believe my bad luck this month.

Hi Andrew.

Nice to see you really appreciated the in-depth analysis of my month results mate! :)

I agree that I should be judged to selected stakes and odds. None of my winners have been backed in the morning (lots of losers have been!) and all my winners were heavily backed on course, so people got better odds.

One thing I’ve just remembered is that Fort Churchill won at 11/1 and I gave it at 8/1, so there’s 3 points lost there and helps explain the -6 points. Throw in the very poor staking (3 points on 25/1 isn’t wise after the event) and the fact I lost this month is laughable.

Your point about the analysis is true and it will be my USP. I haven’t spoken too much on here before about other tipsters but I have seen lots of examples of what other tipsters do from readers. Very few are in the same league as me with regards to knowledge but clearly, they are doing this full-time and have years of experience. I’m part time with 27 days experience, so comparisons at the moment are impossible and that explains the price I want to charge next month.

I agree that I do more than provide tips and people can learn from my analysis and hopefully, people will realise that. Whatever happens, I’m proud of this month and the fact I gave people the opportunity to see what I can do free of charge. At least I don’t need to worry about high expectations next month! lol

Hi Kevin.

It always makes me feel good to get new commenters although I remember adding you to the list after Fort Churchill!

When I did the analysis on the blog in the Summer, I didn’t give enough hints about what to look for someone to start using my methods. I aim to improve on that over at the new site.

The time element is easily the thing that people underestimate. It takes me around 2-3 hours a night to find the right races, right horses, and to write up the analysis. I manage to look at a fair few races as I can compute the data in my head fairly quickly and I’ll never manage to teach that! However, you’ll pick up on the key things to look for and this will help you with the time element.

Even knowing what I know, it still takes time, hard work and dedication to make it work in the long-run. I wish more than anyone that this month would have gone better but it wasn’t to be. Honesty is something that I really believe in and I couldn’t do any of this without 100% honesty. Last night’s post was a nightmare to write since I know I was effectively killing my chances of some subscriptions next month but that’s life.

Hi George.

I selected Guilded Warrior at 13/2 yesterday for 2 points win. My results will always be available for anyone who asks mate as I’ve got nothing to hide. It was 7 points profit on the day as my other horses ran poor but nothing new there this month!

Thanks for wishing me luck.

Hi David.

Many thanks for your nice comment. As you know, I do aim to make this fun and profitable in the long-term and being honest, there are worse ways than spending £30 for a month’s entertainment! Putting it on my horses this month is one way…lol

In time, I aim to work my way up the Racing Index table but time will tell. I have time on my side as I’m only 26 and been doing this for 27 days, so I’m sure I’ll improve greatly as time moves on.

Look forward to working with you next month! In time, I’ve a feeling you may be a very good form reader yourself from what you’ve showed me thus far.

Finally….(I do write a lot at times!), thanks for all the comments and for the support a few of you have already showed across at the new site. People appear to be favouring the 3 month service which means that they have faith in my ability to do well at this even after last month. This means a lot to me……

Saturday 27 September 2008

Monthly Review......

This could be a long post but it’s important that I write this post no matter how bad it looks for me……

As the month has gone on, this post was always going to look bad and after a poor end to the month, it isn’t going to be a great read for anyone. The fact I’ve chosen to have my worse month of the year while giving a free trial and trying to start a subscription service is quite ironic. I thought it may have led to a slower start to the subscription service but this hasn’t been the case, so it appears that people are willing to judge me on the long-run and not on 26 days of selections.

Personally, I think this is no bad thing as I’d hate to think that people were buying a service that promised amazing results like 90% of tipsters do. My results are available for all to see and giving a free trial was a brave decision for anyone who wanted to start a subscription service but I know my results long-term, so I have nothing to hide.

As most of you know, I like to analyse my performance and I keep detailed stats of everything. That’s part of the reason why I know I’ll do well in the long-run but all you guys are judging me on 26 days of this month, so I’ll only analyse these results in this post.

I suppose the best place to start is to share all of my results. This includes a form comment for every horse, SPs, suggested odds, my staking plan and various ways to track the P&L etc. I always tend to track this sort of thing when I’m punting as it’s important to check that my method of selecting winners works over a sustained period.

Here are the results:



Basically, everyone can sit and look at these anyway you want. As I’ve said, I’ll never try to hide the fact it was a poor month and I’ve admitted that all the way through this month. However, I don’t judge myself on one poor month and I know some of you won’t either. Obviously, I know lots of you will judge me on this month and believe that this is a true representation of my ability and I’m happy with that. If you really think I spend hours looking at form every year to make substantial losses, then I won’t try to disagree with you.

I’ve picked out a few things to look at to try to pinpoint where it’s gone wrong this particular month to share with you. Here’s a table with a few interesting observations:



In the long-run, I know my strike rate is 15%. This is basically fact as it’s something I’ve tracked over a very long period anytime I’ve been punting for a sustained period. This month, my strike rate was only 9.5% which is down 35% on the long-run average. Very disappointing and is the main reason I have lost this month. I haven’t picked enough winners. It is as simple as that.

I usually get a return on about 20% of my bets as I don’t use each-way very often and when I do, it usually works. This month, my each-way betting has been poor and only one selection has been placed when I’ve selected each-way. That can be put down to poor judgement on my part as I don’t use each-way often enough and maybe I shouldn’t have used it at all this month. Something to consider for the future for me…..

Other obvious points are the number that trade at least half in running, the number of runners in each race (I pick the hardest races) and the average SP is very interesting.

In the long-run, my average SP is usually around 10/1. This month, it’s a good deal higher and I’m not sure why. Part of it was probably trying to show off when I could have selected more likely horses to win with a little less value in races but overall, not too disappointed from that point of view. 95% of my selections were value bets.

This table tells another interesting story this month:



During the month, lots of people were asking me to select shorter priced horses as they like to lump on bankers. As I’ve said all month, it’s not my thing as I really struggle to calculate value in large field handicaps on short priced horses. Therefore, anytime I select a short priced runner, it must be very ‘well in’ and represent great value. If anyone had purely lumped on my short-priced horses, they’d be 10 points up with 4 bets. I’m guessing no one did that last month………

To not have a winner from 18 selections at 9/2 to 10/1 is very, very poor to be honest and this is a freak occurrence. Obviously, Overrule was second twice at 5/1 when in my opinion, it should have won twice and ultimately, 2 poor jockeys have cost me a fair bit this month. This sort of thing happens to every tipster though and I’m a great believer that in the long-run, this sort of thing levels out. I won’t complain too much.

As I’ve made clear on here, the reason that I do so well with horse-racing punting is because I can pick large price winners consistently. This month, an 11/1 winner with three 14/1 seconds is a bit of a killer and it’s killed my chances of a massive profit this month. In time, this will even itself out though and a few of these seconds would have won and I’d have made 40 points in the month easily. Didn’t happen this month though……

Overall, all I needed was Overrule to have a better jockey once, River Falcon to have a longer nose or Sphinx to not bump into Bollin Felix when that one was so well handicapped and I’d been looking at breaking-even in a very, very poor month. If I can do this is a poor month, what will I do in a good month? Time will tell………

Below is a graph of my bank this month. It shows my P&L to SP and level stakes, BSP and level stakes and Suggested Odds and Stakes.



None of these make good reading for me but one thing I would say is that tracking my results to SP this month was never going to be good. All of my 4 winners nearly halved in price (on-course) and therefore, no one backed any of these winners at SP. However, I said at the start of the month that I’d track to SP and it allows comparisons to be made with other tipsters.

Overall, I lost 15 points to SP at level stakes, 13 points to suggested odds and stakes and 8.3 to Betfair SP at level stakes.

Personally, since none of my winners were backed in the morning and the suggested odds were widely available, a 13 point loss is a true reflection on the month. I’m sure everyone has a different view but that’s my honest opinion.

One thing that’s struck me this month is how over the top the criticism has been of my performance. I think I’m a victim of the hype surrounding me and what I know and people seriously expected me to make 100 points profit this month. To make a very large profit in any month, you need big winners and big winners don’t come along as frequently as you like. When they don’t come along frequently in the same month, you lose in that month. That’s the name of the game when you gamble…….

Lastly, I said at the start of the month I’d compare myself to tipsters on Racing Index. Obviously, people can tear me to shreds here but you need to remember that you are comparing my worst month this year with other tipsters. My worst month is nowhere near as bad as other tipsters’ worst month and this needs to be factored in.

From next month, all of my selections will be proofed on Racing Index and we’ll see how I do in the long-run. I’m still as confident as I’ve always been and one bad month won’t undo my previous performance during my punting life.

I know lots of people will question why I can ask people to pay for selections after making a loss during the trial month but firstly, how many tipsters out there give subscribers a free month? Very, very few if any.

Secondly, I made it clear at the start of the month that this month was to give a flavour of what I can do. After knowing that there was a demand for what I do, I had to start planning for next month. Therefore, I eased off the analysis and started working towards next month. I’m a one-man band with a full-time job and I assumed that people would understand if results tailed off towards the end of the month. I only have 24 hours in my day and spending 3 hours on analysis in the second half was not possible.

Looking back, I maybe took it for granted that the winners would continue to flow and I wish I hadn’t. The month was meant to be a flavour of what I do and I gave that in the first week. I should have then stopped the trial and waited until next month instead of juggling too many things. The selections suffered a little but I always knew it would only be a matter of time before the winners flowed again. I won’t get that chance to prove that to many of you now and it will cost me a couple of subscribers but that’s life.

Below are comparison tables with all the tipsters on Racing Index. No comments to make apart from to remind you that you are comparing my worst month with many of their best. Tables don’t lie though……