Saturday 20 September 2008

Another error and another lesson....

Daily Profit £28.00

I know people think I’m hard on myself at times but that’s just the way I am. I’ve made lots of errors this month as I’ve admitted and I made another one today.

I sent my analysis to Andrew last night and as usual, his comments were waiting for me when I logged on this morning. Andrew thought that Game Lad was easily my best bet of the day and thought it was a great find by me. However, he was surprised at my staking as he couldn’t understand why I’d gamble 2 points in a 27 runner handicap and only 1 point on Game Lad.

I said it was because River Falcon was a bigger price and I thought that was more value than Game Lad even though Game Lad was more likely to win. Andrew also thought that Let’s Roll and Malapropism didn’t offer much value as the whole world appeared to think they would return to form today, so I had no margin there.

This game is much easier with hindsight but Andrew was 100% spot on today. Why I only had 1 point win on Game Lad is beyond me but after seeing a horse hose up, you always wish you had more on. As I said to Andrew, my confidence has taken a real battering this month and it has affected my confidence in the way I read horses. I've had so many horses like Game Lad run poor this month, it's difficult to keep believing in them!

As I said in the email today, Game Lad had 3 wins from 7 runs on heavy and it really is a different horse on heavy ground. This season, it’s been useless but it’s never had the ground. Today, it had the ground and absolutely dotted up. For a few seconds, I thought it wasn’t going to get a run but the jockey knew he was on the best horse today, so he pulled it around to the outside and still won easily.

One interesting point this month is my 4 winners have all won very easily. I wish I could swap an easy winner for 2 short-head winners but it’s not as easy as that.

My other 3 ran poorly today although River Falcon did better than it seemed. It was on the wrong side of the track (4 of first 5 on other side!) and it finished 10th overall. It didn’t get a good run and it became very tight at a crucial stage on that side. This is 3lbs higher in future races now and we can score that off the list.

Let’s Roll ran a shocking race and I won’t be backing this again. The horse was beaten 20 lengths and it is clearly not the horse it was. It was the first one beaten and came home tailed off.

Someone commented a little while ago that they were surprised a so called ‘expert’ can pick horses who finish tailed off. This morning, I read a piece from Mark Winstanley saying he thought that Let’s Roll had been laid out all season for this race which was my view also pre-race. We were both wrong and he earns a fortune giving advice whereas my advice is free at the moment!

My last selection was Malapropism and this ran a strange race. It attempted to make all, hit a flat spot and then stayed on again to be 8th. I still think this may pop up this season but it needs its visor back on! If anyone from the stable is reading this, put the visor back on this please…….

Today is a good example of why other tipsters don’t use SP betting to track profits!

I gave out Game Lad at 6/1 this morning, it opened 5/1 on the course and was punted down to 10/3 before winning. Obviously, at SP I make a 0.5 points loss on the day but as you will have seen by my profit, I followed my own staking today and won £28, so no one could have possibly lost today I think unless you didn’t get on 5 mins before the off.

That’s me now -11.5 points on the month but being 100% honest, after the month I’ve had, this is starting to not sound too bad! lol

However, I need to get my head around the staking issue before next month as it’s no good giving out winners like today when I only have 1 point on winners and more on losers!

Thanks for the comments and feedback so far. I’m hoping the new website will be up and running fully later in the week if all goes to plan, so everyone can pop across and have a look and let me know what you think.

There are unlikely to be any selections tomorrow as the racing looks poor on the flat. The jumps season hasn’t started in earnest yet and I don’t want to get involved in that just yet.

Looking forward to next week now as I know I can still turn this month around. I've barely got anything right at all month and yet, I'm an 11/1 winner away from getting back to level.....that's my target now. I'm going to work even harder to find the winners I need!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I notice you don’t mention that my recommendation was actually to take all 5 points that you planned to stake today and put them on Lady Deauville – I guess this would just be a painful admission too far – LOL !!!
More seriously, I can’t help feeling that monitoring your success at SP is a little unfair. Of your 4 winners so far this month, all bar Fort Churchill have virtually halved in price… In reality, your winners are far more likely to shorten by the off, than drift. You are recommending a stake size and odds in your email – provided the odds are easily achievable (and I think they always have been) – you would surely to be more fairly judged against the price stated. Judging yourself at SP strikes me as moving the goalposts (if you knew what the SP was going to be – you may well pick different horses or at very least, stake at different levels)…
A.

Iranian Giraffe said...

Hi Mate,

I think you should definatly put in your results part the prices when you send out the email as the prices were available and like Andrew has said 3 out of your 4 winners have come right down in price. I'm not saying remove the SP prices results but I think you should have them along side the prices that were available when you send out the email as it's only fair IMO.
Good luck with the rest of the month

Mike

Anonymous said...

About the prices: when you start proofing, any decent site (like racing-index) will show your returns to BSP as well as SP.
That's a much better indicator of your returns than SP alone. It still won't be as good as the prices generally available when you email your selections, but a lot better than SP, especially with the longer odds horses.
Not sure how you could backtrack this month, but perhaps someone who does know would do it?
BW, David

Graeme Dand said...

A,

I didn’t mention that horse in the post as I knew you’d mention it in a comment! lol

It was a good call mate. However, if I started incorporating your ‘tips’ with my tips, people would need the patience of a Saint (even more so than now!).

I know I’m making it harder for myself tracking against SP but that really is the worst case scenario for people. I know Fort Churchill was 16 on Betfair for example, so that’s 5 more points there already.

If anyone has followed me the whole month, the worst they can be is 11 points down. However, I know lots of people haven’t paid much attention to my staking (wise people!), so I doubt any are doing as bad as that. I’ve followed my staking plan with a few little tweaks and a couple of low lays and I’m in profit for the month, so anyone who has done the same will be doing better than SP.

As I said at the start of the month, I wanted to judge myself against other tipsters and the easiest way was recording SP and comparing me against their SP results.

I haven’t had this confirmed by anyone but I get a feeling Tipping Legends have hit the skids recently. They have even moved the goal posts by removing all references to SP results which I noticed last night. Also, they haven’t even put up August results yet as far as I can see……

I am tracking my results to recommended prices and level stakes also, so when I send out the results shortly, everyone will be able to see how I’ve been doing. Unlike other services, I’ve got nothing to hide!

Lastly, I see Tipping Legends are giving an offer of a 1 month trial for £139. That’s nice of them…..

At the end of the month, I’ll do a comparison of me this month against everyone on a proofing site. From what I can make out, this month hasn’t been the best month for these services either.

G

Graeme Dand said...

Cheers Mike.

I've answered this in my reply to Andrew.

I am tracking my results to suggested prices but I'm just not showing it on the blog. You'll see it when I issue the spreadsheet next week with the results.

G

Graeme Dand said...

Hi David.

I'm looking forward to getting on a proofing site and I've taken a little dig at Tipping Legends in my reply to Andrew but in my eyes, they are definitely one of the best services out there but they know that themselves. That's why they charge so much for a 1 month trial!

As I said a few weeks ago on here, when I set out on this part of The Experiment, the intention was never to produce an average subscription service like 100's of others out there.

In 3 months time, if I don't have the potential to be the best service out there in 12 months, I'll stop the service.

I want to turn the tipping subscription business on its head and create something that's innovative, unique and can't be bettered.

That's the objective mate. No idea if I'll get anywhere with it but as you know, I'll be trying!

Thanks for the continued support.

Graeme

Terry said...

Graeme,

If anyone else was to quote "I want to turn the tipping subscription business on its head" I think most people including myself would take it with a pinch of salt.

When you quote it, I believe it!

Just so you know, I've actually lost a couple of points from the last few days even though you have picked winners. I'm down to 30 points profit now but I won't be losing any sleep just yet.

Steve

Anonymous said...

Graeme,

You need to be careful to not undersell yourself next month.

I laughed when I read your points regarding TL but they have built up a substantial following over time before they started the subscription service.

In many ways, you are in the similar position and therefore, you don't need to charge £10 a month for something that may be amongst the best in the market. Charging too low a price will deter many people from subscribing as they will lump you together with other services that offer very little for a small fee. You offer something that is worth so much more than most other services in my opinion.

i'm sure you have thought about this aspect a great deal but be careful. Pitching too low can sometimes be worse than pitching too high. Remember this.

Dave

Graeme Dand said...

Hi Steve.

Sorry to hear you lost a few points mate but I'm sure many would swap their position this month with you - me included!

I think people know me well now and if I didn't try to create something special, it wouldn't be me!

Like my trading, I know it's not going to be easy but I'll be trying my best.

Cheers,

Graeme

Graeme Dand said...

Cheers Dave.

I'm not sure if people realise this but from 9-5 everyday, I'm a pricing analyst for an insurance company.

If there is one thing I can do in this world, it's price!

I'd love to be able to charge £10 and cover my time but unfortunately, even if everyone from this month paid £10, it still wouldn't cover my costs!

I'll hopefully be in a position to let everyone know later this week what I intend to charge next month.

Graeme

Anonymous said...

Could you please add me on your mailing list: ian@travvyworld.freeserve.co.uk

Thanks.


Ian.

Graeme Dand said...

Ian,

You're on the list.

G

Anonymous said...

Unfortunate with Digital today Graeme. Didn't get a run when the jockey wanted it but we know what we're getting with this horse these days.