Week 25 - Practice makes perfect

At first this P&L may look a little strange but let me explain. During Cheltenham I struggled, yet I felt there was a lot more opportunity than I could find. With Royal Ascot last week and a feeling it was going to be similar to Cheltenham, I felt that if I wanted to do better at these sorts of events going forward, I'd need to experiment a bit. Therefore for last week I traded on a different account. It didn't seem to make sense to put undue pressure on myself while experimenting, knowing I would have to post the results here. As it happens, I didn't need to worry as I did just fine. So, hopefully, taking time out to experiment during Royal Ascot will give me the perfect grounding I need to perform better at these sorts of events going forwards. I certainly feel more confident now about hitting these big events now I have taken the time to properly get to grips with things.

Week 24 - Another good week

Well I hadn't expected that, it's great to hit two big weeks so quickly after each other. Sorry the image is a bit small but you can see I played around with a few other sports last week as well. Just messing around at the moment and trying not to lose money, I generally succeeded. In fact its the same way I started in horse racing. When I first started out my first objective was not to make buckets of cash but merely to keep playing the game without suffering a major reversal. I then built out from there. With Wimbledon on the way and the Euro 2008 soccer well in swing I thought it was time to play around a little bit.

To get a big week is hard and you need that bit of luck that things just happen to fall in your favour, hard work and skill are just not enough! So I don't expect a repeat performance any time soon. That said it's a great boost to the month and I do hope more comes.

Week 23 - Slow and steady

A fairly quiet week last week. Unlike the previous week I didn't find much in the market to get excited about but still managed to put out a reasonable result. I know the Derby was on etc but I just can't seem to get on with the really big races. There just doesn't seem to be enough volatility in them to offer up decent opportunities. That said the lower quality racing this week seems to be completely manic so I guess there is a happy medium between these two. I just have to find it! Hope you are all doing well out there, the summer racing continues to go apace. I just wonder what I will do when the jumps season starts again and we move into winter.

Week 22 - Best week yet!

Last week was an excellent week, in fact it was the best for 2008 so far. I feel that this statistic is a bit misleading. It would be easy to point at skill as being the biggest contributor to last week's total, but there were a few more mundane reasons why last week was good.

I have much more money now to play with, during the weaker weeks this is bit of a problem as I can't put any of this money to use. In fact I generally have no ability to use the extra money. During a favourable week however it may be possible to be a little bit more aggressive. However, that's not the main reason for such a good week. The main reason was purely the number of races on the card. This gave me many opportunities to find a decent trade and it allowed me to forget those races that didn't look at all favourable. The net effect was a very good week, a week where not only were there plenty of races, but as luck would have it, quite a few that seemed pretty favourable.

I doubt very much I will repeat performance this week. You have good weeks and you bad weeks, last week had a good week, I've currently no idea what next week will bring but I will keep plugging on regardless. As long as you keep playing the game and don't make any stupid mistakes it will all even out in the long run.