What a week!

Daily Profit £165.33

What a week I have had…….

Last Sunday, I had a good day on Betfair and won £230. On Monday, I got confirmation that my colleague at work had won £5,000 in the Scottish Sun Dream Team. Due to an arrangement we have in the Fantasy football games we entered, I get a tenth of the winnings. So, £500 will be coming my way soon!

I then got in from work last night and opened a letter addressed to me. It was from The Sun and contained a cheque for £500 for the Sun King of The Punters game! My mini-league actually got the 2nd place prize of £500 by finishing in 8th place!

The first 3 mini-leagues were not eligible as the guys had not met the eligibility rules outlined by The Sun. The 4th place team was therefore the winning team and scooped £2,500. However, they also had the 5th,6th and 7th place leagues and since each manager is only entitled to win 1 prize, it means that my lowly mini-league in 8th won the 2nd prize of £500.

You needed 10 uncorrelated stables from 10 different managers. I set up 9 spoof email addresses for members of my family and this made sure I was eligible.

I don’t want to talk too much on here about my track record in Fantasy games but I was 6th in the Select a Stable game at Cheltenham 07 and won £500. I then won £5,000 in The Sun Rugby World Cup game and I’ve now won £1,000 in the past week. That is quite a decent run I’ve been on in the last 18 months or so…..

As usual, I’ve had no time to trade on Betfair during the week and I struggled for time today to be honest.

Below is my P&L for today.

As you’ll see, I had quite a decent day again but my lack of time is slightly frustrating. I was trading the odd race today in between cutting the grass etc. and without even trying very hard, I made a decent profit!

I got off to a dream start by selecting the first 2 winners and being about £180 in profit after 2 races. I then had stuff to do and when I came back, I entered a market too close to the off, my horse went on a massive drift and then finished tailed off last! OUCH!

A £39 loss soon brought me back down to earth with a bump. I then made the same mistake again about 40 minutes later by entering the market too late and I lost £19 this time. When will I learn?

Thankfully, I was already trading the final 2 races by this time and I managed to pick a winner again and a horse which finished 2nd but got beat in a photo, so I still made an OK profit. I then had more stuff to do, so I called it a day.

Overall, a £165 profit for about 90 minutes of trading time means I can’t complain.

I’ll write a post up either tonight or tomorrow about my monthly P&L as it has been a decent month for me considering how many days I have traded. One of these days, I may get the time to spend on Betfair which will allow me to exploit my obvious potential but until that day arrives, I’ll need to be content with trading the odd race or odd day and trying to make a decent profit.

Hope you have a good week ahead.

Reply to recent comments

I tend to always forget to reply to comments but since I’ve been short of subjects to write about recently, I’ll write a post replying to the couple of recent comments.

Leon

Sorry to hear about your issues with the internet connection. It’s seems a shame that just as you had been approaching the £100 profit a day on a very consistent basis, something like this comes along and stops you from trading! I know you’re having a break from trading for a month or so soon, so maybe you can pack up your trading tools now and just have a complete break for a while. Even though you’d miss the money, I’m sure you’d enjoy the break……..

Steve

Cheers for the comment again. I do find it quite difficult to update the blog when I’m not trading as I don’t want to write for the sake of writing. However, I will keep the blog going and I will continue to trade at least once a week, so I’ll update it weekly at least.

The reason I win large amounts on some races is that I only trade the horses in each race that I think can win. Instead of greening up before the race, I just keep the riskfree bets on each horse and leave lays in running at lower odds. Obviously, depending on how much I fancy the horse to win, this will influence my odds to lay at.

So, even though I lay in running, I don’t actually have to watch the race as I put my lays in pre-race. I’m sure I could maximise profits by watching each race but this obviously stops me from trading the next race, so it is a fine balancing act.

When one of my horses win, I will win a decent amount. Usually, one of my horses will run well and I will win a small amount. If my horses run poor, assuming I am riskfree, I will break-even.

This will probably shock most traders but I don’t use a certain staking plan. I just go by how much I fancy the horse to win the race. Obviously, the more I fancy the horse, the more I will want riskfree on it and the higher stakes I will use. In many cases, I end up trading horses priced 10+ on Betfair, so you can’t really use large stakes. I usually aim to get around £100 riskfree on a horse I like, so I use the stake that I think is most suited to getting me my riskfree bet.

I’ve developed my own trading strategy over the past few months and it is probably very unorthodox to say the least. When a trade swings the opposite way to what I thought, I never red up on the field. I will just continue to trade the same horse in the same direction as I initially thought. This probably goes against anything I’ve read in a book but it suits my strategy.

I don’t want to start a debate on trading styles but by redding up when a trade goes against you, you are effectively hammering your own nail in the coffin. However, by following your initial instinct and repeating your previous trade, you are effectively giving yourself a better chance to recover from the initial swing.
If I back a horse at 7 for £100 and it swings out to 10, by laying off at 10, it means I take a loss. However, by backing at 10 for £200, I can increase the average odds I’ve backed at and can help swing around the movement, so that it goes back into the direction I want.

Obviously, my trading strategy is very risky and involves ‘balls of steel’, but it works well for me. Every so often, I’ll take a large hit to my P&L of anything up to £100 but when it works, I can make some very large profits indeed.

I will never let any more than £100 exposure go in play. If I am facing a large red on the field before the off due to poor trading, I will select the horse (s) I feel are most likely to run well and back these outright. Obviously, this increases my red on the field but I will live with the fact that I will get some races wrong and lose.

Overall, I think my whole strategy is based on a belief that I can pick winners and horses that run well. Hence, when a trade goes against me, as long as I think the horse will win, I don’t really care how much red I am on the field. If I am correct and the horse will win, then I want a red on the field and a massive green on the winner anyway!

Steve, I hope that answers your questions.

Thomas

Cheers for the comment mate. One problem I have with full-time is that I have a decent job and very good career prospects. Therefore, to give up my career, I would need to earning in the region of £50k every year. Obviously, I don’t earn that much at the moment in my current role but in time, I expect to earn this much.

I did give up a part of my job to trade in the afternoons but this was foolish as I didn’t have the necessary trading skills to make a go of it. Obviously, I’m in a much better place now and I’m sure I could do much better now but I’m quite enjoying being back at work full-time and only playing around on Betfair for extra cash.

One thing I would say is that I am keeping my Betfair bank separate from my other income, so I hope to continue to build up this bank so that I would maybe have the option of trading part-time on Betfair in the future. I would need to be guaranteed to earn around £100 a day before I would considerate it though.

If anyone else has any questions, please leave me a comment.

If only I had more time......

Daily Profit £239.41

As you have probably guessed by my lack of blog updates, I haven’t had many opportunities to trade in the past week.

I’ve been busy at work, so I really have been short of time. However, I have tried to not get too frustrated as I know I have a decent trading strategy now and all I need is time to implement it on Betfair.

I did manage to trade yesterday and today but I was really annoyed about yesterday, so I was determined to have another go today so that I would have something good to write on my blog tonight!

Well, at the start of today, my target was to start trying to win small amounts from each race. One huge problem with my trading strategy is that I tend to only win large amounts or very small amounts. When I get a winner, I win a good amount but in most races, I only end up breaking even.

Today, I decided to trade in a large chunk of my riskfree bets in order to guarantee a win in many races. I managed to trade 20 races, winning in 16, break even in 2 and losing in 2 races.

Here is my P&L for today:

As you will have seen, I managed to pick 5 winners today which resulted in around £200 of profit in 5 races. I think the key thing for me though is that in the races I didn’t pick the winner, I still managed to make a small profit and that is what I haven’t been doing recently. I've started to realise that lots of small wins make up to a nice amount at the end of the day!

I did suffer a £53.04 loss which I’ve no complaints about. I backed a horse which doubled in price and then ran appallingly, so I can’t complain about the loss. I think my first bet was about £100 at 8, it drifted to 14 and I ended up with about £400 win on it. I then laid a large part off for a large red on the field and a green on my fancy. However, it never traded below 10 and none of my lays got matched, so it was a £53 loss on the race.

Importantly, I didn’t let this affect me too much and I continued to employ my same strategy. I then got quite cautious and only won about £16 in 5 races before I went on a nice run at the end of the day and won £150 in 5 races with 2 nice winners included in there.

Overall, a highly satisfying day and it makes up for my performance yesterday.

Yesterday, I traded in 12 races, winning £30 in the first race. I then lost 6 out of the remaining 11 races which was an unbelievable bad run and overall, I ended up £48 down on the day. I broke-even in 5 races also. Overall, a £192 profit this weekend which is nice and was needed!

I think the most annoying thing from my point of view is the fact that I am not getting enough time to implement my strategy. When I do get the time to look at races and find winners, I find trading very easy and as my results have shown, I can make a decent amount even with my very limited trading skills.

I’ve been reading a few other blogs recently and it’s good to see that traders are making some nice sums from trading pre-race. As I’ve said before on here, I’ve not got anything against scalping but it’s just not for me. I actually quite enjoy implementing my strategy now and when it works like today, the results can be fantastic.

I would love the opportunity to pit myself against decent traders on a full-time basis as I’m sure that my trading strategy with my form knowledge would mean I could easily look to earn around £1,000+ a month full-time but unfortunately, I had my chance at trading 4 afternoons a week and I didn’t do well enough!

One thing I would say though is that I have a much more well thought out trading strategy now than I had when I was trading each afternoon, so I don’t think my trading efforts back then are a good indication of how well I’d do on Betfair now.

Hopefully, if I can keep building my Betfair bank, I will definitely think about trying to go part-time at work in the future again but I’d need to be convinced that I can make it worthwhile. Time will tell……

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.........

A F***ing Joke.........

Daily Loss £52.00

OK, being honest, the daily loss is not what is most annoying about tonight. Yeah, I managed to lose £52 from placing 3 bets when I got in from work on horses at fancy prices which I then couldn’t lay off as Betfair was down for most of the night.

I’m even more annoyed about the money I could/should have won but couldn’t lay off in running or even get a bet on!

In the 6.40pm race from Perth, I had managed to back the eventual second for a £64 riskfree bet. So, I never lost in that race. However, the odds on favourite fell at the first hurdle and my horse led for most of the race and was involved in a 2 horse race from about a mile out! It would certainly have traded below 3 and it would have been odds on at one stage as it was really travelling well.

So, by not being able to lay off, Betfair cost me between £20-30 profit. I thought that was the end of the problems but it was only the start!

In the next race at Bath, I had put £22 on a horse when I got in from work. I backed the horse at 46 as it was certain to start lower than this or at least trade lower than this in running. Betfair went down, and I was left with a £22 win bet on a complete donkey. £22 loss.

Next race at Bath. Same issue. Had £17 on a 36 shot and site was down, so couldn’t do anything about it. £17 loss.

Next race at Bath, had £13 on a 65 shot. Couldn’t lay off. £13 loss.

At this point, I turned off Betfair in disgust and forgot about trying to bet on my fancy in the final race at Bath. I was sickened by what had happened. Well, without being Einstein, you can guess what happened here…..

On our discussion site, I wrote for the 8.30pm at Bath “Check out Dualagi in this one. Last two runs were basically identical where it has fallen out of the stalls and finished like a 'train'. Appears on a winning mark and ready to strike (to quote RP review from one of the runs!) but it ideally wants soft ground. Bath will no doubt be like a road tonight which means it can only be a speculative bet and a bit risky since it finishes late but I'll be trying to get a riskfree bet on it pre-race.”

Well, you can imagine my disgust when I watched the race. Dualagi fell out of the stalls (as usual), probably traded at massive odds on Betfair (it was back on by then!) and then came through to win easily. It won at 12/1 which means it would have been 14-20 pre-race on Betfair.

All in all, an absolutely shocking night on Betfair and I’m sure that there will be other traders out there who are far worse off than me.

I think the thing that Betfair miss is the fact that I didn’t really want £22 win on a 46 shot, or £17 on a 36 shot or even £13 on a 65 shot. I only backed these horses in the belief that I would be able to trade them. Hence, by taking away my opportunity to lay off, they have effectively changed the rules of the game after I placed my initial bet. It’s an absolute disgrace……………..

I love it when a plan comes together......

Daily Profit £103.04

Firstly, apologies to Andrew and Knocker for the title of the post as today was anything but a well thought out plan!

I was working today as usual but a good discussion got started on our discussion site concerning a race at Yarmouth. We ended up having about 30 posts concerning a 6 runner handicap and it was all good banter.

I managed to talk myself in to having a bet on Bustan in the race. Knocker was very keen on Lord Theo and both horses ran well to finish 2nd and 3rd. Unfortunately, since I was betting on Betfair Mobile at my lunch break, I couldn't lay off the bet and I ended up with a £28.50 bet on Bustan.

I'm not a huge fan of betting on Betfair during my lunchbreak and this was only the 3rd time I'd attempted it. I'd had a winner and a riskfree bet in the past which finished 2nd, so I only use this betting method when I'm reasonably confident my horse will win or at least shorten to give me a riskfree bet pre-race.

When Bustan lost, I made a promise on the discussion site to not do this any more as I'm meant to be trading for riskfree bets and not gambling! However, I'll continue to use this method when I feel it's worth it I suppose but I don't want to be doing this every day!

I said on the discussion site that I'd have to post up another loss on the blog tonight and I haven't posted up 2 consecutive losses for a long, long time.

So, I started to look for a nice horse tonight to give me a riskfree bet. After a while, I stumbled across a horse I liked in the 6.25 at Windsor. The horse was the David Elsworth trained Excape. I won't go into my reasons on here for fancying it but you can read them on the discussion site if you join! The site is http://handicaps.caramboo.com/.

Anyway, I got stuck in traffic coming home from work and I had to pop into B&Q for a quick minute. I made it in the house at 6.20pm and I quickly logged on the laptop and onto Betfair.

I expected the horse to be well backed as I thought others would see what I saw but it appears I was on my own. The horse had drifted from 20 on Betfair to 55! I have seen some bad drifts on Betfair but this was one of the worst I'd seen in a long time.

I initially asked for £50 at 60 but it quickly shortened to 50, so all I could get on it was £20 at 50. Before I could put in any lays, the market was suspended and they were running. I quickly put in a lay at 28 for my £20 so I was riskfree for a return of £440.

I quickly put in 3 more lays at 6, 2.08 and 1.5 and as I was placing lays, they were getting matched!

Before I knew it, I had £130 riskfree on my horse and £120 on the field and it was trading at 1.01! Amazing............

As I said on the discussion site, sometimes it's better to be lucky than good! Maybe I was both tonight..............

My 'Special Day'

Daily Loss £48.84

Firstly, after posting up quite a healthy loss, I better explain the title of the post. I kept quoting that today was a ‘special day’ for me as there were an incredible number of races which met my betting criteria. All in all, I could have gambled on 15 handicaps over the course of yesterday.

I knew this in advance as we keep a track of my qualifying races on our discussion site, so I started my form analysis on Thursday night. By late Friday night, I had analysed 9 races and had a quick look at 1 other. I settled on these 10 races to trade.

As normally happens, Andrew put up 2 more potential races to bet on, so I bet in 12 races today. Once I had carried out all my race analysis and taken on board everyone’s comments, I drew up a trading plan with which horses I wanted to generate riskfree bets on in each race.

At the start of today, I hadn’t had a losing day in over a month and I hadn’t had a losing race in over 2 weeks. My target for the day was to win £200+ and I felt this was a reasonable return for the amount of effort I had put in. I also made the wise decision to take notes throughout the day on each race and how I traded it and which horses I backed so that if anything went wrong (or very good!), I could look back to see what happened.

As it turned out, I’m glad I took notes as it proved a very eventful day for me. I should have won my £200 target+, I could easily have won £500+ if I had made a few more correct decisions and as you’ll soon see, I actually made a substantial loss (substantial for me considering how well I had been doing.).

So, here is the day of a trader trying to generate riskfree bets on Betfair:

1.10 Ascot – This was not my type of race but Andrew had put up Big Robert as a potential nice horse. I didn’t trade on this horse overnight but in the morning, I did see that it was being quite well supported. It was trading around the 20 mark and looked fairly strong at 10.30am when I was on Betfair. I left a back of £50 at 24 and returned at 1pm to see if it had been matched.

I nearly fainted when I saw it was trading at 27 and was proving very weak. I then backed it again at 27, 28 and 29 as it continued to drift. Before I started to lay off, I had £190 win on the horse at average odds of 27. It was nearly a disaster in the first race on my ‘special day’! Luckily, some money came very late for it and I managed to lay off at just over 26 for the full amount. I had a riskfree bet of £140 on it.

Unfortunately, the horse fell out of the stalls and none of my lays got matched in running. So, after all that excitement, it was a break-even first race. No harm done!

1.45 Ascot – I was really sweet on Kasumi in this race but I struggled to get any backs matched overnight or in the morning. I had left in £100 of backs from 13-15 and I only got about £18 matched. I then had to sit annoyed as it got backed pre-race to about 9 before drifting slightly before the off. Overall, I had a £52 riskfree bet on it and I fancied it to win, so I only laid off £5 at 3.4 and let the rest run.
It ran really well and traded at 2.4 in running before getting beat into 2nd place by the impressive winner. It could have been much better but I was happy with my £5 profit and my riskfree bet.

1.55 Nott – Disaster of a race for me! I wanted to get riskfree bets on Hawaii Prince and Peopleton Brook. Both were big outsiders and no one matched my 100 on either overnight! At 1.20pm, I managed to get £30 matched on Peopleton at 48 and laid off at 42 for a nice riskfree return on it.

However, I made a massive error on Hawaii Prince. My reasoning for backing Hawaii was that it likes to front run and was drawn hard up against the fence and was OK handicapped. I guessed it would lead them for 4f at least before fading, so it was an easy riskfree bet.

It had proved very weak throughout the morning and when I put in my back, there was very little money on the lay side, so it was likely to drift. I noticed that there was £30 available to back at 55, but I stupidly, stupidly asked for £30 at 60. I checked back in 5 minutes and it was trading at 44 with a good deal of money sitting at 48-55. I didn’t think much of it at the time but when I looked at the race just before the off, it was trading at 42.

I had a decision to make…..

Do I back it at 42 and forget about the fact I missed the 55 or do I let it pass? Well, I decided to let this one go and it came back to bite me on the arse. Peopleton Brook ran appallingly but Hawaii led them a merry dance for 4 and a ½ furlongs before being beat into 2nd place in a photo. It traded at 2.2 in running for large sums and I was left punching my desk in disbelieve! If I had snapped up the £30 at 55, I would have laid off at 44, had over £300 riskfree on it, and I would have left in low lays to win me around £100 (my target for this sort of horse).

Forget about it I said, it’s only one race. Just don’t make the same mistake again…. (I wish I’d listened to myself!)

2.00 Haydock – I again acted on Andrew’s advice here as it’s not my cup of tea! Overnight, I had managed to get £30 matched on Crossbow Creek at huge odds and laid off about 25 points lower for a riskfree return of £738! I managed to lay £10 off in running before it faded, so it was a decent call by Andrew.

Just before the off, I noticed that I’m So Lucky had gone on a massive drift which is unusual for a Pipe runner. I also know that it front-runs, so I backed it for £20 at 24. I laid off after 2f for a £100 riskfree return on it and I managed to make £15 by laying off at low odds in running. I still had over £40 return if it won but it finished 2nd behind the easy winner Blue Bajan.

All in all, a pleasing race with £25 profit for no risk.

2.20 Ascot – This proved a bit of a disappointing race for me. When I analysed the race, I saw it was full of potential improving 4 year olds who would probably dominate the finish. I was ultimately proved correct.

Overnight, I had managed get £30 on Middlemarch at odds of 110 and I laid off at 80 for a huge riskfree bet on it. Unfortunately, it ran a stinker and I only made £5 in running.

I had also backed Orchard Supreme and Binanti overnight. I ended up with £500 riskfree on Orchard and £190 on Binanti. I made £9 combined from both of these as I put my in-running lays too low and I was slightly annoyed as Orchard traded at about 20, so I could have made a few more pounds on that.

Overall, a £14 profit on a race where I had riskfree returns totalling over £1,400 doesn’t make nice reading to me.

2.25 Nott – I couldn’t get any bets matched on any horse I fancied here apart from Trance. I had riskfree return £38 on Trance and it finished tailed off last!

At this point in the day, I had an hour until my next race. I decided to take a little break, have a cup of tea and get away from my laptop.

I had traded 6 races, won on 3 and break-even on 3. I had made a profit of £44 which was about the least amount I could have made at this point in the day but I tried to forget about the Nottingham race in particular and put it behind. There were 6 races left and surely I’d find a winner soon!

3.20 Ascot – My winning run comes to an abrupt halt!

Amazingly, this was the only handicap from the 10 I analysed where I didn’t do a full analysis. The race was full of potential improvers, so it’s not really my type of race. I only looked at 2 horses in the race and I thought that both would maybe run well, but I wasn’t confident. What was to unfold in the 20 minutes before the race was unbelievable and I’ll never, never ever bet in a race again where I haven’t checked the form of every horse and did a reasonable amount of work on the race.

I had backed Ned Ludd overnight at about average odds of 16 and laid off at 13 for a riskfree bet of £60.

When I came back at 3.00pm, I noticed that Ned Ludd and Gabier were both very weak in the market. I watched it as they drifted a few points. Ned Ludd reached 17 and Gabier reached 15. I then backed both for £30 at these prices. By the time the off came, Ned Ludd was trading at 24 and Gabier was trading at 19. I had backed both again and again, and I had around £230 exposure on the race.

I was really annoyed with myself for backing these two as I didn’t even fancy them that much. There was no way I was putting £230 in running on two horses I didn’t even fancy, so I laid off enough for an exposure of £52 on the race with the potential of a profit if either run well or won. I left in lower lays in running and not surprisingly, both horses ran absolutely appallingly and I was left with a £52 loss on the race. OUCH!

For my own sanity, please let me say to myself, never, ever get yourself in a position where you are risking £230 on two horses where you haven’t even looked at any other horses in the race. As Andrew would say, a ‘school boy’ error.

3.55 Ascot – This race is almost as annoying as the previous race.

My analysis of the race put up two horses to back. These were Jimmy Styles and Border Music. I won’t go into the reasons as I gave these on the discussion site.

I asked for £100 worth of backs on Border Music on Friday night and I didn’t get a penny matched before the off. I also asked for £50 on Jimmy Styles all day and didn’t get a penny matched. Both horses were extremely well backed throughout the course of the day.

Just before the off, I decided to back Border Music and leave in low lays as I was convinced it would run well.

I’m not sure if anyone saw the race but I got all my low lays matched on Border Music and it still managed to lose the race! It traded at about 1.4 in running as it was absolutely cantering with 1f left. However, the jockey let Jimmy Styles get first run and the race was lost.

Overall, a £6 profit on the race but it would have been £38 if Border Music’s jockey had ridden a better race!

4.05 Nott – Frustrating!

I think the only word to describe Black Falcon is frustrating! This horse is dangerously well handicapped but it lets me down every time. I had a massive riskfree bet on it, didn’t lay a penny off even though it traded at 2.5 in running and stared in disbelief as it got beat again! Looking back, I have no complaints at all as I had an opportunity to lay off my riskfree bet but I turned it down.

I think when my handicap method throws up horses who I really think will win and they front run and are guaranteed to trade at short odds in running, I should never lay off. I could have won an obscene amount of money if this managed to win and I could never lose on the horse, so I should let these bets run. I don’t come across many horses like this in a course of a season and as long as one horse wins, I’ll be happy!

Just for good measure, one of the 2 potential dangers to Black Falcon won the race and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get a riskfree bet on it before the race. Just rubs salt in the wound really!

5.10 Nott – Disaster strikes again!

Why is that I’ve managed to go over 30 races without a loss and two come along in 3 races?

OK, I wanted to back 3 horses in this race. These were Wahoo Sam, Brouhaha and Tough Lover. The Tricast paid £644, so maybe I’m playing the wrong game.

I gave the reasons on the discussion site but basically, Wahoo is the easiest horse in training to get riskfree on as it always sets a suicidal pace but never lasts home apart from the odd race in 10!

Brouhaha was a monster gamble last time and must be better than it showed there.
Tough Love had dropped dramatically in the weights and this was the easiest race it had ever contested.

Well, my race reading skills are still there as they finished 1st,2nd and 3rd and 5 lengths clear of the 4th horse.

However, I managed to lose £68 on the race!

I was amazed that Wahoo was 20s on Betfair. I was even more amazed when it was well backed pre-race and I couldn’t get a penny on it as it continued to shorten.

Brouhaha did the opposite and was very, very weak. I think people had known it was very well backed last time and didn’t want to take any chances in the early market. Every time I thought about backing it, it drifted in price. Think it went from 6 to 10 on Betfair.

So, that leaves me with Tough Love. I had been asking for £30 worth of backs overnight and didn’t get a penny matched. It had been backed from about 13 to 8 on Betfair. It was then backed from 15/2 to 13/2 in the betting ring 10 mins before race, so my opening back was £50 win at 8.8. I’ve never seen a horse drift so fast in my life. The line of the graph was almost vertical!

I backed at 11,12,13,14,15 and 16.

2 mins before the off, it was still very weak and no one wanted to back it. I had £210 win at average odds of 13.

I had a major decision to make again. Do I let this go in play? The difference here was that I actually thought this would run a huge race. I had one major issue. The horse is a hold up horse and I would only get out of the bet if it ran a great race. Should I gamble?

If it hadn’t been for the fact I’d had my fingers burnt earlier in the day, I would have let most of this go in play. I would have put in a lay at 6 for £100 and 3.5 for £250. This would be my normal sort of play when this sort of thing happens (but with much lower amounts at risk!).

Anyway, I decided to bail out most of the bet for a large loss and then I sat hoping it ran a stinker. Not surprisingly, I read the race almost perfectly, it came with a wet sail at the end and traded at below 2 before finishing 3rd.

Instead of winning £350, I lost £68.

Looking back, if it wasn’t for the fact I’d lost on the earlier race, I would have gambled here instead of taking the easy option. It’s amazing how one loss can affect your future decisions so much……..

6.40 Thirsk – Back to Form!

This was easily the most enjoyable race I traded today and it could be the most enjoyable race I’ve ever traded. I won £21 on the race before the off which for me is amazing!

I really fancied the Gary Moore horse Mundo’s Magic as it was OK handicapped and was drawn high (course favours high numbers). Anyway, I left £30 of backs in overnight at between 40-50 and I had every one matched by this morning. The horse was amazingly weak all day and I must have been the only person who fancied it in the world!

At 1pm, after looking at it again and seeing it was 33/1 on Oddschecker, I made the decision that I thought 50 would be the ceiling price on this horse. I then put in over £100 worth of backs between 50-60 and tried to lay off my initial £30 at 40. Over the course of the day, I didn’t lay a penny off and ended up with £130 win at average odds of 48!

At about 6pm, I went on the PC to decide what I should do. The horse was still very weak and wasn’t fancied by anyone apart from me! I decided then to follow my instinct that it was over priced and continue to back it. I then started laying off at between 40-44. Amazingly, after I’d been matched for another £50 or so at 50, floods of money came for the horse which allowed me to cancel all my backs. I then just followed the horse down as it was backed to 32. I got out at about 38 on average for a riskfree return of £1,800 or so.

It made sense to lay off a large chunk at 34 (£21) and I was still left with a huge riskfree bet on a well fancied runner (was backed from 33/1 to 25/1). As luck would have it, it started slowly, was never put in to the race and came home a never nearer 7th. Next time!

I left in about 20 lays at all prices downwards and not one lay got matched in running!

Overall, a nice race for me with £21 profit from trading a complete donkey……

7.10 Thirsk – The horse I wanted to be on here was Bazart. The horse was always going to get an easy lead and was an easy riskfree bet.

I didn’t trade the race much during the day and after everything that had happened throughout the day, I decided I wouldn’t play unless I got a riskfree bet pre-race. Unfortunately, the horse drifted which meant I didn’t play on it.

As luck would have it, it led for nearly the entire race and traded at below 3 in running (was 18 at the off). Another perfectly read race from me and not a penny to show for it.

Overall, an unbelievably disappointing day and my ‘special day’ turned into a bit of a nightmare.