Recent Results Strategy

I am now ready to start moving forward and define a new strategy based upon the performance of the different race types over the last 28 days. I have created a spreadsheet and would like to walk you through the process that I shall use to identify a profitable strategy. The spreadsheet is available at Recent Results Strategy and... Just to tantalise you (or convince you to read this boring post), Here are some interesting numbers...

Bet Type	Races	Wins	Strike Rate	Profit	POI
ISP	299	149	49.83%	46.11	15.42%
BSP	299	149	49.83%	66.942	22.39%

I'll start off by explaining the concept.

Whoops!

Well... I'm not sure what went wrong this morning (as everything worked fine at 2am) but I have managed to get the ratings out. The only error that I can see is that the 3rd race of the day has invalid confidence figures. If you want to work out the confidence yourself for that one race, here is the way to do it. The 2nd rated horse always has a confidence of 100% The top rated horse has a confidence of its R4 divided by the R4 of the 2nd rated horse. The 3rd rated horse has a confidence of its R4 divided by the R4 of the 2nd rated horse. System Selections Unfortunately, there is one important file that is empty and that file is vital to producing the System Selections. I am sorry about this but this means that there will be no System selections or Portfolio selections today. I could try to manually populate the empty file but it would take me hours and there is too high a risk of me creating an error which would mess up the system selections anyway. Tomorrow I will be manually walking the ratings through and, thus, they may be 10 minutes or so later than normal. As always... My kindest regards

Recent Races by Race Type

Hello again... I have been doing some more work on the idea that I had about looking at the recent performance (over the last 28 days) of different race types. The original post may be seen here. I did a basic chart based on the recent results by race type ranking. I have only used data for 2016. Now, I'll try to explain this... Recent Results by Race Type. For every race type in today's races (and, by race type I mean a combination of Race Type 1, Race Type Two and Handicap - thus a NH Hurdle Novice non Handicap is a different race type to a NH Hurdle Novice Handicap) I check the results of that race type ( for the top rated horse) over the last 28 days. This gives me a strike rate. I then list the race types and strike rates in descending order of strike rate. The race type with the highest strike rate (over the last 28 days) gets rank 1. The race type with the next highest strike rate gets rank 2 and so on. Now, bear in mind that we had an average strike rate for all race types (over the entire year 2016) of 25.42% If we restrict ourselves to those races which are ranked 1 to 3 in terms of their performance over the last 28 days (only taking into account those race types that are running today) we increase our strike rate to 35.28%

Recent Races by Race Type

Hello again... I am continuing with the idea that I had about looking at the recent performance (over the last 28 days) of different race types. The original post may be seen here. I am still trying to get a feel for this and, until I manage to get the historical data ready for analysis I'll just muddle on this way. I suppose that my intention is to reduce the number of races that we need to focus on every day. This seems to be a logical way of doing so. Today's selections are...

Recent Races by Race Type

Hello again... Yesterday I mentioned a silly idea that I had about looking at the recent performance (over the last 28 days) of different race types. The post may be seen here. These are yesterday's results... Betfair win bets... 1). Kempton (AW) 2:50pm - Trade Route - Unplaced 2). Kempton (AW) 3:20pm - Bois de Boulogne - 1st = 2.25 BSP = 2.1375 points 3). Hereford 4pm - Pacha du Polder = NR 4). Leicester4:10pm - Laser Light - 3rd 5). Newcastle 5pm - Blooming Lovely - 2nd 6). Newcastle 7pm - Palenvilee - 2nd Overall, 2.1375 points returned on 5 points staked. Betfair place bets... 1). Kempton (AW) 2:50pm - Trade Route - Unplaced 2). Kempton (AW) 3:20pm - Bois de Boulogne - 1st = 1.22 BFPP = 1.159 3). Hereford 4pm - Pacha du Polder = NR 4). Leicester 4:10pm - Laser Light - 3rd = 1.33 BFPP = 1.2635 5). Newcastle 5pm - Blooming Lovely - 2nd = 1.38 BFPP = 1.311 6). Newcastle 7pm - Palenvilee - 2nd = 1.72 BFPP = 1.634 Overall, 5.3675 points returned on 5 points staked. Today's selections are...

Recent Results by Race Type

Now, there is something that I've been thinking about for quite a while now and... I have been playing with for the last few days. I haven't come up with any firm conclusions yet and so, I thought that I'd hand it over to you to see if it makes any sense to you. It's a bit hard to explain but I'll do my best. Results by race type... As you know, on the sidebar of the site there is a link to a spreadsheet showing Results by Race Type. This is updated every night. The information is also shown on the normal ratings (and most other formats as well.) However, this data comes from a three and a half year period and, although accurate I am starting to get the feeling that they might not be entirely appropriate.

The Mystery of the Missing Races

Every now and again... The ratings miss off a few races. In fact, there are two races missing today. I've spent a lot of time trying to work out why and have been faffing around with timings and trying to slow down the code but to no avail. However, I've just taken a look at the 1:25 at Warwick (one of the missing races) and the answer is obvious. Betfair show the race title as... 188bet.co.uk EBF MARES' 'NATIONAL HUNT' NOVICES' HURDLE My code uses quote marks to separate fields in creating the data file to be uploaded into the database table. Thus, if a race's title has quote marks in it, it will not be loaded as the data will be confused.

An Update

Hello I just thought that I'd give you a quick update on the results of the server upgrade that happened last Thursday. I have to admit that I hadn't anticipated the amount of work that would be involved in transitioning but I've pretty much caught up now. This is the current status... 1). Morning Ratings The morning ratings are now going out automatically and are showing all races. It looks like when the data upload is done manually it is more fussy about the data; the automated upload ignores things like spaces in the wrong places. As a result of the new code the ratings seem to be coming out a few minutes earlier than before.

Hotmail Problems

Hello again... It seems that Hotmail are having problems and not processing our emails. If you use a Hotmail account to receive your ratings and your system selections, you will need to visit the site and manually download them. The ratings are available here... http://focusratings.com/ratings/ You systems selections are available here... http://focusratings.com/todays-system-selections/ You will need to be logged in to access these pages. I will try to get this issue resolved as soon as possible. As always... My kindest regards

Focus Ratings Members Only Cheltenham Sp...

Something to ponder for Cheltenham? As you know, unlike many racing services, I very rarely send out "Sales" emails... In fact I have only sent out 1 in the 3 years that Focus Ratings has been going. However, my friend Nicky Doyle has come up with a special offer that's only available to you guys. Nicky is a form study expert (who knows the Irish form especially well) and he runs Bet Alchemist. He's an all round good guy who is a proper horse racing fan and expert with over 30 years of horse racing knowledge banked. He's also a family man (in fact, when I spoke on Skype to him at the weekend, he was very busy looking after his kids whilst his wife was out) and he works in IT, as I used to do. He did me a big favour and promoted Focus Ratings about 18 months ago and he made me chuckle when he told me that he was going to use his commission to buy a point to pointer. Now, that shows how dedicated to racing he is. In fact, he owns shares in a few horses trained by none other than Willie Mullins. So, what's the offer that he's prepared to only share with us?