Various Racing Despatches

Good morning again, dear reader, and a veritable mixed bag for you today.

First up, a quick review of yesterday. I managed to get Fourteenth beaten, which takes my own little laying system (in the latter stages of trial) to 113 losers from 139 selections (over 81% beaten).

Average winning odds around 11/4, and profit to £20 level stakes (with betfair over odds at 16% and 5% commission accounted for) is currently £478. More on this in due course.

This week's guest system is Betting Exchange Profits and, after I poohpoohed it in my introduction, it responded in the best possible way, by thumbing its nose at me and showing a profit on the day of £218. Hmm... Let's see how it performs today.

Finally on the laying systems front, just a quick reminder that you can still take advantage of Terry Allen's (overly?) generous offer of his system (one winning bet from one yesterday) for free when you subscribe to his newsletter - there's a sample copy available at

http://www.thebettinginsider.com/nnn.htm

or you can read my review of the system's performance on the Premium Systems page from the banner at the top of this page.

(Incidentally, if you want to know about the calibre of writing in the newsletter, I should mention that I am a contributor. This may or may not influence your decision to check out the sample copy!!!!)

Onwards, and a regular reader and emailer, Keith Benson, has passed me news of a racing syndicate he has, which may be of interest to some readers.

Keith has a small stud operation based in Yorkshire, and he is affiliated with the trainer, Noel Wilson, also based at Flaxton, near York.

He currently has shares available in a smashing Captain Rio filly called Joint Agency. Interestingly, and Keith didn't mention this, but I note she has two entries for next week (21st July), so you might be able to witness her debut as an owner!

Anyway, enough from me on this, except to say that I've always loved the thrill of ownership, from my early days when I was one of over 100,000 involved in the cracking Elite Racing Club partnership, to now when I am a tenth part-owner of Rapid City, a winner of three races (and placed twice more) from seven starts for us. I was also lucky enough to own a twelfth of the legendary (at least in the circles I move in!) Love's Design, a winner of no less than seven races in our colours.

More information can be found in Keith's newsletter, which I've reproduced here:

http://www.nag-nag-nag.co.uk/NWRNewsletter.htm

Any questions, please contact Keith direct on the details at the bottom of the newsletter.

Despatches now complete, we move onto today's action, and for me, I'm happy to pass on the jockeys on quadrupeds and instead focus on the jockeys on bicycles.

This year's Tour is extremely cunning in construction as, I think for the first time ever, the average gradient of the climbs increases with each mountain stage.

So after the relative breeze of Saturday, followed by Michael Rasmussen's statement of intent on Sunday, his excellent solo climb in many ways reminiscent of the late great Marco Pantani (another very sad loss to the sport), the action is ratcheted up a sprocket or two today.

After the rest day yesterday, there is guaranteed to be more carnage in the peloton, as the stage starts with the first Hors Categorie ('Out of Category', which I believe I referred to as Horse Categorie in a previous post - had the nags on the brain!) of this year's bikefest.

These are buggers, and today they start with one, and pretty much end with one. Those 'lucky' pedalers will have just over 40 km's of uphill on the itinery today, and the forecast is for very hot weather.

If you have a chance to look at Eurosport today, I would encourage you to do it. There's something slightly sadistic about viewing this kind of sporting spectacle and I find it much more to my tastes than the rather bass puerility of pugilism (apologies to boxing fans, just not typically my bag) and, possibly, more physically demanding of the combatants.

I expect the field of possible overall race winners to be much reduced after a very tough stage, but finding today's stage winner is likely no easy task.

The reason for this is that the last 35km or so are downhill, which means that a lone breakaway rider could well open up a time gap early on and stay clear, as long as he is no threat to the overall race lead.

Rasmussen will surely not be allowed the length of leash that has made him a genuine Tour contender (though his pathetic time trialling will add a touch of reality to that claim on Saturday, in my opinion). Any move by the Great Dane will be covered by all serious aspirants for this year's maillot jaune, so long as they can stay with him.

Interestingly, the stage route today meanders (if that's the right term for a road that straddles three very large Alps!) along the French-Italian border, and this may be a day when a strong Italian climber who is no threat to the overall classification strikes a bid for glory.

There are a few contenders: Cristian Moreni, Dario Cioni, and Alessandro Ballan are all triple figure odds and, of the trio, perhaps Ballan (160 on betfair at time of writing), the winner of the Trois Jours De La Panne and the Tour of Flanders this year, can embellish his impressive portfolio still further.

All of the big boys are atop the stage market, but I reckon a rider like Ballan - who is more than half an hour behind on the general classification - may get clear. Forza Azzurri! (as they say, down my way...)

It is interesting to note how many strong riders from Spain there are this year and, while I reckon most will be saving themselves for a bid nearer the Basque territory in the Pyrenees, the 11/8 offered by Sportingodds for a Spanish rider to win the stage is a little tempting (if also a little short in what can be something of an 'educated crapshoot').

Savour today's stage if you have a chance - Eurosport have put together a real A Team, with the best presenter in TV sport, James Richardson, joined by 1987 Tour winner Sean Roche (if anyone knows how these boys are feeling, he does), and the legendary and fabulously eccentric 'Duffers' (David Duffield).

There is real banter in the studio and real drama on the roads, so today promises to be a very entertaining afternoon in front of the gogglebox. Bring it on!!

More later...
Matt

Betting Exchange Profits: Will I Have To Eat My Words? Day One Review

Well, I had a bad feeling and, after the first qualifying horse I chose failed to do what was required, I had an even worse feeling...

But I don't give up that easily. So I started another cycle, and... it collected!

After losing my first notional £100 on Rose N Alice, the below is what happened next:

Date	Course	Horse	Bet Type	Odds	Stake	Win	Total Return	result
16-Jul	Ayr	Davaye	Place Lay	1.25	£100.00	£23.75	£123.75	won
16-Jul	N Abbot	Classic Clover	Place Lay	1.28	£123.75	£32.92	£156.67	won
16-Jul	Ayr	Artless	Place Back	1.4	£156.67	£59.53	£216.20	won
16-Jul	N Abbot	Mr Tim	Place Back	1.5	£216.20	£102.70	£318.90	won
16-Jul	Ayr	Elkhorn	Lay	4	£318.90	£99.97	£418.87	won

So, on the day, I'd wagered a notional £200, and returned £418.87 after commissions, for a profit of £218.87.

Resisting the temptation to continue the run looks likely to be a challenge with this system but, when it's pretend money at least, I'm happy to cut and run at this point.

I'm not quite ready yet for the consumption of humble pie, but first blood goes to the system.

Tune in tomorrow to see what happens next...!

Matt

Betting Exchange Profits System Preview: I Have A Bad Feeling About This One...

Good morning dear reader, and I trust these words find you refreshed and invigorated after the weekend.

As regular readers will know, one of the objectives of this site is to honestly and fairly appraise horse racing systems in 'real time', i.e. I put up the selections ahead of racing, and we see how they go.

I've pretty much only reviewed lay systems to date, which have mostly done well (I guess its far easier to pick losers than winners - in the short term at least). If you've missed any of those reviews, you can see them at:

http://www.nag-nag-nag.co.uk/premiumsystems.html

I've also included a few pointers there about what they are, who they're primarily pitched at, and whether in my opinion they offer value for money.

Today, I'm going to start a week long trial of a system called 'Betting Exchange Profits'. It's not a particularly new system to the market, but it has been extensively promoted on google, and I am interested to see if the reality matches the promotion hype.

The sales blurb says Jason Chesters (the author) now works one hour a day and makes £1000 a week. Well, if that's true, I want a slice of it!

So what is Betting Exchange Profits (BEP), and how does it work? BEP is a 66 page ebook, which outlines the system and then goes into detail with examples of how it works.

I should say that, without wishing to prejudge its performance, I found a number of things not to my liking in the guide, as follows:

- I don't agree with Jason's contention that racing is fixed (except in a miniscule subset of races. This belief is peddled by losers looking for a scapegoat, rather than looking at their own betting habits).

- Fundamentally, the method and examples do not account for betting commission on winning trades. This difference of 5% per trade is especially important with an approach such as the one mooted here, where winnings from one trade are rolled onto a series of further trades.

- In the examples, Jason breaks a number of his own rules, such as price thresholds. This implies that the 'system' is interpretable. I never like systems that are not absolute and categorical in their ruleset.

- The obvious system bet was discounted in one race in favour of another - less obvious - qualifier. The obvious horse lost and the other won.

- In suggesting the system will also work on sports, notably football, Jason suggests that you can use it blindly backing short favourites. For me, this will guarantee a trip to the poor house.

So... I am pessimistic about the chances of this guide, but nevertheless I will give it a chance.

The nature of it is that I won't be able to put the selections up in real time, because I need to monitor the pre-race market in the ten minutes leading up to the races. But here's what I'm trying to do:

I'm looking for a series of five or six horses, which the author calls a 'cycle', and the cycle is one part of a set. So, basically, today will be one cycle of five days (and therefore five cycles) this week. The full five cycles will be a set.

Based on the odds of the horses in the races, and their fluctuations prior to the races, I will either back or lay outright or for a place. I will only select one horse per race, and I am trying to get five winners (be they place lays, win only, or any of the other combinations).

I will start with a notional £100 and try to increase it through the five races in my cycle. If I achieve this, I will stop and take my profit.

The theory is that one winner in the set (i.e. the series of cycles this week) will pay for losing days. So, I'm certainly not expecting every day to be a winning day, and indeed I wonder if we will have any winning days.

Jason reckons that in a seven day set, if you're looking to get six in a row for a cycle, you should be able to consistently get two a week up. On that basis, between now and Friday I'm expecting at least one winning day in my quest for five up.

We'll see...

I'll post the results of Day One later this afternoon, as the cycle will be complete by around 3.30pm.

Nothing to get too excited about today at the races, though on the laying front I'll probably take on Sir Michael Stoute's unexposed Fourteenth at Windsor this evening. At 13/8 or thereabouts, he looks plenty short enough, based on achievement to date. There is likely more to come, but I reckon there are other improvers in here too, so will take my chance.

Good luck, and check back later for the results of day one with Betting Exchange Profits.
Matt