Blog Posts - A Portfolio Life

A Portfolio Life

Started Early, Took My Dog

13/11/2018

Out £460
Profit on day £75
I've been keeping Hobbs on side.

A good day. An empty day. No news has filtered through. Just gambling. Profitable. Started early, took my dog.

The slant of my day’s gambling is usually decided in the first few races – especially if they are novice hurdles or two- year old races, where the choice is between a mere handful of short-priced horses. With a tailwind the early results will give me a quick return but, far more importantly, will mean I have a fistful of doubles running on. Sometimes, after the first race at each course I’ll be set for the day – merely a case of hedging against my on-going profits and hoping for the big one. Sometimes, of course, the early results go entirely against me, and then the day is going to be a grind into profit or to limit the losses. Usually it’s somewhere in between.

Each of them a slightly different tune – but the dance, it’s a dance just the same.

No poetry

Telford Town Park

12/11/2018

Out £480
Profit on day £175

Bobby is too old for long walks these days. Indeed, many days we walk a couple of hundred yards down the lane, he stops, looks at me, and say “yep, that’s me done, mate.” So, our Sunday sojourns over the Shropshire Hills are a thing of the past. Instead we go for a lap of Telford Town Park.

Which is an amazing place, and huge kudos to the town planners who designed it – a giant park smack in the middle of Telford. The rest of the town might be a roundabout shrine to the motor car but that just makes the park seem more momentous.

It’s not small – don’t think old Victorian town parks for feeding the ducks and Sunday strolls – it can’t be far off the size of Wimbledon Common. And there’s loads going on. Apart from all the runners and dog-walkers, there’s sports fields, a huge array of playground stuff for the kids, miniature golf, a frisbee-golf course, loads of pools for fishing, and illegal swimming, picnic areas, an old chimney from the Industrial Revolution, an aerial walkway thingy, a kid’s Winter Wonderland full of large admittedly rubbish-looking dinosaurs and stuff, bikes for hire, a set of formal gardens, waterfalls, duck ponds and instant access to the Telford Shopping Centre and bars. Yesterday, there was an orienteering event going, with people crashing in and out of bushes all around us. I think it was orienteering.

No poetry.

In which a second-rate writer protects his shins by not writing...

11/11/2018

100+ Bets. Out £835
Loss on day £30
(A Nicholls five-timer and still a loss on the day. I really needed either the six-timer, or to have staked better. I even needed Roger Fell’s 25/1 winner to staunch the losses.)

Sam Leith’s long-awaited review of Indifferent Voices arrived yesterday:

It's ambiguous to begin with:

“Easy good books will, with a bit of luck, find their audiences; easy bad books will do so too, because they are often fun in spite of or because of their badness. Difficult bad books will tend to die in a ditch; and difficult good books, without a helping hand are likely to do so too.”

But then gets to the point:

“The idea of literary fiction is the rock on which many ambitious second-rate writers bark their shins. It’s what gives us plotless novels choked with portentous metaphors and pseudo-profound ruminations.”

Ouch.

No poetry today.

Friday 9th November

10/11/2018

Bets 100+ Out £550
Profit on day £110
(Just a decent day's gambling)

Fulham currently nestle at the bottom of the Premiership. No great surprise. Reminds me of an interview Mick McCarthy gave once. He had just been promoted – Sunderland if memory serves – and was being interviewed in the tunnel. “You must be over the moon about next season?” asked someone incisively. “You must be joking” McCarthy harrumphed. “We’ll be bottom after twelve games and I’ll be sacked by Christmas.” Which turned out to be true.

Which makes me feel sorry for Jokanovic, now odds-on to be the first managerial casualty of the season (plus, surely that should be Mark Hughes). Jokanovic was a hero last year. Now I assume forums and phone-ins are full of people in the cheap seats throwing veg (though, to be fair, there aren’t any cheap seats at Fulham any more, so they can throw what they like. When I started regularly communing with my dead dad, back in ’96, it cost £6 to sit in the Stevenage Road Stand, and you got a whole row to yourself.)

Anyway, he needn’t worry. Our next three away games look more than winnable. Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd.

I'll do well over 100 bets today, which will include keeping Ian Williams and Paul Nicholls onside.

No poetry.

The Voice of Gambling

9/11/2018

Bets 95ish. Out £525.
Profit on day £345
(A Henderson double, a 33/1 David Maxwell winner and very nearly a 500/1 double)

Some people seek mindfulness. Not me. I’ve always sought its partner, its mirror – absence. Emptiness. Mindlessness. Stop the voices. Including my own.

Silence doesn’t do this. Meditation, or at the least a lack of distraction, is a gateway to either all the other (indifferent) voices I keep trying to keep at bay, or my one strong inner narrator voice, prattling endlessly on and on.

Gambling does it for me. Partly. The day’s slow movement from morning study and early bets, through to the three hours of frantic betting activity – and it’s important to me that it is frantic – for it to work I need to be betting in virtually every race. That’s what provides the flow, no race any more important than any other, with occasional spikes for big races, or for small races with big possible pay-outs. And then, the winding down with tomorrow’s cards, an updated spreadsheet and a review of the day. And then sleep, thinking about the day gone and anticipating tomorrow – but only in terms of betting. This flow, the total concentration is part of it, of course. The process takes over, and at speed, gathers a rhythm that carries me along in its embrace – a glorious dance.

It’s not emptiness as such, but it is an emptiness of all the things that fill the void otherwise and lead to depression, anxiety, rage. Much better to be cursing a bad bet, or a bad beat in a photo, than about some perceived slight, or some keyboard twat on social media or Brexit or the impending world apocalypse, or any of the other thousand things I might wurrett at otherwise, all of which might bloom voices in my mind.

It’s not voiceless as such, but the one voice is ‘gambling guy’ – excitable but mainly calm, hopeful but mainly pragmatic, with skin in the game but sat sideways to it, focused but driven by distraction. Most people looking in from outside would see this bloke as a loser, as a waste of space, as a fat bloke with a laptop staring at the telly. In fact, people I know and love think that way, including my wife sometimes. Me, I like this guy. I prefer him to the alternatives. And that makes me happy.

No poetry.

Carol Vorderman Sucks Paul Dacre

8/11/2018

75 bets Out £480
Loss on day £80

Nottingham sucks. Under my new methodology, it’s easily my worst performing course (chased hard by Redcar, no wonder this week’s been hard). I’m down £525 there this year. I might decide to omit courses next year. I might not. Pontefract is my best performing course and I would never have predicted that. I think I probably need a larger sample size than one year.

Carol Vorderwoman has been a surprisingly large part of my life - not least in the Dashing Des Kelly years - and I couldn't help noticing on tonight's One Show that her breasts seem to have taken on a life of their own. And her arse. In fact, much like Trigger's broom, I'm not sure how much is original.

Which is fine - go your own way - rage against the dying of the light. Write your own history. Which she also managed to do - on a sofa with Peter Andre and Graeme Swann, and that there Oti (swoon), plus Alex and Matt, all of them talking about the wonder of their times on Strictly Come Dancing without ever mentioning Carol's own less wondrous experience of said event.

I'd still watch her doing sums, mind..

Apparently, Paul Dacre spent 15 minutes of his farewell address lambasting The Guardian. Dacre, who plainly attended the same performance management training as Philip Green – his staff talk about being dressed-down as being given a “double-cunting” – seems to have limped off the field at a strange time, given the world is tilting more towards his socially illiberal stance with every turn.

But he certainly prevailed over the monthly phone calls of the last twenty years between the Guardian me and the Mail my mom. In the last couple of years alone my mother has railed about a tsunami of Syrian refugees getting preferential treatment; about doctors “they’ve been agitating forever”; about how our young are a bunch of softy do-gooders – “because the teachers are brainwashing them”; and that without the royals, we’d lose gazillions in tourism as Windsor Castle fell into loneliness and disrepair (like, say, The Palace of Versailles). She’d always win these battles. She’d goad me to say equally stupid things, or to put the phone down. A needle stuck in a groove.

The closed-mindedness and the hatred drip, drip, dripped daily into her, corroded her senses and rusted her heart. The truth is, whatever else is our relationship, we no longer like each other very much. Well done Mr Dacre, look on your works ye mighty. In your honour I’ve knocked up a title that honours your way with headlines and truth.

No poetry.

Tuesday 6th November - Appleby, Trump, Egg and Poetry

7/11/2018

60 bets. Out £630.
(Dickie Johnson - three short-priced winners)
Loss on day £175

Yesterday seemed a significant day.

Charlie Appleby trained the first British winner of the Melbourne Cup. Which gave me a spring in my step first thing, as I’d backed him. As you can see that was about as good as the day got.

Egg, aka Rick Grimes, died in The Walking Dead. Or rather, died slowly over the hour but was then whisked off in a helicopter to star in three spin-off films – which seemed like a metaphor for the show itself.

America went to the polling booths to provide a half-time vote of confidence, or not, on old Cunty McCunt face. Which, to my basically uninformed eye, looked to be a relegation six-pointer that predictably ended up as a desperate score draw. Which I guess is progress.

And a line of poetry popped unbidden into my head. This was the first piece of poetry I have channelled/written down all year. I have been keeping the voices at bay by obsessing about gambling and putting the hours in. But, finally, a voice managed to creep through the battle-lines. Not a very good line, admittedly, but I’ll keep a wary ear out.

Always, there’s a place where the wall is higher.

Update May 2018

23/5/2018

A quick update on progress with my new fund. Pootling along, though the last two weeks have been trying. Have paid some small dividends and am in profit. A terrible hourly rate though…

Missed a couple of big pay-outs – the final leg of the accumulator both times looking like winning for at least a few strides, before remembering my wager…

I’ve been recording stats on my records at every course, and in addition my bets on trainers and jockeys (doubles and upwards). Here’s a brief summary of those – I’ll be interested to see how this list compares to one at the end of a year’s betting with my new approach. “Best” means most profitable and “Worst” means lost me most money. Some of my favourite people head the Worst lists!

Best Jumps Courses
Aintree
Cheltenham
Musselburgh
Uttoxeter
Hereford

Worst Jumps Courses
Ludlow
Huntingdon
Sedgefield
Sandown

Best Jumps Trainers
Gordon Elliott
Tom Lacey
Venetia Williams
Donald McCain
Colin Tizzard

Worst Jumps Trainers
Gary Moore
Ben Pauling
Nicky Richards

Best Jumps Jockeys
Harry Cobden
Dickie Johnson

Worst Jumps Jockeys
Brian Hughes

Best Flat Course (early days)
Epsom

Worst Flat Course
Yarmouth

Best AW course
Wolves

Worst AW Course
Kempton

Best Flat Trainers
Jamie Osborne
Pip Hide

Worst Flat Trainers
James Fanshawe
Andrew Balding

Best Flat Jockeys
James Doyle
Silvestre De Sousa

Worst Flat Jockeys
Ryan Moore
Richard Kingscote

Maxime Tissier, Paul Pogba and Patrick Reed

7/4/2018

I had a bad day on the horses. Sundry awfulness, on my part mostly. But not entirely. My bet of the day at Fakenham, the jockey rode out my 10/1 horse for an easy success, whipping him home with verve and gusto.Only problem was they had another lap to go....It was that kinda day, ending up with my escape to glory being beaten in a photo-finish despite trading odds-on to win the photo.

I turned over for the football, somewhat drained. I said to myself on the 40 minute mark, "if City don't finish this now they're gonna regret it. If they don't score a third before half-time I'll lay them at 1:05 and back United at around 66/1." Instead I fell asleep and woke up as Pogba scored.

I rather feel these are runes that my 50/1 Master's bet, Patrick Reed, shouldn't ever, ever be reading..

Cheltenham Gold Cup

16/3/2018

No matter how bad your Cheltenham’s been so far, spare a thought for Aidan Coleman. 96 winners so far this year, one of the most respected senior jockeys plying their trade over here.

He’s had his usual festival - over the last few years building up an unenviable total of one win from 114 rides. Yesterday he nudged and nurdled Wholestone into a nice third in the Stayers. Tuesday, he rode a stinker on Saint Calvados in the Arkle. His other rides fell somewhere in between.

And today he’s been dropped to the subs’ bench. Whilst 16 jockeys – including not one but two amateurs – try to fulfil their dreams of Gold Cup glory, the old and grizzled veteran will be doing eleventy hundred laps of Fakenham, which might as well be on the other side of the world.

Now I could come over all racing expert and tell you that Native River and Our Duke dutched at 2/1 or longer seems a fair bet in a muddy Gold Cup. Or I could repeat yesterday’s wisdom about backing every Gordon Elliott runner blind and in as many doubles as you can find time to perm. Instead, I’m going to show solidarity with good old Aidan, and back him to spend the day getting to the 100 winner mark for the season, before driving home in tears.

Cheltenham - Thursday

15/3/2018

Halfway through yesterday I had something of an epiphany. ("I wouldn't worry about it none, them old dreams are only in your head.").

I swept away the form books, tore up my carefully compiled tissues, forsaked sniffing around for cheeky each way value, and generally ditched my English bias. For money has spoken and, as has been the case for years now, but even more so than ever, the Irish population of horses, concentrated in very few hands, is just better than our own. I've been guilty of beating on, bets against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past, where Nicholls held sway and medium-sized stables could plot one up for the Pertemps.

Thus unburdened, I nailed an 8/1 winner in Tiger Roll (admittedly an old favourite), who I'm fairly sure I've only backed three times - The Triump, the 4miler and yesterday - then followed that with a 45/1 winner in the next, and finished off with a wee Willie Mullins forecast in the bumper (should have done the trifecta!).

So, today I shall be keeping a few old English faves onside but otherwise I've turned coats, jumped ships, switched sides, to where the grass is always greener and the horses run true. Otherwise known as Gordon Elliott's stable.

Cheltenham - Wednesday

14/3/2018

I bet with my head yesterday. And look where that got me. Three duels up the hill and me a loser in all of them. Just as well I forgot to post on here.

So, today, I'm betting with my heart. And that means Bryony Frost and Black Corton. Oh, I don't care about the stats, or the class or the blah blah blah. I want to see the brave wee fella have his day. Or as Bryony (possibly the most natural interviewee racing's ever had) puts it, "I'll give him a click of the tongue two out and he'll prick his ears and say here we go".

Really hope so...

Saturday 17 Feb

17/2/2018

Difficult week so far. Thursday I was on the wrong end of three photo finishes – in two of which my horse traded odds-on, one of them at 1/10. Saturday, I even managed to do my conkers at Sandown – my favourite track and previously my most profitable.

So, I tip-toe into Saturday! I’ll have a good day if one or more of Phil Middleton, Harry Cobden and Barry Geraghty and Emma Lavelle do. Bryony and James wouldn’t harm and how about Speredek for a very unlikely upset, even more so with the Frodon exacta!

I feared the worst when Barry Geraghty was done in a photo in the first race at Ascot - here we go again, I thought - and with Rosy World also getting gubbed in a photo at the end of the card, I wasn't completely wrong. The day seemed to be sliding into ignominy but Bryony, Emma, Harry (eventually) and especially James's 10/1 winner, saved the day somewhat. Really could have done with a double, though...

Saturday 10 Feb

10/2/2018

One month back gambling full-time and the superstitions have started. Need to keep on top of them – it became crippling last time. I’ve already become obsessed about crossed knives – or rather, making sure there aren’t any. And last week the second I pressed send on the post that said we’d have a good day at Huntingdon, I just knew the gambling gods had heard and would punish me for my hubris. They did.

Friends are staying this weekend – so let’s keep it simple as pie – Knocknanuss in the Newbury handicap – 12/1. Gary Moore – enough said.

Arrived back from Shrewsbury just in time to watch Gary Moore's Casse Tete win, somewhat improbably, at Warwick. Nice, and now I had a fairly serious handful of money running onto Knocknanuss. We settled down. Unlike Knocknanuss, who had plainly got upset or over-excited or something and was rocking and roiling his race away long before the start. Ho hum. Small profit of the day, which I promptly gave back yesterday.

Saturday 3rd Feb

3/2/2018

Okay – I realise my job is to do the heavy lifting, but today's a tricky one.

Nicholls has had his month off and is going mob-handed to a meeting at Sandown where he does well historically, plus he’s sending a train-load of horses up to Musselburgh for the two-day meeting – it’ll be like that scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where the posse jump out of the box car. “Who are those guys?”

He comes up against the usual Henderson squadron at Sandown – as per last year and the year before. Which makes it tricky. Plus, we have to consider other course specialists, Sir Gary Sandown Moore, Kerry Lee and good old Phil Middleton who is going for a life-changing treble tomorrow (keep that onside).

Play it as you will, but I think I’ve found a way in. Our Saturday heroes – James and Bryony. James’s rides are Top Gamble and Kris Spin for Kerry Lee, Holly Bush Henry for Middleton, and Colonial Dreams for his guvnor Henderson. Doubles and a facespitter. Kris Spin is 25/1 in the big handicap. So is Gary Moore’s Ubak. And so is Fergal O’Briens’ Okotoks, who is my idea of a decent each way thwack. Combination exactas and whatever else you fancy.

Musselburgh – Bryony rides three of Nicholls’. Did you see her ride on Frodon last week? That was something like perfection. Enough said – except to say Donald McCain single-handedly paid for my January dividend. Best placer of a racehorse since W A “little fish are sweet” Stephenson.

Dan Skelton has a similar talent, has dodged the big guns and goes mob-handed to Wetherby. No-brainer, plus Graham McPherson targets this meeting. Not forgetting you can currently back Harry Whittington and Tom Lacey blind and still show a profit. As will we, at Wetherby today.

Of course, you might want to watch the Scotland/Wales 6 nations game instead. I have no clue myself but Tony Calvin passes on the notion that the French referee is a nutter who likes sending people off. Which you can back at around 8/1 if you shop around. Be an interesting way to watch a game of rugby if nothing else…

Be lucky.

Well, that was a day. 22 races and I had a bet in 21 of them. Yep, that was probably the problem, though it is the new approach.

Let’s see. Kerry Lee tick, Bryony tick. McCain tick, Skelton tick, tick, Henderson tick, tick, tick, Nicholls tick, tick, tick, tick. James – well, nearly. And Phil Middleton – well, he deserved better. Still, I should be bathing in asses’ milk, no?

Yeah, none of them in the right order, or combination, or at the right price. Whatever way you cut it.

Had I just backed them all in singles I might well be showing a profit. But that’s not the new game. Still, not much damage – McPherson drops off the “winners come in clusters” roster – but otherwise business as usual. Saturday is a losing day so far under the new regime. If I was the soulless automaton type of gambler I’d probably give it a swerve. But, when them ducks line up in a row, Saturday remains the day that offers the juiciest fruit. In the meantime…

Cheltenham/Doncaster 27 January

27/1/2018

I’ve had a good week. I started off joining Olly Murphy on his attempt to go through the card at Fakenham, and this month’s go-to men, McCain and Hughes conjured up a nice day at Kelso. I really need to tip-toe through Cheltenham today and I’ll be able to pay myself a modest end of month dividend.

So, not much to recommend. I’ll keep Bryony, James Bowen and Harry Cobden onside – hey it’s Saturday – but that might be it for Cheltenham.

I’m more interested in Davy Russell’s trip over to Doncaster. Basically, if he has a good day, so will I.

Blimey – not a good day for Davy. So, could have been really bad news for me.

However, I managed to keep Rose Dobbin onside – she very nearly landed a double at Doncaster for me yesterday and banged in another one today. Also, Duke of Navan at 8/1.

I was going to mention Emma Lavelle in my write-up above but was too embarrassed to, thinking little of the chances of her horses on form. That’s the thing about handicapping trainers – sometimes you find yourself backing horses you never would do if you could hold the formbook the right way up. So, a nice win from Enniscoffey Oscar there.

Plus, Briony did us proud again, and James followed her home for the exacta. You’d think I’d had a good day after all that boasting. Actually, I ended up exactly where I started. Which I’m happy with.

Saturday Gambler - Peter Marsh

20/1/2018

Had a good day yesterday – McCain and Hughes have been my go-to men so far this year, and yesterday they didn’t disappoint.

Today I’ll have a good day if The New One finally loses his own race, if Gary Moore has a sneaky new juvenile star, if Fry does well at Ascot or Tizzard at Haydock. If I’m chasing my tail come 3:55 I’ll probably bet like a mug loon on the horse Brian Hughes has gone all the way to Taunton to ride! Be lucky...

That Saturday didn’t start well. I had messaged all my gambling friends to tell them that Gary Moore allegedly reckoned Et Moi Alors was his best juvenile hurdler. I said make of it what you will, knowing that - as most of us treat Gary Moore as some sort of fecund racing god – they’d all be piling in on an unraced horse at a ridiculous 11/4. To my credit, even as I was feeling overly pleased with myself, I did lay my stake back at 1.2 as he sauntered into the lead with one to jump. Not my worst move. Down he went. Ping went messenger. “FFS” it said. Indeed. I’ll admit I was now worried as to the prospect for the rest of the day. Them gambling gods. Them’s bad juju…

But then Harry Fry got the doubles going at Ascot – Air Force One would have really kicked them onwards – but at least I had the James Bowen winner covered and the forecast. Correction, the exacta, which paid exactly half as much as the forecast. I default to the exacta because I usually only do them with double figure horses – I forgot the effect of the fave on exacta pay-outs. Idiot.

Still, The Dutchman at 12/1 – against an SP of 13/2 – rewarded me for backing Tizzard when I felt his stable was blowing cold, plus, again, the exacta. I nearly landed a McCain treble, but at least had Ubaltique in a single and, of course, ended the day with Brian Hughes trotting up at Taunton. We won’t mention the beast that is The New One, suffice to say the vanquished Harry Skelton leaning over to give him a congratulatory pat was exactly how I felt. Nicely done.

Mustn’t grumble. Just need to kick on to pay a modest dividend at the end of the month. Then again, a week’s a long time gambling…

Saturday Gambler - Lanzarote

13/1/2018

I was trying too hard early on in the week, but found my mojo yesterday, keeping it simple and was rewarded with some Henderson doubles. I’m keeping him onside again today at Kempton, but am more taken that Nico De Boinville has gone to Warwick.

I’ll have a good day if the Skeltons do well at Warwick or Dickie Johnson thrives at Wetherby.

In the Lanzarote I could back loads and might yet, but feel obliged to keep the two Nick Williams’ runners on-side. Lizzie’s on the first-string at 25/1. Interviewed yesterday, she said how she always chooses the wrong horse when daddy runs two, so I had a look, saw that Harry Cobden has been booked to ride the other one, and dashed to get the 50/1 before all the thieves jumped aboard. Good to see I can still move markets, given he’s now a general 66/1…

Reflections

A couple of months ago I said to a friend – Saturdays, for the rest of the season we need to keep James Bowen and Bryony Frost onside in the big handicaps. Simple. Or simpleton, given I backed neither yesterday. My friend did, obviously.

I’ve been backing Tom Lacey runners pretty much blind this season. On a busy Saturday, his one runner was lost to me in the rush to apply my other approaches. Until I heard his name called out as Vado Forte won the first at Warwick at 14/1. Bugger-bad start to the day.

In trying to keep the Henderson runners onside at Kempton, I got greedy and included Josses Hill in the accumulators, even though I gave him little to no chance, and had previously decided to focus on the runners in the other three races. That’s a 90/1 treble missed. I always struggle when a trainer has multiple entries in several races.

In better news, I had Dickie Johnson covered in doubles. Had he managed a fifth winner, that would have made all the difference but, even with the three mistakes above, it was an okay day and an okay week in the end. Not profitable, mind…

Gambling 2018

6/1/2018

I appear to be a full-time gambler again. Last year I was trying (at the very least half-heartedly) to land a proper full-time training job, or interim equivalent. To no avail. One excruciating interview aside. At the same time I tried (more whole-heartedly) to get my novel, and (to a lesser extent) my management book published. To no avail. One very encouraging rejection letter aside.

Whilst suffering this litany of failure I was playing small-time on the horses, twiddling about with a new methodology, and I did well enough for me to think I may be able to get back in the game.

And so, here I am. I have scraped together a bank, a modest one, but large enough I hope it will see me through to retirement and then beyond. My staking is going to be ludicrously conservative. I’ll be playing a maximum of 1% of the bank per meeting. My focus is going to be mainly on trainers, and especially focused on winners coming in clusters. My objective is for a very modest income, the equivalent of, say, me going and getting a minimum wage job at B&Q, not that they’d employ me in a million years. Assuming they have any sense.

I’ll do Saturday updates on here. Until I get bored anyway. Who knows, there may even be another book in it, unpublishable obviously.

To kick us off today I have done Wild West Wind at 10s and Ask the Weatherman at 15/1 to win the Welsh National and will have a good day if any of Gary Moore, Harry Cobden or James Bowen do.

That could have worked out worse. And, indeed better. A late ew play on Raz de Maree helped a lot, but thereafter James Bowen had three decent chances to really kick the fun forward with the running-on doubles. All floundered in the mud. One winner for Harry Cobden. One winner ain't what this game is about. And Gary Moore doesn't seem to have had a cluster of winners at Sandown for ages but who's going to stop me betting on that. It usually pays for my holidays.

My new methodology relies on me breaking even on daily plays (hopefully ahead, but I can live with level). The profit/bunce is in the clusterbombs. The staking is conservative enough to survive losing runs, but clever enough to take maximum advantage of the lucky days. That's the idea anyway.

So, one week in, how did we do? £50 up. Mustn't grumble. It's profit. Not mimimum wage, but still. Onwards...

£1000 Challenge - update

22/11/2017

I've still been following this slavishly - pretty much full-time actually - throwing tenners around with gay abandon.

Where has it gotten me? Well, to Croatia and Cadiz for starters, so mustn't grumble.

Noel Fehily at Plumpton, Anthony Honeyball at Fontwell, Charlie Appleby at Newmarket, trebles here and there, doubles more often. Winners come in clusters. Seems to me a very good way of betting if you have no real bank, or edge, to grind out the ten per cent.

I'm not sure exactly what I've won, I've not been keeping strict records as I used to. Say 6k. From a 1k starting-bank, that's not too shabby. It is actually abona fide edge, and one the bookies really aren't worried about.

Reckon I'll keep plugging away...