Today was an interesting day…..
My first selection was Fort Churchill (2.00) and it proved very weak in the market pre-race. It drifted from 7/1 to 11/1 at the off and it reached 17 on Betfair. The horse won fairly easily by 2 lengths and as I said would happen if it won in my email today, with hindsight, this was probably the bet of the season!
The second selection was much more speculative in my opinion but as the day went on, I was sure it would run a massive race. I initially thought it was worth a bet at odds of around 20/1 this morning but with 6 non-runners, it was available to back at around the 8/1 mark. This was Trafalgar Square (4.55).
This ran a shocking race and I don’t know why. Interestingly, it was backed from an opening show of 7/1 on course to 4/1 before starting at 9/2. Therefore, some other people agreed with me! No consolation for a loser but I think it’s interesting. For the second time in 2 days, one of my tips has been heavily punted on course to half the suggested price and ran a poor race.
As I said last night, if we keep backing horses that start at half the price that we back at, we’ll do well in the long run. Simple as that!
I laughed at a few of the emails and comments concerning Fort Churchill. Its form figures were 040000005 and it had been beaten more than 8 lengths in 8 of these 9 runs. Not really inspiring form!
As I said in the email this morning, these horses are easily my favourite horses to find as when they return to form, they are near certainties to win and they win easily. This returned to form today and shock horror, it wins easily…..
Clearly, everyone wants to know, how did I know it was going to return to form today? Obviously, I didn’t or I would have lumped my mortgage on it but I was able to read between the lines of its last two runs. It ran much better than it appears on paper and the fact I saw its 2nd last run was the key. I saw the way it travelled and to my trained eye (lol), it travelled like a dream as I said this morning. It was hampered and this was the reason it was tailed off.
Last time, it again was well beaten but going by the RP comments, it was held up in last place in a slow run race and was never near leaders. Therefore, it didn’t get the run of the race but it finished clear of the rest in 5th place. This was the key for me. There was 9 lengths back to the 6th in a slow run race. It managed to pulverise the horses it ran against at the back of the field. Hence, it did the best it could in the circumstances.
Combining these two races allowed me believe that it had returned to form and was likely to run well today. Thankfully, I was right!
Steve made a great comment today about the fact my email was very negative in places about the horse and I gave reasons not to back it. As you all know, I’m not trying to pretend to people that I’m a ‘real’ tipster. I have no inside knowledge and all I can base my selections on is what I see in the formbook. Therefore, I’m not going to sit here and say that that horse was an obvious horse to spot and everyone should have spotted it and therefore, I’m not going to write in an email that there were no negatives today. There was lots of speculation and lots of doubts but as I keep saying on here, as long as it’s factored into the price, it’s still worth a punt!
Lastly, I’m amazed at the range of odds that people backed this at today. I backed it at 10 on Betfair, some of you got 11/1 with bookmakers, a few got 11-14 on Betfair, Dave got 16 on Betfair and Andrew got 17 on Betfair which was the peak I think!
Clearly, I made a bit of a mess of it and I’ve missed out on a couple of points of profit today. I can’t afford to do this very often as it will eat away at my ‘edge’ but I won’t complain too much about today’s profit.
A quick comment on the second race. As I said above, my selection ran a poor race. This wasn’t down to the ground as it goes on soft ground, so it ran way below form. At 9/2 at the off, the value was probably gone but I doubt anyone backed at this price as it opened on course at 7, so everyone got a bit of value and as long as we remember this, we should be happy with today’s effort.
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