Horseracing tips by text Week 18

Posted on by Bryle

Week 18 …  A Tough week

Summary and Master Class  Betting tips and Strategies

Here’s where I discuss the week in brief and expand on issues that may have come up during the week that may help with your betting skills and strategies.

A tough week with a small loss of just over 10 points. It’s not exciting at losing anytime but on reflection I felt this was actually a pretty good result.

What!!??? I hear you say. How can a loss be a good result?

Fair comment but here’s my reasons.

The FOUR biggest bets of the week all lost! That’s rare as you’ll know from past results. A disaster really.  A near max 40 points win on Alpha Tauri, 30 Pts ew Act of Diplomacy, and 15 pts ew on Prohibition and Wajaha. Those 4 horses alone accounted for a staggering 160 points loss!

160 Points is Huge and virtually impossible to win in a week. It’s good going for a month! Most people don’t even win that in a year! So we had a serious mountain to climb. To end up just 10 points in the red meant we’d clawed back 150 points from our every day bread and butter betting. That is impressive.

If just one of the each way bets had got into the frame we’d be at least another 20 points to the good. But they didn’t and we did well to hold it to a minor financial scratch when it could have been worse. In any case to be absolutely fair I called one winning bet void  which would have made an 18 point profit.(Soliel Fix) although I know several clients did manage to get on in time.

Master Class

Ok so what is the lesson?

Racing as we know is a volatile, up and down business. That’s one of the reasons so few people stay the trip and end up being Successful Professional Gamblers. They just can’t stomach the roller coaster ride. As soon as they get behind they give up. Or worse, get behind, then double up and double up to try and get out of trouble. That’s the quick road to the poor house and why I do not advocate any type of retrieval staking plans. They’re for amateurs not Professionals.

Giving up when losing means you’ll definitely lose. But at least it means you don’t lose more. But sadly it means you won’t ever end up being a winner! It’s a tough call but a lot better than the second option …

Doubling up, “steaming” or “chasing” losses by increasing bets may get you out of trouble. But it’s more likely to mean you dig a bigger hole!

When I first started betting when I suffered a big loss my temptation was to bet bigger to get level. I soon learned! (painfully! after once losing 7 consecutive £5,000 betting banks)

The correct strategy (assuming your selections/system or information is basically profitable) is to carry on the same, with a modified stake in relation to your betting bank. My variation on this is to continue betting, making the same (hopefully optimum) decisions and trust in the quality of your selections to carry you through the swings. And I do scale back my bets a little.

Why do I scale back if I’m backing the same good quality horses?

The reason is that no matter how good you are, how experienced, we all feel some pain from losing. It’s very hard to inoculate yourself against it. And when you’re feeling emotional pain or distraction it’s almost impossible to make perfect decisions. Try solving a serious problem that needs thinking about while you’re having an argument with your partner. Impossible!

I was chatting to one of our Senior Traders earlier in the week and he used to be an Air Force Pilot. As you know they go through an immense training program, costing over £1,000,000 per pilot. It’s a huge investment.

Obviously to fly a jet at supersonic speeds in all kinds of difficult conditions you need to have an incredible level of skill! But I suspect that part of the training is also mental, related to the ability to perform under stress. So that not only can these pilots fly brilliantly under normal circumstances … but they can still fly brilliantly when stuff is going wrong.

As Professionals we’re never going to have or be able to afford that level or quality of training. But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve and become the best Professional Gamblers possible. So that when stuff goes wrong we still make good percentage calls, not silly dangerous “chasing” ones.

Every day there are opportunities to do the right things, think the right thoughts and practise the best strategies till it becomes ingrained in your personality and it becomes second nature to make the right move even when your emotions are screaming for you to do something else. The more we practise the better we’ll become. Just as a top pilot learns to trust his instruments even though his head is telling him something different (not because there’s anything working with his head but he knows the percentage call is that the instruments are correct and the “head” is making a mistake, possibly due to the limitations of human biology or perception)

So when I have bad luck or bad losses I scale back. Because I know that even though I believe the next bet is a great one … I now know that a tiny bit of my subconscious may be egging me on to “get level” and affecting my judgment. I do truly believe I’m pretty consistent in my betting and mostly resist the urge to steam. But because the cost of getting it wrong is so painful (ie you’re out of the game!) I add just a bit of caution.

So you may have noticed that after those thumping 4 losing bets I did NOT start doubling up or wildly increasing stakes as I might have done when I was an amateur. I just chipped away bet by bet, bit by bit and slowly we eased back towards breakeven without any serious risk. My biggest bet was 12 points and that was on a very rare odds-on chance. Had we been flying on the week I might have had 20 Points.

Yes I know if I’d bet bigger we’d have ended up with a handsome profit on the week. But there would have been a risk of making things a lot worse. My job is to let you know how I bet so you can copy if you wish. It may not be the best strategy but I feel it’s safer. I know we’re going to bet plenty of winners so why worry about trying to bet them this week? I’ve seen too many people go skint and by trying to get level by the end of racing if they start having a bad day. Good days and bad days will come. It’s the bad days you have to be careful of. Good days look after themselves!

Ok now a brief note about the week!

Monday: no bets

Tuesday:

A so-so day but the Prescott horse Reclamation was disappointing. Nora Mae was a good winner but we lost 15% of our winnings due to a withdrawn horse.

Wednesday:

Should have been so good! 4 bets 3 won or placed but the biggest by far, Act of Diplomacy bombed. I was told afterwards it suffered a minor injury but it was a major blow to our bank. 60 points down the hole. That was awful!

Thursday:

Blimey! If Tuesday was cruel Wednesday was a disaster and enough to knock most average punters out of the game.

Alpha Tauri (too bad to be true )and Prohibition (non trier in my view) wiped out 70 points. I was starting to feel like a bank that was about to be nationalised! I did start wondering if the ground was a lot worse than being reported and decided to scale back for protection.

The Kyllachy Kid did restore some losses but as we were losing so much it was scaled back bet of 12 points for caution. He won easily and showed how unlucky we were in week 16 when we bet him each way at 7/1 to win 126 points and got caught on the line!

Friday:

We started making some headway with a fantastic 6/1 winner in Buccellati although it was only a small 5pts ew rather than a more normal 8 or 10 pt bet because I was still trading cautiously.

Saturday:

A day of gambles, near misses and a great finish!

Yaddree finished 5th in the Cambridgeshire and so was a winning bet for clients who’d bet him with the firms offering 5 places (they really all should in a race as hard as this!) To be fair I’ve logged it as a loser though as you may not have bet with those bookies.

Silver Adonis (11/1 down to 7/1)and Ellemajue (14/1 down to 7/1 ) were good gambles just failing to get placed. Either one in the frame would have made the week profitable though Silver Adonis doesn’t look good enough. Keep an eye on Ellamajue.

Total Gallery was a great 9/2 winner and my confidence was starting to return so I passed on several late bets from the track. Packers Hill 5/1, Soleil Fix at 3/1 and Dance the Star at 2/1 all won though I’ve called the Soliel Fix bet void because it went out so close to the off. However one delighted client called me to say he’d got on so at least he ended up in profit on the week. Well done Chris! The race lasted 5 minutes 12 seconds so several clients also got on in running.

These late bets can be very late and are really only for the Full Time Traders on my Professional Traders Service as I know it can be annoying if you get a bet late and can’t get on and end up missing a good winner. But I thought you might like a “taster”, an  insight into how profitable they can be. Not all days will be that good though! I will be offering a Saturday only version of the Professional Service for Clients who work during the week, more details later.

Incidentally it was pointed out to me that I said PACKERS HILL was in the 4m at Redcar when it fact the race was 4.10. Please excuse these typos but I am rushing to text it to you as fast as I can and there may be some slight errors and it’s usually obvious it’s the race about to go off. For example if I get the racecard number wrong just go with the name of the horse. For the record the text was sent at 4.08 and the race was off at 4.11pm

Sunday:

Soldier of Fortune ran ok, was placed but because he dead heated for 3rd it was a small loser instead of a slight winner. No real damage done.

The loss on the week was a minor £10.63p to £1 pp stakes so there’s no profit share and the tenner loss will be carried forward to next week.

Speak Soon

 

Bob

Click here for Full weekly results in PDF format

Horseracing Tips by text Results Week 5

Posted on by Bryle

Racing Tips By Text Week 5 Report

A quiet week was had by all, due to the traditional lull after Royal Ascot where all the best Flat horses compete. However we still managed 40% winners as well as a break even each way bet with a huge potential return and a profit of 21 points!! … £2,100.00 profit (at £100 a point) from just 5 bets! or 20 points at more like £420.00 which I’m guessing as being closer to the average stake you might consider?

We got off to a great start with our first horse of the week, Atlantic Sport. You probably remember when we backed him on his debut, landing a big gamble where he was expected to follow up at Ascot last year but it turned out he finished lame. He spent the year recovering and you could see from this performance he was back on top form, winning well for us and bringing home a juicy 20 points.

Our biggest win of the week was Mad Rush with a small 5 points each way bet. He won very easily despite having gone up in the weights last week, which proves he should have won last time when we had a 10 point each way bet on him and he was a close, fast finishing 2nd. This would have meant an additional 40 points profit last week?  Bob was starting to wonder if he lacks the desire to win despite working brilliantly at home obviously we’re delighted that isn’t the case! So that is why we only invested 5 points each way rather than a more likely 10 or 15 points each way. Nevertheless it turned around a nice profit from the 2 races and we’re looking for some more bets from the Cumani stable

Our biggest bet of the week was a 20 point ew on Left on the Shelf. You may have thought it was a strange selection as he was up against a red hot heavily odds on favourite but he’s Spearing’s best 2YO. And they thought that he had a great chance of turning the favorite , but at the very least wouldn’t be out of the frame … unless he was shot!! … so represented an each way bet to nothing.

He ran a great race finishing 2nd with the odds on favourite winning… and we had a couple of delighted clients who placed a small forecast on the two making a really nice profit. Our bet broke even so we effectively enjoyed a free bet on a 5/1 chance which had huge potential of a massive profit.

All in all it was a quiet week but we earned a small profit and are looking forward to the rest of the summer.

 

All the best

 

Sarah

For and on behalf of Bob Rothman

(away on holiday but phoning bets into the office most days!)

PS Sorry forgot to explain Cigalas’s run and Bob just rang me to make sure you knew.

Disaster struck then when Ciagalas not only didn’t win but couldn’t even get into the frame! The B******y saddle slipped and so I guess the jockey was lucky to finish the race at all. Sadly putting a huge 16 point dent in the profits that was not planned for at all! Amazingly we got it all back by the end of the week, despite our biggest bet finishing 2nd. You’ll notice how Bob’s unique staking plan so often turns an ordinary week into a profitable one.

All in all I’m sure you’ll agree a fair profit for our quietest week so far. The profit to date since the launch of the service 4 weeks ago is now 480 points £47,992.50 for £100 per point bets or £9,598.50 for £20 per point stakes

Horseracing Tips by text Results Week 4

Posted on by Bryle

£28,400 profit! Week 4 Results

Blimey! What a week eh?

Percentage wise results were lousy. A poxy 2 winners which is way below average. Nevertheless we cleared a stunning profit of 284 Points! … an amazing £28,400 at my £100 a point!! or £5,680 at £20 a point which I’m guessing as being closer to the average stake you might consider?

So how the heck did we make so much when we had so few winners? Well fundamentally it’s because I vary the stakes according to how good the bet is. Please understand that doesn’t necessarily mean according to how likely the selection is to win. It’s based on the PROFIT I estimate in the bet.

So our best bet, close to a rare maximum was a massive 40 points each way on Faraway Flower. You may well have looked twice when you received the text because it was the biggest bet we’ve had in the 4 weeks of the trail. Maybe you were wondering why?

In a nutshell the forecasted odds on favourite in the race Peters Gift was beaten into 3rd was by a horse of Barry Hills called Golden Rosie. My contacts told me Faraway Flower is a much better filly than Golden Rosie based on home gallops. So we had a great situation where we had a horse that was better than Golden Rosie at home … and she’d already beaten the favourite, Peters Gift! You don’t get much closer to a “lock” than that!

Of course it was Faraway Flower’s debut run and horses often need a race to put them straight mentally and they get the idea of it. Many horses run “green” first time out ie they might get scared by the crowd, or stop running when they hit the front, or any one of a number of other inexperienced errors. You work them as much as you can at home but a real race teaches them a ton. Nevertheless if a horse is working well at home it’s more likely to run well that one who works badly! That’s one reason why I bet her each way. Plus I also knew she’d done plenty of work and was less likely than most to run green.

Many people think an each way bet is weaker than a win. It couldn’t be further from the truth. If Faraway Flower had been a 6/4 favourite I might have only had 20 points win. But at 5/1 I wanted to absolutely lump on each way so had double that bet! Partly it was tremendous value and we had a huge edge. And partly because I couldn’t see him out of the frame! Looked like a “bet to nothing” to me!

Questions … A couple of questions I’ve been asked which might be helpful to all

Is there a site that compares best odds?

Yep, I use www.oddschecker.co.uk. The bookies on it are reliable and so your money should be safe. I’ve bet with them all, (under numerous identities!) they all close you eventually though!

What happens when you start betting £100 a point?

You WILL be closed down. When you win big the bookies will ban you. The only solution is to open new accounts in friend’s names! Enjoy the wins and then move on and bash a new bookie!

FREE COPY of ARBITRAGE REPORT

If you’ve requested this report it’ll be ready in about 3 weeks. Many thanks too for all the kind comments received about the new service.

In case you hadn’t thought about arbitrage as an additional string to your bow and you don’t have a large tank to bet with. You’ll notice almost every horse I bet shortens quite a bit? Well you can make a small sure profit every race by simply betting the horse at a big price … and then laying it off on one of the exchanges when it shortens. I’m writing a step by step BLUEPRINT on how to do this  … and maximise profits. It’ll retail for around £30 but if you’d like one of the first copies let me know.

Yours sincerely

 

Bob Rothman

Horseracing Tips by text Results Week 3

Posted on by Bryle

New Text Service week 3 Report

Well what a week! First of all I apologise for it being late but I was away in Devon and so couldn’t access my computer.

It started off disastrously and at one stage we were 89 points down (£8900 at my £100 per point stakes!) ouch!

Now we’ve all been there before. I certainly have. It’s at this point that most people bail out, chuck the tail in and retire with a thumping great loss. But you have to stick it out.

It wasn’t pleasant but I was never worried. We both know if you bet fancied horses and get value prices about them in the long run you’ll zoom back into profit. I’ve been there plenty of times before and I’m sure I will be there plenty of times in the future. you just have to knuckle down and focus on backing good horses that are expected to win. Even so I have to admit I was surprised we managed to turn it round so quickly! Before the end of the week. Normally it’d take 2/3 weeks to make that sort of profit.

And I disallowed TWO WINNERS from the report to be scrupulously fair! Dear Maurice, a 10 point bet at 11/10 because several clients didn’t get the message due to an error. And Colony, a 1pt ew at 13/2 because I canceled it 10 minutes later as it was sweating. You might still have bet these horses and if so your personal profit figure will be higher of course. But I didn’t think it was fair to include them in the weekly profit figures hence the comment “ignore” in the report.

Nevertheless we still ended up 26 points in profit £2,630 at my stakes of £100 per point to be precise). Even at say £20 a point it’s still a decent wage of £526 on the week … for just making 19 phone calls or placing 19 bets.

You know from last week one of my favourite and most profitable bets is the each way double and the one on Strawberry Moon and Little Pete at 10/1 and 9/2 was another example of its power. Despite both horses “losing” and only being placed the £500 ew double returned £2,850 winning a handsome £1,850! You can see why bookies hate them! Once in a while you land two winners and this one would have won over £30,000! No one’s complaining at picking up almost two grand as a consolation though!

Once again the single each way bets performed poorly but this was almost all accounted for by the massive 25 point ew bet  on Basanti going astray after a very poor ride. As soon as we land one or two at decent odds the picture will swing dramatically.

Total Profit to date since the launch 3 weeks ago is now £17,492.50 despite two rather poor weeks of results in my opinion. I’m looking forward to the rest of the summer!

One or two clients have told me they’ve had difficulty getting the best prices. I’m afraid that is true. “Getting on” is a life long problem for any Professional Gambler. Amazingly the biggest problem is not backing winners … it’s getting bets on in the size you want and at the price you want. Any fool can have what he wants on at SP. But you leave yourself wide open to the bookies manipulating the odds to whatever price they feel like giving you and it won’t be generous for sure!

The solution is to have as many accounts as possible. If you don’t have accounts with all the bookmakers my website will be live next week and I’ll have links to any reliable bookies who are offering a Free bet when you open a new account. That way you’ll get a spread of accounts so you can take the best odds and make some money out of it too!

 

FREE COPY of ARBITRAGE REPORT

A final thought in case you don’t have a large tank to bet with. You’ll notice almost every horse I bet shortens quite a bit? Well you can make a small sure profit every race by simply betting the horse at a big price… and then laying it off on one of the exchanges when it shortens. I’m writing a step by step BLUEPRINT on how to do this… and maximise profits. It’ll retail for around £30 but if you’d like one of the first copies let me know.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Bob Rothman

Horse Racing Text Tips Result week 2

Posted on by Bryle

Week 2 Discussion of Results

Here’s the report for the 2nd week of the new Bet Mirroring Syndicate launch just 2 weeks ago.

I wasn’t happy at all with week 2’s figures. Results were not as good as week 1 and the strike rate for win bets was lower. Nevertheless if you followed my bets exactly you would still have shown a handsome 38.22 Points Profit or £382.25 for £10 stakes (and a very handsome week’s wages of £3,822.50 at the full £100 per point stakes!)

It seems hard to believe we still made a profit after so may placed horses but the figures don’t lie. How is it possible to win on such a bad week? A brief examination may be helpful to guide you towards future profits.

Win bets.

There were 4 win bets but only 1 outright winner. (5 technically including the non runner Reclamation which has been removed from the totals to make analysis more relevant)

However if you look at the suggested stakes it’s obvious that the winner Scuffle was a better bet than the other 3 put together. 40 Points on Scuffle yet a total of only 16 points on the other 3 put together! I have spent years developing my unique Profit Maximiser staking plan and here is one of the clearest example why you will probably do very well simply following it to the letter.

Usually we get a spread of winners but last week was a bit unlucky and non of the smaller value bets came home at all. Nevertheless the win profit was still a handsome 39 points.

The point is to make a careful note of any BIG point win bets.

Each Way Bets

We were really unlucky with our each way bets. Betting horses at BIG odds of 11/1, 9/1, 8/1, 7/1, 5/1, 5/1 and 7/2 we didn’t land a single winner, although almost 3/4 were placed.

Rich Nomad was a 5 point each way bet at 8/1 and was then gambled down to 3/1 favourite!  Sadly he unseated his rider making a very costly 10 point loss.  Ouch! For most people that would wipe out their week as not many systems or semi Pro’s make much more than 10 point a week profit in a whole week!

In fact Tuesday was a disaster as our tiny win bet on Countrywide City also lost coming 2nd. Peas in a Pod was an each way bet, hit the front and was run out of it in the last furlong. Placed so only a minor loss.

Wednesday was a good day with a near MAX win bet Scuffle winning despite almost losing the jockey in the last furlong and getting headed! Superior ability saved the day. Reclamation was a non runner due to getting kicked so if you bet in cash make sure you get your money back. It’s automatically refunded if you bet on an internet or phone account.

Thursday saw another big each way bet placed (Golden Bishop) after being a massive gamble from 5/1 down to 11/4!  … and looking all over the winner a furlong out.

Friday we had two good bets on Jazacosta at 7/1, 2nd after being gambled down to 4/1 and Everymanforhimself was a big each way play at 5/1 … but was only placed for a small profit as it was a 1/4 the odds a place race (1st 4 places)

On Saturday we had more close results and just missed out on a really big payday! Tine Team was a fantastic each bet at 11/1 finishing 2nd after being given far too much to do, one could argue a very poor ride.

I had one of my favourite and most profitable bets for you on Saturday, an each way double. The power of an each way double is you can still win even when both horses “lose”! In this case the 5 Points each way double returned a massive 27.2 points clearing a juicy 17.2 Points profit. Even though both horses were only 2nd!

The second selection in the each way double Mohanad came close to winning because he ran very green in the early part of the race and was all over the shop. In that last furlong the penny dropped and he ran on strongly catching the winner but it was too late. They finished a long way  clear of the rest showing they were a class above the competition and both beating the favourite.

For interest if they had both won the bet would have won an amazing 287.2 points profit or £28,720 for my suggested 5 points each way at my £100 a point. That’s a proper win! You don’t need to pull off many of those in a year to make it a very good year indeed!

The last bet of the afternoon, Tanto Faz ran very well for a newcomer up against a red hot odds on favourite finishing 2nd. A couple of regulars rang me to say they read “between the lines” and had a forecast bet as a saver, the favouite to beat ours. Sorry I should have thought of that and texted it out to you. It was a smart bet and a mistake on my part to miss it. Come to think of it exactly the same applies to Time Team’s race (only beaten by red hot odds on fav) as well as the one we had last week) As you know not all odds on favourites win and it shows our information is spot on when we have beaten all the rest every time we’ve  gone each way against one.

The last bet on Saturday was a big disappointment and turned Saturday from a good profit into a small loss. It’s unusual for our 10 point each way bets to run so badly. Connections gambled Romantic Queen down from 9/1 to 7/2 and yet she pulled way too hard in the race, refused to settle and then hung right as if she was in pain, possibly pulling a muscle? I would have preferred the jockey had let the filly run rather than fight her earlier. Trust me that she’s a lot better than that run and as long as she hasn’t suffered an injury I’ll be watching out for her if they put her in the right race next time.

That result and the unseating of the jockey in Rich Nomad’s race cost us 30 points between them. It’s amazing we made a profit at all with two heavy losses like that to carry.

Final thoughts are that the each way bets are hitting the frame well over 50% of the time … and even if you are not an each way investor it would probably make a huge difference to your betting profits if you start to consider them.  Bear in mind we had a bad week … yet still cleared 38 points profit!

Looking forward to sharing some good winners with you over Ascot!

Horse Racing Text Tips Result week 1

Posted on by Bryle

Weekly Report. £11,040 Profit!

and an opportunity to make £150 extra!

I’ve enclosed a full breakdown off the bets since we launched this exciting new syndicate. And if you like what you’ve seen so far  you can make some easy FREE money! … Refer this unique Service any friends who might be interested before the official full Price Launch and save them money as well as earn £150 per referral for yourself!

The week’s results were excellent. Before you get too carried away I would like to comment that we did rather better than usual winning a staggering 145% on stakes and showing a massive profit of 110.4 points equating to £11,040.00 at my usual stakes of £100 a point. I don’t honestly expect to do as well every week although I do hope to make you a good profit.

I’ve no idea if you bet any or all of these selections and what stakes you used. To be truthful it’s non of my business and is your private affair. However even if you bet at say £10 a point  it’s a potential profit of £1,104.00 on the week, a very fair week’s wages I’d say wouldn’t you agree?

If I may I’d like to take this opportunity to address a few questions you may have as I have been asked these already. And if you have any more please drop me a line. Very shortly I will be launching my website and you’ll have a lot more information to hand. Please forgive me for having to laboriously type it out in a letter to you at this present time.

FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions)

I Missed some Bets

I miss some bets too! Everybody does. It’s cruel when it’s a winner. I text you as soon as I get a call from the track or connections. Very often the best bets are late because most

Professional Connections like to play their cards close to the or chest to get better odds when they do pounce.

So it’s a certainty you will miss some bets. Everybody does, myself included. Luckily the bet with the shortest notice this week was the small 1 point each way bet on Pearly Way which lost. … and luckily may have got you warmed up for the next bet, Sir Boss, a decent sized 5 points each way bet 10 minutes later which won at 7/1!

My brother is a member of this service too because I really don’t have the time to make individual phone calls during racing and he likes a bet too. When I did speak to him after the greyhound race on Sunday when it was quieter he told me he’d been out with the wife in a shopping arcade where the mobile phone signal is a bit hit and miss. He suddenly realised he’d got 2 messages and read them at 12.06 to learn he’d just missed out on a 25 point win which would have paid for his shopping 5x over!

I won’t tell you what he said about shopping trips with the wife  but I do know he doesn’t even enjoy them normally and this one was the icing on the cake!

Why can’t I reply to your texts?

So that I can send out the texts as quickly as possible I have bought what is called a “virtual” number. It’s like a mobile phone but inside a computer. It means I can send you the text much faster than if I were to use the small keypad on a phone. The messages are as fast as technology allows  with some slight limitations covered below. But they are non reply codes. In fact I can only send a message if I’m sitting at the computer.

I got the  message a little after you sent it?

As you probably know when you send a text it is not transmitted or received instantaneously. That’s because it takes approx 1-3 seconds to upload the text to the mobile phone network and then another few seconds for them to transmit it. What that means is that for all intents and purposes it’s impossible to deliver a text to a phone in less than about 5 seconds and usually  nearer 10 on average. Sometimes randomly a part of the network may be busy or under maintenance in your local area and messages can then take ages to be delivered. Fortunately it’s relatively rare.

… and if your phone is out of area, switched off or in a low signal area (Eg in a tunnel, shopping centre, country road in a car etc) at the time the text is transmitted you won’t receive it until you switch the phone on or the signal strength improves.

Obviously all I can do is send you the text as soon as I get it so you have the opportunity to place a bet if you are able to. At least you have a record of each selection and the amounts staked so you can see how the bets are progressing. If you live in a poor reception area you may get better results by switching networks.

Can you give me more notice?

When I can I will eg the big bets on Kensington Oval and Conduit.  And  unusually I was able to give you over 10 minutes advance notice of the greyhound bet although I wasn’t permitted to release it till the first show came up. You’ll understand how sensitive the market is if you bet many live dogs which is why the really good bets are almost always very late. Those are the terms connections supply the information on and I’m delighted to be able to get it because it is red hot! But I know the time available is limiting. Worth bearing in mind it’s often because they act late that means they get a better price.

Who gets the first text?

The texts are sent out automatically by the computer as soon as I hit “Send”.

It sends the texts out sequentially one at a time with about 1 second between each one (The mobile phone networks cannot transmit simultaneous messages even though it seems like they are)

The mobile phone numbers are loaded in the order in which I receive applications. As yours was one of the first you are right up near the front. New members will be added AFTER your mobile and so will experience a few seconds delay. Should you continue after the trial you will retain your prime position. Obviously if you didn’t but wanted to rejoin at a letter date you would have to take the next place in the queue available then.

If you do have any friends or contacts who might like to try this service then urge them to reply immediately to get the best possible position. First come first served is the only fair way to allocate positions don’t you agree?

 

Yours sincerely

 

Bob Rothman

Dec 6th Reflections on the Hennessy

Posted on by Bryle

Note from Bob:

To avoid any confusion this article is written by SPY not me 🙂 … just so my current partner doesn’t worry I was up no good at Newbury last weekend!

REFLECTIONS ON THE HENNESSY

So here we are again – on the verge of another weekend. For the life of me I can’t believe it has been nearly seven days since the last one. It feels as if I am coming to after a massive bender that has left part of my life unaccounted for. But that cannot be right as I am not handcuffed to a lamppost in an ill-fitting dress. The remnants of last week and the majority of this one are gone; I shall have to face facts – precious time has once again slipped away.

This Saturday it is the turn of Sandown, just as last week it was Newbury. I know that because I was there. It is my local racecourse and going to the Hennessy seemed like a good idea at the time, if only to escape thoughts of Christmas shopping.

Of course I should have known no good would come of it. Going to the races is a bit like getting married – more expensive than you bargained for and easier to enter than it is to exit. All those traffic marshals that are so helpful at lunchtime seem to vanish after the last race.

Perhaps because I go racing less now, and increasingly those attending Saturday meetings tend to be day-trippers, I did not bump into anyone I knew – not unless you count Joan Collins or Princess Anne, neither of whom seemed to recognise me for some reason.

But I did run into Freda. Now the last time I saw Freda I was in faded denim and carried a twelve-string guitar. She used to wear those thigh boots that were so popular in the mid-seventies and are only worn these days by models on the covers of inaccessible magazines in newsagents’ shops.

Such garb would be outlawed by the present Newbury executive, who is enforcing a new dress code in the premier enclosure. Men are required to wear collared shirts; women modest-length skirts. Thankfully neither Freda nor I were tempted to turn back the fashion clock.

One lady did fall foul of the new decree. According to her account, dressed in: “a very, very expensive navy leather coat, a navy felt fedora, a Barbour shoulder bag and Dubarry boots,” it was the accompanying designer denim jeans that prevented her entry into the premier stand.

Although cutting a dash, forensic scientist Ms Helene Mardon-Webb came up with the wrong concoction on this occasion as far as Newbury’s fashion police were concerned.

Self-described as being in her seventh decade, Ms Mardon-Webb, who claimed to be unaware of the racecourse’s sartorial shift and is “from outside the area”, declared her outfit to have been successfully test-driven in the enclosures at Cheltenham and Ascot.

Apparently the men in yellow fluorescent jackets consigned her to what was for her a less congenial afternoon’s racing in the grandstand enclosure, where fish and chips or a squelchy pie and a pint replaced oysters in the champagne bar.

Although supportive of a dress code at the races (feeling those that turn up in the better enclosures in jeans and tracksuits are akin to those wishing to join a club without paying its membership), some common sense needs to prevail.

Just as rigid security at airports is not designed to ensnare the vicar and his wife, a dress code needs to be open to interpretation based on the individual. In this instance it is a shame if a visitor to the Racecourse Newbury, that had no wish to rail against or flout guidelines she was unaware of, had an experience that fell short of her expectations.

To return to Freda – she and I used to have a sort of thing for one another. She was always with someone (a man usually) and he was always much more attractive and upwardly mobile (whatever that means) than I. There was a lawyer and a young music producer pestering for her attentions, yet for some reason she saw something in me.

Her lovers came and went but I was the focus of her attention whenever we met. Perhaps it was because I considered her to be out of my league and as a result was always incredibly casual in my dealings with her – possibly giving her the false impression I was ultra-cool.

What is it they say about being at our most effective when we try the least hard? We even spent a few intimate nights together; but I am not sure it meant very much. Back then people used to do that sort of thing to save themselves the bother of having to go home.

So with the addition of a discreet grey hair or two, minus the thigh boots, but still with those swirling green eyes that could open a can of sardines, she fixed me with a stare, and after the usual exchange of scant news, suggested we met up one evening.

In part it felt more like a summons. Although with a girlfriend on this occasion, it transpired she was living with a man somewhere in East Hampshire. I knew she would be with someone or another because, although, like me she never married, unlike me, she was always attached.

Now for some reason I cannot fathom, I responded by saying I didn’t think her proposal of a furtive meeting was a good idea. That was a strange response from a man that, particularly after hearing Arlo Guthrie, Warren Zevon or Tom Rush on the radio, had tried unsuccessfully to track this woman down on more than one occasion during the last thirty or so years.

Yet, there I was, on the steps of Newbury grandstand, adopting some holier-than-thou attitude, denying us our Brief Encounter moment. Needless to say my reply did not go down well. After all, the offer was only for a drink. When I turned to speak she was gone. I suppose it will be another thirty years and more grey hairs before we meet again, if ever.

More dubious decisions followed. I backed Gassin Golf in the handicap hurdle. Having obtained 20/1 and witnessed his odds halve, I should have availed myself of a free bet at 6’s by laying the horse back at 14’s. But of course from a draughty grandstand that is easier said than done. Therefore, I watched him creep through the pack promisingly (he probably touched 4/1 for a few moments in running) before he faded on the run to the last to finish fifth.

To my mind the Hennessy reinforced the view that big yards invariably dominate the big races. I make this point because a very well known gambler once attempted to recruit me into his organisation if I would analyse horses that contested 0-75 handicaps on the Flat.

His reasoning was that as such runners were always seen as less attractive propositions by the bookmakers, they would invariably be incorrectly priced, particularly on big race days when the attention of odds-compilers was diverted.

There is something in such an argument, but in my experience you get what you pay for and trying to second-guess moderate horses is a thankless task and one that will only result in abject disappointment and disillusionment. All in all then, another demonstration of a possible lost opportunity – in part the story of my life!

Prior to the Hennessy, with an open mind I tried unsuccessfully to look beyond Rocky Creek. Although I felt he had a few pounds too many to shoulder I ended up backing him. It was a fair enough shout on a day that quickly lost its warmth as the sun dipped. Even so I came away from the race with two potential positives.

One was that, after tanking for much of the way and appearing to blow-up three-out, Invictus looks sure to win a decent handicap before the season ends. Regrettably, after subsequent mid-week news that the horse has suffered a recurrence of his injury, that will not now happen.

My other possible snippet for the future is that Merry King may be better over even further than 3m 2f and could be of interest in something like the Welsh National – or, who knows, even the big one itself at Aintree in March.

It’s always nice to leave a race meeting with something to look forward to even when you have little to look back on.

Still I managed to watch every race rather than spend my time visiting the lavatory. For those of you that are too young to understand why a grown man should consider this a little victory on a chilly day, all I can say is it will become clear soon enough. It seems plotting your movements in tandem with your bladder are just one of the joys that greets advancing years. That and making dodgy decisions…

Playing the percentages

Posted on by Bryle

PLAYING THE PERCENTAGES

Having watched the second instalment of a documentary about Morecombe and Wise last night, I was struck how adept they were at adjusting to trends.

Anyone that survives in any kind of business for a length of time has to be able to move with the flow. Eric and Ernie managed that pretty well, ensuring longevity in an otherwise short-lived profession.

They correctly identified the need for change, but not change for its own sake, merely in order to avoid burn-out and to appear fresh and relevant despite the fact they were treading well-worn boards. What they were clever at was re-inventing the M&W brand without compromising their ideals.

Flexibility is important. Racing, or more specifically betting, is a movable feast. That is to say what is laid out on the table alters.

There is no such thing as a blueprint for success in betting, only an approximation of how to approach its problematical composure.

Most races are like traps set by masters of the perverse. In common with other pursuits, the only recommendation is for would-be punters to spend as much time as possible researching their art: in this case horses and the races they contest. (Sometimes concentrating on the right race is as important as the horses.)

To a degree you can never do enough work, but because you are not sitting a specialised hypothetical exam and the checklist and work schedule is potentially endless, any effective short cut is welcome.

In order to find a possible bet you first have to look at every race before you and start short listing and eliminating. That takes time. Sure, some races only require a cursory look before they can be safely discarded. But even then you can overlook a horse or a clue that is a potential game-changer; hence the often heard cry from professionals that there is simply too much racing.

Now I know this seems like a plaintive cry in the wilderness to those with proper jobs that pick the game up and down at will. After all, how can there be too much of a good thing? They will argue you can always by-pass races or meetings of limited interest. On the face of it this seems reasonable. The problem is, after a while of blanking a major part of the race program, unfamiliarity will catch up with you.

The professional will start to lose his awareness and consequentially his edge. Much of this edge comes from the amount of information and data a professional (or someone constantly exposed to the business) stores in his head.

If he had to look up every piece of form, every horse, every jockey and trainer involved, his work rate would slow to such a degree that he would quickly become ineffectual, going through the motions rather than reaching meaningful conclusions. I have often found myself in this position, where endless races become an indistinct mist of print that could just as well be random pages from Tolstoy’s tome, War And Peace.

I have even overlooked horses I had noted as being of interest next time, even though I have scanned the race they are due to run in. The name has floated before my eyes, unregistered in a brain stuck in neutral, only becoming significant when someone mentions it is a market-mover the next day, or I actually clock it in running.

Maybe I am getting too old. Or maybe, as M&W did, I need to review the way I work. Swinging the percentages in your favour has always been my mantra.

I believe that, to be successful, this applies to any business. Without creating an edge for yourself you end up being just another punter, funding those that know more or are better players than you are. Business is invariably cut throat.

I used to believe the way forward was to become a walking racing encyclopaedia. I was aware of all the relevant form lines. Even when using a formbook, I instantly knew where to look to obtain collateral form. These days I have taken my eye from the ball too often to the extent I feel in danger of overlooking salient factors. The less you keep abreast of any business, the more it begins to slip through your fingers. Sometimes all it takes to give yourself that all-important edge is a scrap of information.

Take Cue Card, whose next intended run is in the King George VI Chase at Kempton. You know Cue Card, the horse that made a fool of so many of us (excepting stalwart fan Alice Plunkett) at Haydock. He would not stay we asserted; not good enough in any event. Wrong on both counts. Alice’s blind faith, although poorly thought out (liking a horse and having a picture of him on your wall does not count) was rewarded. (Is that a serpent you hear hissing with derision on my shoulder?)

So now we know Cue Card stays. Also that in the Betfair Chase he beat the best chasers assembled in any one place seen so far this season. That means he must have every chance of consolidating that success at Kempton on Boxing Day.

Yes, and no… Random factor aside, there is one important piece in the Cue Card jigsaw that might go overlooked, particularly if those evaluating his claim to the big Christmas chase are still suffering from the affects of the previous day’s alcohol intake.

Cue Card has had seventeen races over hurdles and chases. All of them bar one were on left-handed courses. On the one occasion he was asked to race right-handed, he ran poorly. The one occasion? In last year’s King George at Kempton Park – this of course being a right-handed track.

To the intelligence operative, this promises to be a breakthrough piece of information. They have a saying in Intelligence: If it looks like a fish and smells like a fish – it probably is a fish.

Right now, with only assumption to draw on, I am inclined to believe Cue Card may be a fish. Whether he turns out to be one or not is to an extent immaterial; what matters is we have established the often overlooked component that can turn victory into defeat.

As a fish, we know his possible vulnerability before he swims upstream toward the waiting bear on the bank rather than afterwards. Armed with this information, those caring to back Cue Card do so with their eyes wide open.

They may be able to successfully address the possible drawback, securing a guarantee from the Tizzards (or someone close by) that it is purely coincidental that Cue Card’s form thus far has been restricted to left-handed tracks, and that his bad run last year at Kempton had nothing to do with the configuration of the course. In which case, they will possibly obtain a better price than they should receive as sceptical bookmakers (my point will not be lost on them) will factor this doubt in to their odds. As it stands, the above scenario (pro or con) is an ideal example of obtaining an edge.

I used to survive and flourish by looking for such perceived advantages. Dissecting racecards and being able to decipher the secret signals is an imperative tool for a form analyst. And being able to work round the complex nature of a race is vital. No two can ever claim to be the same – different pitfalls permanently exist ultimately forcing us to guess.

Recently I have been rethinking operational options. With so much betting variance available (betting in running, arbitrage in all its forms: betting and laying, backing every horse in the race to show a guaranteed profit, taking one price laying off at another), the market has shifted incredibly. You could argue the day of actually trying to pick winners is over.

What matters is being able to foresee market moves. To that end, many players do just that these days – concentrating all their efforts into merely playing. They zigzag their way through race after race. In effect they are the ones truly playing the percentage game.

Aided by various computer programs – sometimes known as robots – they may only attain minimal profit on each race, but revenues accrue until, added up at the end of trading, a healthy profit is returned. Those of us waiting for the perfect bet are left watching while the ship sails. But playing on a large number of races each day is not without considerable risk and requires a strong mindset and budget.

The percentage game is the one all businesses play to some extent. Assuming we adopt sound judgement to such speculation, the greater the number of punts we take, the higher our chances of overall success becomes.

This may sound strange, but look at the blue chip companies. The film industry basically adopts a scatter gun approach, confident that, say, out of every hundred films, ten will bomb; forty will show a small profit and forty a small loss. Those aren’t the films that concern them. The films that concern them – those that float their businesses – are the remaining ten percent that make the brilliant Gravity-style profits.

They are the films that finance the Ferraris and allow their shareholders to take long lunches along Hollywood Boulevard. But, although it might seem obvious in retrospect, attempting to identify the blockbusters from the turkeys when they are in the can is tricky.

By chucking all their options into one bin, film studios can sit back and let the winners and losers sort themselves out. One Gravity is all it takes to finance all the duds. Everything else takes care of itself. The same applies in the publishing and music business as well as the money markets.

When the auditing is finished, the bottom line percentage profit on turnover may seem small – perhaps no more than 10 percent on a normal year – a whopping 25 percent if you are Warner Bros and produced and distributed Gravity – meaning, converted to odds familiar to us, they are betting to odds of 1/10.

That figure puts most of us off. However you shake it, those are the kind of odds we shun. But there is a difference between striking an individual wager at such long odds-on and having a virtual guarantee of that figure being returned over a succession of transactions.

A turnover of £500,000 a year to make £50,000 doesn’t seem so bad when expressed in those terms. And of course there is always the chance of uncovering the golden calf.

Maybe letting the racing channels roll and placing one hand on the computer mouse is the way to go for those that fancy their chances. Rewards are high but dangers are manifold. Before contemplating such a course of action, dummy runs are required and even then you need to take into account what works in theory does not always work in practice. We can all talk a good fight!

However, as with Eric and Ernie when confronted with television as opposed to music hall and then with the emergence of satire, punters in this age find themselves in a new world.

Ten years on, the advent of Betfair, off-shore betting and of bookmakers apparently chopping off limbs to encourage us to bet, mean punters are no longer in the cold. Opportunities exist to play and lay at will. In some cases markets are formed twenty hours before the advertised time of even maiden events. The genie-in-the-lamp is no longer solely answerable to bookmakers; what used to be the province of their trading departments is now in the public domain.

The world continues to turn. It may seem to have tilted on its axis; in truth it has always been thus: a new generation needs to adapt to the possibilities.