Interesting.....

Today was interesting from the aspect that I had a winner and a horse which finished last!

The winner was well backed I saw and won well with a distance of 22 lengths back to the 3rd. I said it would win 1 in 2 and in a 2 horse race, I was probably spot on!

The second race was more interesting as I had the right form line (wasn’t too difficult to spot as the fav has won its previous 4 races!) but on my reading, it didn’t have much in hand of Tony The Tap. Taking into account Tony was more than twice the price, it was an obvious selection.

I was annoyed to see the favourite won but I was pleased in a way when I saw that Tony The Tap finished last. This sounds a bit strange but if Tony had finished in the top 6 and lost, I’d have been more annoyed.

Basically, 3 different form lines meant that Tony had the beating of 2 others in the race also. It had finished 4th of 11, 3rd of 13 and 5th of 20 on its last 3 starts and was never beaten more than a length. Hence, when it finishes last and well beaten, you need to hold up your hands and say “I give up!”. Ignore this run and back it next time.

Incidentally, a similar comment applies to Icannshift who I selected last night. This finished tailed off last beaten 27 lengths. On its last 3 starts, it was never beaten more than 3 lengths. Again, all you can say is “I give up!”.

I’m not being defeatist in any way but sometimes, you just have to accept that horses are not machines and if you are unlucky, you may stumble across one or two that run too bad to be true now and again. I’ve now had two of these in two days!!!

My other two were first and second though, so it’s not all doom and gloom….

There were 2 excellent comments from Steve and Matt today which deserve a decent reply.

One common theme on the blog and comments recently has been ‘value’. As you all know, I harp on and on about value and what it means to me. However, I think I’m starting to learn that I need to alter my way of thinking for next month.

One issue I have is that I never bet at odds on and I very rarely bet at low odds. Simply, this is because I only use small stakes to back and I don’t feel risking my small stakes to win a small amount is worth it in many cases. I know this is wrong and that the stake size shouldn’t matter as it is all relative but I’m not going to get too excited by backing a 5/4 winner with £10.

However, next month, (and even at the moment!), some of you may be backing my selections with higher stakes and therefore, a 5/4 winner is worth much more to you than I realise. Hence, if I see a horse at 5/4 that I strongly believe should be odds on, I shouldn’t be afraid to give this as a selection.

One of the readers ignored my two selections yesterday and backed the favourite in both cases as he thought that my analysis led him to believe that these were the best bets. Hence, he backed two winners and got a nice double.

Another reader backed the winner today as I said it would win one in two times and it was around a 5/4 chance today and was well backed from 7/4. Hence, if my 50% probability was correct, it was vastly overpriced at 7/4 and it clearly was.

I think this has taught me another very important lesson this week. It’s not the odds of the winners that matter in the long-run, it’s how much value you can get from the odds that matters.

In the Malapropism race last night, I thought the horse was overpriced at 4/1. However, I only thought it should be a fraction shorter, so there wasn’t much value there. I deliberately didn’t select the favourite as at Evs, I didn’t see much value.

However, I wasn’t looking at value in the correct way and my thinking was clouded far too much by not wanting to back a short priced favourite. As Matt says though, it doesn’t take a short priced horse to be overpriced by much for it to represent great value.

I’m not going to dwell too much on this as I’ve spoken about value on here many times but going forward, I’m not going to be afraid to select a shorter priced horse in future if I believe it really is overpriced.

I feel so far on the blog, I have given 3 penalty kick selections. Golden Prospect lost (10/1), Shesha Bear won (13/2) and Ethaara (5/4). If I had selected these as 3 point bets and the rest as 1 and 2 point bets, I’d be doing well IMO.

With regards to the tipping comp, selecting a 5/4 winner isn’t going to help me close the 17 point gap on the guy at the top today, so I may need some fireworks tomorrow as it’s my last selections before my holidays! I'm off work tomorrow, so I will see oddschecker tomorrow before posting up my selections, so it should help me a bit.

Incidentally, assuming Andrew is happy with what I’m suggesting, I’d like to give him a guest week on the blog while I’m away. This will ensure that regular readers have something to read while I’m away. He also has a few different opinions to me on things, so it will give him a soapbox for a week if he wants it!

Andrew will also be charged with trying to catch up the points on the leader in the tipster comp in the final 2 days. If any person can do it, it’s definitely him as his average selection is 20/1 plus, so I’ll only need one winner from four to win!!!!