July Review

First of all, just to say we had no selections today, so August remains 4.45pts to the good so far, but for now let's head straight into our review for July.


We think it's probably fair to say that July's been our most disappointing month of 2012 so far. We started strongly, 14pts to the good on the 11th of the month, and continuing our strong form of May and June.

But as the racing gods have a habit of doing, they reminded us that this game is not all plain sailing and wallop! we get hit with our worst losing run since proofing our results began in January 2010. 30 selections failing to get their heads in front in a row, beating the previous "record" of 28. Statistically - and over the course of thousands more bets - our worst  run is expected to be 48.9. Basically we know these will come along every now and then at the odds we play at and it's why we have to ensure we maintain good bank discipline. But while sensible staking relative to our betting banks can make us more relaxed through trying times, it's still extremely disappointing when these runs come along. At least August started well yesterday and we can only hope for an immediate correction!

Let's have a look at the stats:

Bets: 45
Wins: 3 (6.67%)
2nds: 3 (6.67%)
3rds: 6 (7.14%)
Placed total: 12 (26.67%)
Average odds taken: 7.18/1
Average SP: 6.73/1
Average win odds: 9.33/1
Profit/Loss: -15.15pts
Return On Investment: -32.61%

Given the poor win strike-rate at 6.67%, and the losing run until Majestic Manannan went in on Sunday, it's something of a bright spot that we "only" lost 15.15pts in the month.

This is thanks to the fact that our average win odds were a decent 9.33/1 (12/1, 11/1 and 5/1). In fact, only backing our selections at 10/1 or more this month, would have returned a 14pt profit from ten picks. This theme of our biggest priced selections outperforming our shorter priced picks in terms of return on investment is one which refuses to go away and has been the case now since proofing began in 2010.

We are very closely analysing this information, including a thorough examination of field sizes to prices. For example, 10/1+shots have a good overall record, but we also want to find out if 8/1 shots, for example, have a statistically significant high level of success in, say, smaller sized fields. Ours is a system based approach, purely following tried and tested methodical methods without room for sentiment, and we will do nothing rash, but we certainly have food for thought and perhaps come the start of November, following our break through September and October we could come out firing with a different mind-set and potentially more selective approach when it comes to our selections, please watch this space.