December Analysis

Another profitable month, to ensure a pleasing end to 2012. Indeed if it wasn't for the tough rain-hit summer months of July and August this year would have been really pretty good. As it is, our strong end to the year ensures we made it another profitable calendar year, and that's really pleasing, even though we finished well below our expectation level.

We'll produce a look back at 2012 as a whole in the next day or two, but for now let's have a look at December's stats:

Bets: 22
Wins: 4 (18.18%
2nds: 3 (13.64%)
3rds: 1 (4.5%
Placed total: 8 (36.37%)
Average odds taken: 7.22/1
Average SP: 6.45/1
Average win odds: 7.25/1
Profit/Loss: +11pts
Return On Investment: +50%

Highlights were our winners, naturally, in particular Bally Sands at 12/1 SP (showing how drifters can win, despite the fact that our strike rate for decent sized drifters drops by more than double). Ballinhassig was a nice pre-Christmas bonus at 9/1 too. Lowlights were the Boxing Day drift on Along Came Rosie - really not what we wanted to see and she ran accordingly, and also the annoying run of ten defeats which meant we had to work at bringing the month back into shape towards the end.

Interestingly, December ended with exactly the same profit as November (+11pts).

The new feature in recent weeks of ours, the "of interest" mentions, seems to have gone down well with subscribers with quite a few reporting good wins on these picks. With winners at up to 14/1 it's been a little frustrating that not more of those that won were not actual selections of ours of course, but we have sound long-term reasons for leaving certain horse profiles out - but we continue to monitor everything and if we wish to return to historic analysis of certain race/horse profiles we can do as we have data going back a long time which we can check over.

Interestingly, we can honestly say that our slightly more selective process since the break, which is partly the reason for our fewer than usual number of selections, has not filtered any of these "of interest" winners from being actual selections. Indeed, we have only gained from our recent selective process. The "of interest" picks that have won have come from long-standing filters which have stood the test of time historically, but as we mention above, we continue to look closely, and maybe there is an argument for loosening up slightly these filters for the biggest prices "of interest" picks (thinking 10/1+ prices perhaps). But at least now, subscribers can decide for themselves should they want to get involved in some/all of these, and we trust that this addition to our service is going down well.

All the best for now,

Sam and The Market Examiner team.