With a distinctively more astute and comfortable association with flat racing I felt this could be achieved but I knew that my National Hunt strategies would have to be adjusted for me to just break even.
Where are the results?
The problem is that due to my early life lack of discipline I feel uncomfortable knowing in black and white exactly how well OR how bad I am proceeding with the challenges I set myself. I believe that if I was to find myself behind my target that I may be inclined to bet with immense stupidity to try and salvage some results to get me back on an even keel. The same applies in reverse should I find myself infront as I may feel that a few unresearched bets are perfectly acceptable as I am ahead of the game! No matter what and under no circumstances am I ever wishing to return to the methods of placing bet after bet after bet on a Saturday afternoon just to try and break even at the end of the day.
How long before results will be online?
It is my intention to try and maintain a solid discipline over the course of the Flat Season 2011 and attempt to start recording my bets in line with the start of the National Hunt season in the Autumn of this year. I have been encouraged by many of the race results achieved in the 18 months since Oddspundit began and I am disappointed somewhat that these have never been recorded on a database of some kind. However to go back 18 months would be very arduous and time consuming and I feel more inclined to use this time to study the form and find those massive value bets that we all now know and love!
Does making your bets public alter your approach?
In some ways it most definitely does as everything is made public once you publish an article. My pet hate is drastically misjudging a race and wasting my stake on a runner that never realistically had a chance. The burden of this is somewhat reduced when that runner appeared to be significant value pre race. There is some benefit to occasionally taking a chance on a big price offering but I need to improve and make sure I leave no stone unturned if I am going to proceed with making a selection at short odds. Losing a race after declaring a massive interest in a short priced horse is nothing short of foolish in my book and foolish I can be sometimes!
What winners have you had?
God knows. Regular readers will agree entirely that there have been many and in all sorts of races. We've had several ridiculous long priced horses fly home in sprints that have traded over 50-1 on Betfair pre race. I've also had multiple high staked shorter priced efforts between 5-1 and 16-1 that I have been ultra keen on and there have been some incredible success stories on occasion over the jumps at generous prices as well. There have also been a few Classic winners at nice prices too in just 18 months online which is always a nice feather in the cap to have as well. I probably have as many big winners as Tom Segal (Pricewise) but he is backed by a corporation paying him to study and write about racing full time whilst I have a 40hr a week job that diminishes the time I have available to study the form. Overall I feel I do pretty damn well considering and if ever finding the opportunity to do this full time I could improve further still!
Whats your greatest tipping achievement?
This is perhaps winning the only competition I have entered which was the friendly league competition hosted on the Betfair Forums. New players could sign up at the start of the month in the Conference Division and if successful each period you could progress a level at a time with the aim of reaching the Forum Legends in the Premier Division. Ultimately after a few months of making a daily selection I found myself in the Premier Division under the alias of The_Genius and at the second time of asking I won it! Due to the nature of the competition and the need to make a selection daily I quit the league following my success as the motivation had evaporated with their being no winning prize for the feat. This was many years ago though now and I am ten times the punter I was back then. Maybe I should go back and show them who is boss?
Name your best winner?
Impossible to only choose one as so many have made my heart skip a beat or two during my time blogging. One way to define my best winner could possibly be to acknowledge my biggest priced winner which came this year in the 2011 Musselburgh Scottish Sprint Cup. I had somehow come to the conclusion that despite finishing LAST in his last three outings that Burning Thread had claims of victory in the race. Even after he had won I sat infront of the TV screen thinking "why on earth did I pick that and how?" I did not even know myself truly how it had come about. You can read the blog post HERE and try and work it out for yourself. Burning Thread had traded pre race at odds in excess of 80-1 moments before the race began. Sadly I failed to top up at these enormous odds.
Name your favourite winner?
My favourite winner is a very tough one. It could quite possibly be a tie between two. Japanese raider Victoire Pisa was lined up to run in the 2011 Dubai World Cup at Meydan only weeks after an Earthquake had shattered his home nation. He was a healthy mid teen price initially on Betfair which I felt was quite mediocre of the betting public to allow as he had form good enough to make an impact. Moments before the race he drifted out to odds in excess of 20-1 which meant I would double up on my initial stake. It was a brilliant success as the style in which the horse won was astonishing as he had banged his head on coming out of the stall and was dead last until making a run around rivals before flying round the home turn. A race I will never forget and a winner that made an unfortunate nation smile once more.
My other joint favourite winner came over the jumps towards the end of the 2010-11 National Hunt season. The Eider Chase is a staying test at the best of times but this year it was to prove a case of only the strongest will survive as runners had to run around what had become a mudbath over FOUR desperate miles. Campanero was the selection and this unconsidered horse showed true guts at an unfancied early price of 20-1. The race was so gruelling that only four horses finished and one of those had to have a rest for a few minutes towards the end before stumbling over the last couple of fences. A treacherous race to watch but such a gutsy performance by all of those who completed. My second selection for the race Giles Cross came 2nd so it was a case of feeling slightly disenchanted that I had not sought out the potential rewards of a lucrative forecast bet! A lesson to be had here for the future when I am taken by a long priced selection and another quite reasonably fancied in the same race.
Remember you can search the blog using the BLOG SEARCH feature on the right hand menu bar. This will help you locate the original blog postings of these horses that will live long in the memory for years to come.
Hope you enjoyed the session!
