Morning News

Just a quick post today...

As it's my day off.

You know, it might seem lazy of me as I supply ratings seven days a week and, thus, I should comment on those ratings seven days a week but...

I'll actually do more work today, sat by the lake...

Watching the swans or,

Just sat in the bar, enjoying some Christmas beer and, subconsciously evaluating dutching strategies...

Thank I would being sat in front of the computer all day long.

Yesterday's Results

A less than average day, as you can see from the Results.

A strike rate (for the top rated horse) of 21.95% isn't really good enough.

Forecasts

There were five forecasts yesterday.

Newcastle 12:05 - The CSF paid £7.64

Newbury 12:20 - The CSF paid £10.74

Towcester 13:15 - The CSF paid £51.88

Fairyhouse 13:55 - The CSF paid £21.64

Wolverhampton 19:45 - The CSF paid £7.24

Tricast

There were no tricasts yesterday.

Winners

From the 41 rated races there were 25 winners (from the top 3 rated horses) - Four of these were at nice prices.

Course	Time	Horse	ISP	BSP
Fairyhouse	12:25	Mister Hotelier	6.0	7.24
Towcester	13:15	Cafe au Lait	13.0	15.16
Newbury	13:50	Garrahalish	15.0	17.98
Newury	14:25	Medinas	9.0	12.42

Comments...

As, I mentioned above, this is my day off and so this is going to be quick.

1). In the 14:50 at Towcester our top rated horse became a non runner and the Live Ratings promoted our 2nd rated horse to top rated; Monty's Revenge went on to win.

2). We totally failed in the Hennessy Gold Cup. I'm not too sure why this was but I rather suspect that tomorrow I'll be watching the race again to see if it offers any clues. As far as the ratings are concerned, it was just one race out of 41 - the ratings treat all races equally; they don't care if it is a Class 6 AW Sprint at Southwell or a Class 1 "Special Race."

Perhaps that's an error and maybe I have to look into a different way of rating those races.

I have to admit that I do have a glimmer of a thought, just waiting to be born - somewhere in the murky recesses at the back of my head...

And that I may just have an angle here.

No doubt I'll be thinking about that whilst I'm watching the swans or drinking some decent beer (trying hard not to think about horse racing.)

Perhaps, to avoid breaking the Builder (and your systems), this could be a supplementary rating and published separately.

I'd actually find that quite an interesting thing to do.

The trouble is that I know nothing about horse racing so one of you would have to remind me, at least a week in advance, that a big race was coming up.

3). In the 15:40 at Fairyhouse, our 3rd rated horse was a non-runner. The Live Ratings brought in Brother Gold as the new 3rd rated horse - he went on to come third at 33/1 (110.0 BSP.)

This was my Stand Out race (as I mentioned yesterday) and, had you used the Live Ratings, you'd have got 1st, 2nd and 3rd in that race; albeit not in the right order.

And, that's about it.

I'm sorry that I haven't got more analysis but, what takes you five minutes to read takes me over an hour to write and I do need to get away form the computer at least once a week.

The Portfolio

There was no Banker's Bet yesterday (and, thus, no Chancer's Bet)...

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.

Any other business

And finally...

Dutching

A day off yesterday and so I and have done no more work on my investigations into Dutching.

I expect to get back to this next week.

Unrated Races

Based upon the response to my post about... Unrated Races, I am trying to produce a new PDF (two, actually), as of Tuesday, which will show all the races (including the previously unrated races.)

These will be in addition to the existing PDFs.

If you have any issues, then please let me know.

As always, I'm interested in your comments on this.

At the same time, it is probably worth taking a look at all the different file formats that I produce; perhaps it's time to retire some of the older ones. I'll be asking you first, of course.

Today is a real day off for me.

Yesterday was, as well, but...

I did end up spending all day sat in front of the computer, watching the results come in.

So, not such a day off, after all.

I've already got some good ideas from James Willoughby's blog, The Figures Never Lie - boy, that guy really knows how to upset the apple cart, doesn't he?

What he has to say about Trainer Win Percentages really puts the cat amongst the pigeons!

Say, for example, a Trainer trains Kauto Star and Frankel but also has 18 donkeys in his stable...

He'll have a terrible win percentage but he'll still be the trainer of Kauto Star and Frankel.

So, instead of looking at pure win percentage, we should be looking at the win percentage from real contenders (that's easy enough to do; it's just maths.)

The same goes for Jockeys.

Whether James Willoughby is right or wrong isn't really important.

That he provokes thought is important, though.

Today

Three meetings today.

I've just run the test ratings (4am) and they look good, with 18 rated races.

There are no real stand out races today but I'll be interested to see what happens in the 12:50 at Carlisle.

Our top rated horse, Scorpion's Sting, has a confidence level of 143.05% and our 2nd rated horse, Northside Prince, is running far below its average rating.

By the way, that's not a tip; it's just what opens my bleary eyes and makes me think... "That could be interesting."

Anyway, enough of my waffling; breakfast beckons and a day off lies ahead!

Have a great day's racing!

Oh, one last thing...

As today is a day off, there probably won't be a Morning News tomorrow; it's a pretty poor day's racing today and so I'll not have much to say anyway.

So, if you don't get a mail about the Morning News don't get worried - normal service will be resumed on Tuesday.

Once again, if you've got anything to say about Focus Ratings, please wander over to Focus Ratings Review and have your say.

As always...

My kindest regards