The Inevitable Losing Streak

Although still well into profit, our selections over the past two weeks have suffered the inevitable losing run. Only two winners from our last 10 selections, win strike rate dwindling down around the 45% mark, and profits plummeting to only 24% POI. What is positive, and quite outstanding, is the palce strike rate of well over 81%. What this indicates, is we are not that far off the mark, as most if they don't win, run a place.

The other disturbing feature is that everything we select, seems to come up very, very short odds. Yesterday we withheld what we thought was a good thing from our members, just to test the water and see what odds it would come up. The horse won at Hawkesbury, Musaytir, however was odds on throughout betting ending up paying $2.00 across most TAB's. This only proved that others are thinking like us, and there are not hundreds of people following our selections. Again, no great issue there, we just have to publish the winners we find.

So it becomes a mind game, your grit and determination against your excrutiating desire to find that elusive winner. Who wins, how do we overcome it, and how do we get back on track.

The first thing to examine is our selection strategy. We usually come up with 2-3 bets on a daily basis, we then have a closer look at each race we have a selection in and decide approximately what odds the selection will be. Virtually, we have to choose one horse from 3 or 4 bets per day, and hopefully we find the winner, not the loser. Yesterday for example, we thought Hotelier at Townsville was a living certainty, however it was obvious to us (and most others) that he would 2s on. So we didn't make him a selection. We chose a far more difficult race the last at Ballarat, hoping we would get decent odds about our selection, Blue Finch. We thought there were 2 or 3 other definate hopes in the race, allowing us to obtain reasonable odds about the good thing. Alas, Blue Finch opened odds on, drifted to black figures fleetingly, only to be backed heavily late in betting to start even money. And to put the icing on the cake, Blue Finch was run down in the last stride by Assent to run a narrow second. Exasperatingly frustrating to say the least.

We can do a number of things. First inclination is to make less selections. However what we will find in doing this, is the odds of the horses selected will be very skinny. The reason we show a profit is because we find the odd $4-$7 winner to keep the average winning price at a high level (currently $2.75). Second thoughts are to publish all our selections, including the Hotelier's of this world. We are most uncomfortable with this because tipping 1/2 horses, especially if they get beaten is no rocket science. And of course, the most obvious solution is simply to have more bets. Now this is the solution that most punters would adopt. Losing streak must end eventually if you back more horses, with more chances of finding a winner. However what happens in this case is that you also back more losers, and inevitably lose more money.

What we will do is go back to basics.

What is our goal? Our goal is to show a good profit when punting on thoroughbred horses.

Are we achieving our goal? Yes, however not to our high standards.

What were we doing when achieving our main goals different to what we are doing now? Well, when we first began, we were giving out more than one selection per day, especially on Saturdays. In recent times, we have deliberately restricted our selections to one per day.

Okay, so we will go back to our humble beginnings and start giving out more selections. We will inform our members of all the horses we intend to back every day. For example, we had 3 bets yesterday, Hotelier, Musaytir & Blue Finch. We showed a small profit on the day, however out published selection ran second, showing a loss for our PASS members. We don't think that is fair to our members. And if we give out all our bets, then each member can make their own decision as to whether they wish to back them all. If you don't want to take the $1.40 about Hotelier, then don't, the decision will be totally yours. But if you are happy to make small amounts like yesterday, and slowly build your bank balance (which is the only way to make a profit on horse racing) then the opportunity will be there.

So we will start with today and post our two bets for today here on the blog site for all to see.

Mackay R1 No2 Red Meshach
Moonee Valley R7 No7 Anabaa King Prawn

Good luck and profitable punting to all.