Gobsmacked – Morning News

Well, I have to admit that...

I am seriously gobsmacked!

The strategy that I mentioned yesterday seems to have some weight.

The rules (as of now) are...

1). Only use the races (normally 7) from the first page of the normal ratings PDF.

2). Back the 2nd rated horse.

3). If the 2nd rated horse has a forecast sp (shown in the F/C column of the normal ratings) of up to and including 5.5 - back it to win on Betfair.

4). If the 2nd rated horse has a forecast price of over 5.5 - back it to place on Betfair.

5). If the 2nd rated horse has a forecast price of over 5.5 and there are fewer than 5 declared runners - do not back it.

Just by using this simple strategy, over the exact last 2 years, we have seen a profit of 1338.308 points to 4793 points staked.

That's a profit margin of 27.92%

Basically, if you bet to £2 stakes, it costs you £14 a day and you get £17.91 a day returned.

And that's with no other filters; I'm sure that there are some race types that we could avoid and I wonder about the really big races, perhaps a limit on the number of runners is something to look at.

Also, I'm not sure that 5.50 is the right cut off point for deciding whether it's win bet or a place bet.

I will be looking at that today.

A spreadsheet of the last 2 years results is available at... http://focusratings.com/data/2nd_rated_v1.xls

So, how did we do yesterday?

1). Lingfield 13:40 - in the first race of the day our 2nd rated horse, Volunteer Point, had a F/C (forecast SP) of 5.0 - thus it was a win bet. It duly won at a price of 6.5645 BSP (with 5% commission deducted.)

2). Wolves 13:55 - our 2nd rated horse was Take Charge. He had a F/C of 5.0 and was, thus, a win bet. He was unplaced and we lost our stake.

3). Lingfield 14:10 - our 2nd rated horse was Goken. He had a F/C of 4.0 and was, thus, a win bet. He came 3rd and we lost our stake.

4). Wolves 14:25 - our 2nd rated horse was Theydon Grey. He had a F/C of 15.0 and was, thus, a place bet. He came 4th and we lost our stake.

5). Lingfield 14:40 - our 2nd rated horse was Notarised. He had a F/C of 4.50 and was, thus, a win bet. He was unplaced and we lost our stake.

6). Wolves 14:55 - our 2nd rated horse was Gang Warfare. He had a F/C of 5.50 and was, thus, a win bet. He won at a price of 4.18 (with 5% commission deducted.)

7). Lingfield 15:15 - our 2nd rated horse was Mindurownbusiness. He had a F/C of 2.88 and was, thus, a win bet. He came 3rd and we lost our stake.

So, from the system bets we got 2 wins/results from 7 races.

Now I fully agree that that's not such a wonderful strike rate - 28.57%.

However...

Strike rate is vanity - it's profits that count.

We got 10.7445 points returned (after a 5% commission) to 7 points staked. That's only a 53.49% profit margin and I'd hoped for better than that.

Still, in the real world we would have bet £14 (to £2 stakes) and would have had £21.489 returned (after a 5% commission.) Now, that's not going to make you rich but, extrapolating slightly, it does suggest that, by betting £14 a day, you get about £52 a week in profits - a meal out for two, perhaps?

Obviously, if you use my staking strategy of taking half your profits each month (or week) for a meal out (or something similar) and then use the other half to increase your stakes proportionally, you can start making some long term profits as well as having some increasingly more expensive meals out.

Now, you have to bear in mind that yesterday was a kind of weird day as there were only two meetings. We would have done better to stop after the third race. Perhaps we should have a filter that reduces the number of applicable races according to the number of meetings. That may have increased the return. I need to work on that.

Obviously, I shall be producing a PDF that will be automatically generated every day and will be included on the normal ratings email. Until I do that, however, you'll just have to use the very simple rules that I've detailed above. Before then, though, I need to look a some possible filters that will increase our strike rate and profitablity, even though, without any filters, we're already pretty healthy!

Excited - I certainly am!

I look forward to any comments (and advice) that you care to make.

By working on this it is taking me away from working on R5 but R5 is doing my head in (big time) so perhaps I should take a couple of days off.

Just for the sake of my sanity.

However, and I need to do some maths (and write some code to confirm what I'm about to say) but, what I'm about to say is that...

With this system we may have the occasional losing day, but just by looking at the spreadsheet, it just doesn't seem like we ever have a losing week.

Happy days, indeed.

Who'd have thought that there was a strategy for the 2nd rated horse?

And, it's not because it wins so often - it's more that we can also win from it when it gets placed and, anyway, the prices are higher.

The more I learn about horse racing, the more I realise how much more I need to learn!

You know the thing that worries me?

If we'd carried on yesterday and blindly bet the 2nd rated horse in the last 6 races, we'd have picked up (using the same rules)...

Lingfield 16:15 - Kadrizzzi - he had a F/C of 7.00 so he was a place bet. He came 3rd at 1.8525 (after a 5% commission.)

Wolves 16:30 - King Crimson - he had a F/C of 4.50 so he was a win bet. He won at 7.75 (after a 5% commission.)

It would have cost us another 6 points in stakes.

However, that would have given us another 3.6025 points in profit (after a 5% commssion is deducted) from another 6 races (and an additional 6 points staked.)

Thus, even more profit - perhaps we should look at two strategies - one for the first 7 races (or the first page of the ratings) and another for the second pgae of the ratings. Perhaps stakes could be adjusted to handle that.

Over to you...

Anyway, let's get on and take a quick look at yesterday's results in more detail....

Yesterday's Results

Yesterday's Results, show a strike rate (for our top rated horse) of 23.08%.

Yesterday's Live Ratings, show a strike rate (for our top rated horse) of 23.08%.

Yesterday's - Link to Follow - results for All Races (including previously unrated races), show a strike rate (for our top rated horse) of 23.08% from all 13 Races (including previously unrated races.)

The Overall Profit Index. If you had blindly backed every top three rated horse in all of the races you would have had 32.45 units returned to 38 units staked. The Overall Profit Index was, thus, -14.61%

Top Rated Horse - There were 3 winners from the top rated horses from 13 Races. If you had blindly backed the top rated horse in all of the races you would have had 7.62 units returned to 13 units staked. The Top Rated Profit Index was, thus, -41.38%

2nd Rated Horse - There were 3 winners from the second rated horses from 13 Races. If you had blindly backed the 2nd rated horse in all of the races you would have had 15.5 units returned to 13 units staked. The 2nd Rated Profit Index was, thus, 19.23%

3rd Rated Horse - There were 2 winners from the third rated horses from 12 Races. If you had blindly backed the 3rd rated horse in all of the races you would have had 9.33 units returned to 12 units staked. The 3rd Rated Profit Index was, thus, -22.25%

Forecasts

There were 0 forecasts yesterday.

Reverse Forecasts

There was 1 reverse forecast yesterday.

Wolverhampton (AW) 14:55:00 - The CSF paid £14.05

Tricasts/Trifectas

There were 0 tricasts/trifectas yesterday.

Combination Tricasts/Trifectas

There were 0 combination tricasts/trifectas yesterday.

Winners

From the 13 rated races there were 8 winners (from the top 3 rated horses.) 1 of those was at a nice price.

Course	Time	Horse	ISP	BSP
Wolverhampton (AW)	16:30	King Crimson (7)	6.50	8.20

The Portfolio

There was neither a Banker's Bet nor a Chancer's Bet yesterday.

On the Portfolio Page there is now a link to the Banker's Bet Proofing Page and, also to the Chancer's Bet proofing page.

You may subscribe to my Portfolio. To do so, you need to go to your Members Page and change option 4 on the Your Profile bit.

If you haven't subscribed, the button will say Yes - just click on it and you'll be signed up.

Place Betting Strategy

Wolverhampton 16:00:00 - Barracuda Boy - Unplaced

We made a loss of 1 point on the day and have made a loss of 6.93 points for March.

For the new strategy we made a loss of 1.356 points on the day and have made a loss of 9.90219 points for March.

I have added a new section to the spreadsheet to indicate the results should we ignore the odds on selections.

For the refined strategy (the one that you should be using) we made a loss of 1.356 points yesterday and we have made a loss of 3.927315 points for March.

The spreadsheet of all of the results is available at… http://focusratings.com/data/PBSMar.xls

Something to make you laugh

These are from Jill...

Now I finally understand computers!

Today

Today's early test ratings show 33 rated races from five meetings.

Have a great day's racing!

As always...

My kindest regards