Shortage of races!

Daily Profit £43.90

I knew from quite early in the week when I saw the declarations for today's cards that I wasn't going to have that great a day today. There were very few handicaps for exposed horses. As things turned out, I ended up losing a bit of discipline and gambled on a few horses which drifted wildly on Betfair. This cost me £50 in profit in total but I've no complaints.

I only got involved in 7 races today, which included picking 2 winners where I had decent riskfree bets, so this made me about £94 in profit.

However, I foolishly got involved in the Group 1 race at Newbury. I'm sure everyone saw it but the Aiden O'Brien trained first string drifted from about 4 to 12 at the off. To put this drift in perspective, £0.5m was matched at below 6 on this horse before the drift.

I decided to risk £40 on the horse at 12 and hoped it would run well but it needed a good pace in the race. Unfortunately, the race had no pace and everyone knew the horse had no chance after a few furlongs. I could have got out for about a £20 loss in running but I decided it wasn't worth it.

As it turned out, the horse ran OK but was never in with a chance of winning. Luckily, I had already had a winner on the day, so the £40 loss just put me back to break-even for the day.

My other loser was My Gacho at Thirsk. I wanted to back this at about 10 but it was 8 all day. Before the off, it drifted from 8 to 24. I again made a decision it was too high a price and I gambled £10 on it at 24. Again, it ran appallingly and my £10 was lost after 2 furlongs as I had no chance of laying it off.

My first winner on the day was Tranquil Tiger at Newbury. I guessed that this would lead and it was the easiest riskfree bet of all time. I stupidly listened to the daft commentator who managed to talked into me thinking it had maybe gone off too fast, so I laid off far too early in the race. Laying off too early cost me about an extra £30 in profit, but I was happy with my profit on the race.

My other winner was on the Paul Cole 2 year old at Newmarket. I fancied this to win but it was weak all day, so I laid it at 12 for £30 and backed it at 18 for £30. Annoyingly, the unraced 2nd favourite was withdrawn, so I lost about a third of my profit on the race due to a Rule 4. However, I still made £48 on the race.

Overall, an average day for me which would have been much better had I not gambled so much but that's life!

Lastly, I was thinking about what my target should be on a Saturday as it's my only real trading day on Betfair now. I was thinking about trying to beat Leon's profit every week (Don't give up your day job blog) but I must be honest and say that Leon has stepped his trading up a great deal in the last 2 weeks and I'd need a miracle to make more profit than him on a Saturday. However, I do like a challenge, so that's going to be my target every Saturday.

This week, Leon has kicked my ass as I expected, so he takes the plaudits this week. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting nearer to his profit total next Saturday.........