Monthly report - March

Starting with the headline figures:

TVB tips

Total staked: 9pts

Total profit: 1.5pts

ROI 17%

*The total figure, is based on getting the best generally available price at the time I issue the tip (with the stated bookmakers – including BOG, if offered).

These are the number for March – excluding Cheltenham (that will be covered later in the report !).

And whilst, even without Cheltenham, it couldn’t be described as a great month – I think it could fairly be described as a solid month.

More than that, I think it was the one month this season where luck really didn’t smile on us, so coming out of it with any kind of profit was actually a good achievement…

The 9pts staked during March were spread across 23 horses competing in 23 races.

These number are very light – but are explained, in the main, by the presence of the Cheltenham festival.

Not only did it take out the best part of a week – it also resulted in much less competitive racing for the rest of the month and consequently, less betting opportunities.

Of the 23 tips, in terms of placing, they achieved the following:

1^st – 3

2^nd – 8

3^rd – 0

4^th - 1

This illustrates the first of the reasons why I think we were unlucky during the month.
I target 25% of the tips finishing first or second - and managed to achieve just under 50% !

You would expect that if you were tipping 3/1 shots – but as you know, I tip very few of those !!

We were unlucky that only 3 of the 11 horses to finish in the first two, actually won.

A further 5 traded odds on in running, which shows just how close we were to another bumper month.

The second reason why I think we were unlucky during the month, is illustrated by the ratio of advised prices to BSP…

If you have just backed all of the tips at the advised price and layed them off on BF at BSP, you would have made 3.19pts profit (35% ROI).

This suggests that the tips during the month, really were high quality…

Despite this, the tips couldn’t make a profit to a level stake at BSP, this month – but that is simply due to the fact that insufficient managed to win !

The loss on the month was 8.22pts to a level stake – and 1.61pts to advised stakes.

Ofcourse, non of the above takes into consideration the debacle that was Cheltenham..!

I did say last month that I was a little more apprehensive than normal about the meeting – and boy did my fears prove to be well founded !!

I tipped 31 horses at the meeting – and managed to find just one short priced winner. As a result, I recorded a near 7pt loss - woeful !

I can’t even blame poor luck – simply the tips were not good enough…

I’m sure that you are all wondering why that was – and I think there was one main reason.

I just didn’t have sufficient time to do everything that I took on.

I spent 4 hours a day watching the racing – plus 3 hours a day producing the write-ups/reviews.

That meant that I had put in 7 hours each day, before I tried to find any tips…

In previous seasons, the tips had just dropped out.

Obviously I am very familiar with most of the runners that run at the festival and therefore little form study is actually required.

They didn’t drop out this season however – and there were three main reason for that:
Firstly I didn’t have a strong view on any of the Championship races; secondly the domination of Willie Mullins, meant that I had to get ‘creative’ in the races where he had short priced favourites; and thirdly, so many of the horses in the handicaps had an ‘unquantifiable’ aspect to them (new head gear, breathing operation, different trip, long absence) - I lost sight of the important factors and just didn’t have the space/time to ‘reasonable check’ my choices…

Ofcourse, non of these are acceptable reasons for issuing poor tips – I shouldn’t have tipped at the meeting (or at least, I should have tipped far fewer horses).

However, I wanted to issue tips for most of the races, as it is the high light of the season – and even though I felt like I backed off a bit with the tipping, I should have backed off a lot more….

If I’m going to preview all the races in future years, I won’t be issuing anywhere near as many tips…

Anyway, these things happen – there is no point dwelling on it – apart from to learn a lesson…

So that’s it for the final month of the season.

It wasn’t the best month of the season – but it did have very stiff competition – and Cheltenham aside, I would maintain that it was actually very good (despite what the numbers might suggest !)

I’ll now get to work on the end of season report.

It will take me a few days to compile – but I’m sure it will be worth the effort (I think last seasons helped enormously in making this season such a success).

I’m not sure when I’ll be able to issue it – but it will definitely be before next Wednesday evening, when the Aintree encore begins !!

TVB