Morning News

Good morning...

Or, good evening (depending on your time zone.)

It seems that morning has come rather earlier than normal today.

I blame it on the weather; is it just me or, is the rain in Brittany wetter than normal this year?

There certainly seems to be more of it than normal.

But then, I'm in a sort of "weather" mood - you'll have to read on to understand that.

Well, I'm looking for a 30% strike rate for the top rated horse and I certainly got that yesterday with a strike rate of 33.33%.

We also got 5 top rated winners from the 11 non-handicap races (taking the non-runner into account.) That equates to a 45.45% in those races.

And, we're just a smidgin off a 60% place strike rate for the top rated horse for the month so far which does beg the question... "Have I missed a trick when it comes to the Place Betting Strategy?"

In other words, is there an additional strategy that could be implemented to compliment the existing one?

However, we did get 3 out of 4 for the existing core strategy (1 out of 2 for the refined strategy.)

Now, today the tables are turned and I do have a silly question for you.

It's something that has been bugging me for at least 18 months and every time that I've asked people whose opinions I respect, I've got the same answer which is... "No, Keith. You're barking up the wrong tree."

However, I can't seem to stop going back to that tree and saying "Woof, woof."

Sometimes it pays to be contrary.

Anyway, I'll get to that, firstly 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 33.33%.

Yesterday's Live Ratings, show a strike rate (for our top rated horse) of 32.53%.

Yesterday's - Link to Follow - results for All Races (including previously unrated races), show a strike rate (for our top rated horse) of 30.23% from all 43 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 99.3 units returned to 116 units staked. The Overall Profit Index was, thus, -14.4%

Top Rated Horse - There were 13 winners from the top rated horses from 39 Races. If you had blindly backed the top rated horse in all of the races you would have had 48.7 units returned to 39 units staked. The Top Rated Profit Index was, thus, 24.87%

2nd Rated Horse - There were 11 winners from the second rated horses from 38 Races. If you had blindly backed the 2nd rated horse in all of the races you would have had 39.35 units returned to 38 units staked. The 2nd Rated Profit Index was, thus, 3.55%

3rd Rated Horse - There were 2 winners from the third rated horses from 39 Races. If you had blindly backed the 3rd rated horse in all of the races you would have had 11.25 units returned to 39 units staked. The 3rd Rated Profit Index was, thus, -71.15%

Forecasts

There were 4 forecasts yesterday.

Bellewstown 16:05:00 - The CSF paid £8.30

Musselburgh 15:00:00 - The CSF paid £19.03

Catterick 14:40:00 - The CSF paid £4.19

Bath 18:35:00 - The CSF paid £4.79

Reverse Forecasts

There were 3 reverse forecasts yesterday.

Bellewstown 16:35:00 - The CSF paid £3.74

Catterick 16:40:00 - The CSF paid £14.44

Kempton (AW) 18:55:00 - The CSF paid £10.23

Tricasts/Trifectas

There were 2 tricasts/trifectas yesterday.

Bellewstown 16:05:00 - The Trifecta paid £38.70

Catterick 14:40:00 - The Trifecta paid £9.30

Combination Tricasts/Trifectas

There were 2 combination tricasts/trifectas yesterday.

Musselburgh 14:30:00 - The Tricast paid £22.88 - The Trifecta paid £14.10

Kempton (AW) 18:25:00 - The Trifecta paid £30.20

Winners

From the 43 rated races there were 26 winners (from the top 3 rated horses.) 5 of those were at nice prices.

Course	Time	Horse	ISP	BSP
Bellewstown	16:05	Mint Chai (6)	5.50	6.60
Musselburgh	16:00	Ralphy Boy (3)	6.00	5.97
Musselburgh	15:00	Lexington Place (1)	6.50	6.66
Catterick	17:15	Busy Bimbo (11)	9.00	10.00
Kempton (AW)	17:55	Ragdollianna (8)	8.00	8.94

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

Catterick 14:10:00 - Zeeda - 3rd - Betfair paid 1.85 for the place.
Catterick 14:40:00 - Swiss Lait - 3rd - Betfair paid 1.71 for the place.
Bellewstown 16:35:00 - Diamond Daze - Unplaced
Bellewstown 18:15:00 - Well Done Me - 2nd - Betfair paid 3.25 for the place.

I have updated the spreadsheet of all of the results. It may be found at… http://focusratings.com/data/PBSAug.xls

We made a profit of 2.6195 points on the day and have made a loss of 9.184 points for August.

For the new strategy we made a profit of 2.323506 points on the day and have made a loss of 7.821069 points for August.

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

For the refined strategy we made a profit of 0.771225 points on the day and have made a loss of 4.73922 points for August.

Something to make you chuckle

I have a near perfect system to make money on the horses.

I've made several million pounds already this year and it's all down to one simple thing.

I'm the bookie!

Four jockeys are on their way home from the Grand National when the Ford Focus they are travelling in is hit by a lorry.

The car bursts in flames and they all die.

One of the jockey's trainers is informed that his jockey has been killed and he needs to go down to the morgue to try and identify him - he is warned that all four jockeys are very badly burnt and hardly recognisable.

Inside the morgue, they pull back the sheet on the first body.

"No, that's not him," said the trainer.

They pull back the sheet on the second.

"Nope, that's not him."

The third.

"No, that ain't him either."

After pulling back the sheet on the fourth and final body, the trainer says "yep, that's the bastard."

The mortician said, "that's amazing: these bodies are burnt to a f*cking crisp, and yet you have identified your jockey just like that, how?"

And the trainer said, "he has been my jockey for 3 years.....and he's never in the first three."

My silly question...

And my silly question is...

"Does the weather matter?"

Now, I'm not talking about Goings (or changes in Goings.)

I'm more interested in whether certain horses don't like running in the rain or heavy winds.

When I was a kid I used to do cross country running and the weather never affected me at all - I always ran at the same pace whatever the weather but...

I'd do better when the weather was bad as the better athletes (mainly those who were used to running round the track in the summer - and I have to say, far better athletes than I was, even in my dreams) didn't like the rain or the snow.

Is it the same with horses?

This could be important as I am noticing a link between bad weather and bad Focus Ratings results.

This could be important when it comes to R5 (the new ratings strategy.)

I suppose the real question is...

Could I identify those horses who do well which do well in bad weather and those who don't.

As an analogy; James Hunt never worried about the weather - Joey Dunlop could get round the TT course when it was typical Manx June weather (rain and hail) whereas Mike Hailwood couldn't.

If I were putting a fiver on Yer Man or Mike the Bike to win the TT - I'd certainly take a look at the sky and see where and when (and not if! And there speaks someone who has got soaking wet at every TT he's every been to!) the rain was going to fall.

I've just got this silly feeling that it might just be the same for horses?

If I'm right then that's a metric that no one else looks at - the punters look at form; no one ever asks the question... "does this horse run well in rainy and windy conditions?" which is silly as in motor sports and human athletics we do take that into account.

I know that it's a silly question but it's been bugging me for the last 18 months.

Now, I do know that 99 out of 100 of you will answer that horses are not in the slightest bit affected by the weather but..

Is that because you actually know that for a fact or, have you always just assumed that?

Just because no one has ever asked the question doesn't mean that it's a silly question; or perhaps it is a silly question, after all.

I look forward to the debate!

And, on a sort of related point...

On AW tracks 90% of races are run over Standard going; can this be true? How wide a spectrum does Standard cover? Is Standard the same if it's peeing down with rain in February as it is in August when, in theory, it should be a nice hot dry day?

Some people worry about interest rates, their mortgage repayments and the situation in the Middle East.

I seem to have a weirdly wired brain and it's the effect of weather on horse racing that keeps me up at night.

I think that I must have been dropped on my head when I was a baby.

Today

Today's early test ratings show 47 rated races from seven meetings.

Have a great day's racing!

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

The income that we make from sign ups from that site keeps me in Red Wine and Smelly Cheese!

As always...

My kindest regards