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

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very pleased to see that you are getting a decent membership and that you are performing much better than the free period.

Good fortune to you; hard work but it will, hopefully, be rewarding.
GeorgeH.

Anonymous said...

It might be a stupid question but have you not got any phone accounts? You can get a bet anywhere that mobile gets a signal

adrianb said...

Congratulations, really pleased you are up and running and have started with a winner. Good luck and keep up the hard work and doing consistently what you know works! Adrian

Graeme Dand said...

Hi George.

As you say mate, it’s nice to be performing better than the free period. Being honest, I couldn’t get any worse than the free period, so not surprising the winners are flowing more steadily now.

I think the site is rewarding from the sense it is being used by the subscribers and seems fun. As I’ve said, I won’t have many financial rewards in the first 3 months (probably the first 12 months) as I won’t even earn enough to cover my time I put into it. However, as time goes on and the subscription list grows, it will maybe become more financially rewarding hopefully.

At the moment, I’m happy to be where I am and won’t look too far ahead into the future.

Thanks,

Graeme

Graeme Dand said...

Anonymous,

I don’t have any phone accounts and I don’t even have any bookmaker internet accounts if I’m honest.

My only online account is Betfair and on Tuesday, I was stuck in a meeting all day and couldn’t get upstairs to use BF Mobile apart from toilet breaks. Annoyingly, my meeting was in a basement room and I had no signal.

Even more annoyingly, a Corals shop was straight across the road from where the meeting was held………

As I’ve said many times on here last month, it just wasn’t my month and I was destined to have a shitty month. The fact I was even away on the day that ran is a little spooky and it really sums up my month mate.

Hope you backed it. I’ve given enough hints on the blog on which horses to look out for. This was an obvious one for anyone who reads the blog and knows a tiny amount about racing.

G

Graeme Dand said...

Hi Adrian.

Thanks for the comment. Good luck with your venture also. We can maybe swap some notes come Cheltenham time as I'm a massive NH fan although I find flat racing more profitable with my methods.

I won’t bore you with a hard luck story but in 1998, I had the first 5 winners on the Jackpot at the festival on one of the days and I had Sparky Gayle in the last which was second to Super Coin. It cost me £40k to my £1 stake and that day will forever be engrained in the memory. I was only 16 at the time, so it didn’t really hit home at the time what it would have meant and I thought I’d have plenty more chances to win this sort of amount…I’m still waiting! lol

As you know, consistency is what separates good punters from bad punters and in the long-run, I’ve proven to myself over time that I have a consistent profitable method that can be used to a particular type of race which I specialise in. I’m really annoyed that last month was a bit of a blip but as I’ve said on here, I should never have a problem in the long-run I hope.

Good luck.

Graeme

Anonymous said...

Hi Graham

You mention that you specialise in particular types of races. I am assuming by that you mean handicaps, but how do you decide which handicaps to concentrate on? Surely you don't look at them all? Do you look at all aged races, discounting 3 year old only races, or do you prefer races over certain distances? I only ask as I know it takes me ages to go through form and I couldn't look at more than two or three races each night properly. Good luck

A potential subscriber

Graeme Dand said...

Hi Potential Subscriber.

Here's a link to a post I wrote back in April. http://theexperiment-self-indulgentbullshit.blogspot.com/2008/04/future-horse-racing-strategy.html

Basically, I concentrate on handicaps for exposed horses since the form is all in the book. My skill is reading the form book and therefore, these races work out much the best.

I've agreed to spend time with subscribers across at the site trying to teach them some hints about how to read form and a few are picking it up very quickly.

If you look through the blog, you'll see example race analyses and there are some across at the site from recent days also.

Any other questions, drop me a note mate.

G