January Analysis

With a twist of fate or two through January we could have been sitting with good profits to kick off 2012. Of course, there's no real point dwelling on coulda woulda shouldas in this game, but still pretty annoying!

We broke our record for the number of horses placed in a month (34/62 - 54.8%), and had 16 second placed finishes (another record), at an average advised price of 7.7/1, including two two point selections at 11/1 and 12/1.

So with so many of our selections running well, it's frustrating to finish the month with a slight loss of 3.5pts when betting to win-only.

Anyway let's have a look at the numbers:

Bets: 62

Wins: 10 (16.13%)

2nds: 16 (25.81%%)

3rds: 8 (12.9%)

Placed total: 34 (54.8%)

Average odds taken: 7.18/1

Average SP: 6.54/1

Average win odds: 5.65/1

Profit/Loss: -3.5pts

Return On Investment: -5%

As we wrote on the blog recently, it's unusual to have winners outperformed by either 2nds or 3rds. Up until Dec 31st 2011, the breakdown was this:

Of all placed selections, they finished:

1st - 38.43% of the time

2nd - 32.19%

3rd/4th - 29.38%

But for January just gone it ended like this (from all placed selections)

1sts - 29.41%

2nds - 47.06%

3rds - 23.5%

To delve a little deeper, (please forgive us if we're getting boring now) 38.43% (our usual win rate of our placed selections) of 34 (all placed selections this month)) is just above 13.

So perhaps we could have reasonably expected 13 winners this month given our number of placed efforts, rather than 10.

Extending this further, 7.35/1 was the average price of our seconds and thirds this month, so if we times 7.35 by 3 (the additional winners we may have reasonably expected to have), that's 21.54 - or in other words 24.54pts of extra profits (3 pts of stakes being returned).

So instead of -3.5pts, a much more tasty 21pts of profit (and that doesn't include the chance of one of our three placed big priced 2pt selections coming in)!

I'm sure many readers by now will be thinking yes yes yes but the results were -3.5pts. And of course that's right, all this is completely immaterial! But it does show we weren't far away from a decent month (be that reassuring, or frustrating, whichever your frame of mind!).

Enough statistical waffle, let's just hope for a return to warmer weather and a nice profitable February ahead. We're certainly due a very good month, let's hope it's just around the corner.