Progress Review (December)

Originally I had planned to review my progress in January however, after a poor set of recent results, the review has being brought forward. The objective of the review will be to take a step back, note trends and if required correct and improve selection methods and staking plans

My results thus far have been charted and can viewed by clicking on this link

Observations noted so far

1. The main profit has come from races graded Class A & C. Selections below these grades account for the majority of losses
2. The main profit has come from Saturday racing
3. The 'tote placepot' has provided the greatest single return but also accounts for the greatest percentage losses
4. No winners at odds of > 12/1
5. No winners from All Weather Racing (11 selections)
6. Staking is not consistent and ranges from £2.50 to £5 per selection

Conclusions

If I were at a school for would be professional punters my mid term report card would read as follows

'showed some signs of potential early in term, however results are inconsistent. Room for improvement'

As a rule gambling on Saturdays is not recommended. Quite simply, there are too many competitive races and a case can be made for many in each race. However in reviewing the data the one puzzle I needed to solve was my spectacular performance on Saturdays and poor performance midweek.

If we examine the nature of races on Saturday, more often than not they are highly graded, well contested, plenty of prize money on offer and more importantly, historical statistics and facts on offer which can used to identify the characteristics of the likely winner. And there was the vital clue. In reviewing my notes the key difference between Saturday and midweek selections was Race Profiling.

Race profiling is an extension of Race Trend Analysis which is generally published in the daily press before a major race. Race Profiling uses the results of previous encounters to generate a template of the likely winner based on historical sample data. Unfortunately I was not applying trend analysis in my midweek selections and losses resulted.

I have since corrected this inconsistency by purchasing Peter May's "Horseracing; A Guide to Profitable Betting" which contain a selection of general race profiles for Flat and Jump races. These profiles will be used in conjunction with the form book to make selections. I will also focus my attention on the principle meeting of the day (highly graded and/or races lots of prize money on offer) as these race types are proving very lucrative.

I also noted that runners that were well handicapped (i.e. top 5 in the ratings) were winning a fair proportion of races and I was ignoring this factor during my analysis. D'Oh!

In respect to staking I would be a lot happier if I could factor in my confidence about each selection. In reviewing my bets, I have missed out on some good returns because I have restricted myself to level stakes. Therefore I shall move to a points based system where 1 point is equal to £2. The more confident I am about a selection the more points I will allocate to the selection up to a maximum of 5 points (£10).

Finally; Placepot's will be limited to festival meetings. Ignoring draw bias for one moment, no more selections with SP's > 10/1 as my records show that I have limited (i.e. no) success above this price range. In respect to All Weather racing, at the moment bets will be restricted to races over 5 furlong handicaps at Wolverhampton and Southwell where a considerable bias exists for low drawn horses.