Warts and All (3rd June 2007)

Yep difficult times for the Toad and definitely testing my determination and will to succeed!

Nothing seems to be going right for me at the moment. For anyone reading these words don’t take these comment as self pity due to my losing run .. far from it. I’m just talking the opportunity to use the blog to vent my frustration in my performance so far.

To be honest I’m not getting close to even picking my nose let alone picking a winner consistently and more importantly profitability.

So yet again like a rappers DJ scratch record, its back and forth reviewing my records and comparing these to past (and becoming more rare) successes to determine where and why I am going astray.

You know the saying about having too much knowledge. As I wrote in my comments on evaluating low grade races, its seems that I’m putting garbage into my process, finding positives about horses during my Acapulco cliff dives into the form book. When I surface I keep coming up with various reasons why they (each of fancies) can win when in reality they have absolutely no chance and guess what comes out at the end? Garbage out.. It is tue to say that everyone can be wise after the event, but what is galling for me is that the winner of the race is not making it onto my short list of contenders to begin with!

As part of an R&D project I am evaluating various techniques to handicap low grade races. The project has subtle differences in handicapping approach from what I would call non “lesser of evils” races but the common theme is “contender selection”.

Its time for more rigor (and gather data) so from now on I’ll focus on achieving a fairly high strike rate when shortlisting contenders and notes selections in the lesser of evil section of the web site. A wise man once told me that the winner of the race should be on my shortlist around 75% of the time.

Until I can reach such consistency at the beginning of the handicapping process I have no chance of success.