April Review

Before we look at the month of April, a quick note about results the last couple of days. We had a good winner yesterday in the form of Meet Me At Dawn at Southwell to follow up Tuesday's success, although today we missed the target with our two selections, (albeit one was backed from 12/1 down to 6/1, so at least the value was there). 

Time, then, for our look back at April, which started well and then had a poor run in the middle before picking up a little again at the end.

We ended the month down by 4.15pts in the end. Not for the first time, if we had set 1pt win singles throughout, we would have outperformed official results. Interestingly while 2012 is so far showing a small loss to official stakes (-8.82pts), we would have been in profit (+14.43pts) if we had kept to 1pt win singles throughout (more if we had staked more heavily on some selections as we may have done, more on that in moment). That's obviously not the idea and staking is something we continue to look at. 

Anyway on to the stats, we had:

Bets: 56
Wins: 6 (10.71%)
2nds: 6 (10.71%)
3rds: 4 (7.14%)
Placed total: 16 (28.57%)
Average odds taken: 8.93/1
Average SP: 8.08/1
Average win odds: 8.72/1
Profit/Loss: -4.15pts
Return On Investment: -7.83%

We had some high points in April, including an 18/1 winner in Oscar Baby. In March we had a 25/1 winner in Son of Flicka. If we had staked these horses more heavily, the entire year would have had a different complexion, although of course it is easy to look at these things with hindsight. Prior to Son Of Flicka, we had had a rough time for quite a while with our big priced selections and frankly we have found it not as easy to stake heavily when things aren't tanking along. We know, though, that it shouldn't make any difference. In a way it's a self fulfilling prophecy - things going well - leading to feeling free to up stakes - leading to bigger profits. Things stuttering a bit - leading to slightly more cautious staking - leading to not making the most of opportunites. Our 0.25pt e/w on Son of Flicka, and 0.5pt win on Oscar Baby resulted in a profit of 16.75pts. If we had staked them as even 1pt wins, we would have had back 43pts. 2pt wins, well we would have been laughing.

Some stats on 12/1+ shots for this year:

Total Bets 31
Total Wins 2
Seconds 5 (at 12/1, 16/1, 14/1, 14/1 and and 12/1)
Thirds 3
Average Price taken: 14.97/1
Average SP 13.21/1
Results to official staking: -11.75pts (-42.07%ROI)
Results to 1pt level staking: +14pts (+45.16%ROI)

If you're interested, since proofing began on Jan 1st 2010, these are how 12/1+shots have been:

Total Bets 164
Total Wins 23
Seconds 18
Thirds 14
Average Price Taken: 14.57/1
Average SP: 12.38/1
Results to official staking: +230.25pts (+105.47%ROI)
Results to 1pt level staking: +192pts (+117.07%ROI) 

Historically we have got this right, and perhaps by talking about it like this it will help us remember this, so we move forward together with greater potential for profit through the rest of the year, and beyond.

Elsewhere, just to sum up our look at April, our win-rate was down on where we want it to be, although our average price of selection was pushing the 9/1 mark which is the highest in our proofed history, which would naturally push the win-rate down a little. We comfortably beat SP again for the 27th month out of 28, but our placed total at less than 30% was below average. Basically a bit of a nothing sort of month in the end, with things just ticking along, no great damage done but pretty frustrating all the same.

With our renewed nerve in place perhaps May will be explosively good. Let's hope so.