Week 34 - Worst week yet

Yuck, that was a very messy week for me. The trouble at York seemed to really upset the markets, or at least my efforts in them and I really couldn't pull things together.

I felt confident that I could get something from York so when the meeting fell to the weather I wasn't really sure what would happen with the other race meetings or to the re-arranged races. I was pretty much at sixes and sevens for most of the week and decided to end it in style by losing four races in a row at Windsor and shedding nearly £100 in the process. On a positive note, my average per race wasn't too bad but the lack of opportunities didn't do me any favours.

The annoying thing about last week was that the evening racing pretty much comes to an end now and therefore I am expecting my weekly totals to fall away as we head into winter. I can't quite remember what happened last year around this time but I am pretty sure it wasn't a breeze. Any how, week 35 is proving much better so I look forward to writing about that early next week. I hope you all fared a bit better than I did last week.

Week 33 - Better than expected

Well that week went better than I expected. It didn't feel very comfortable but it seemed to be ok in the end. I guess there are several ways to skin a cat! I never felt in control of many days but all is well that ends well, so I can't complain. Nothing really outstanding to report or to comment on but this will be one of the last weeks that I can do the evening racing so my range of opportunities will shrink from week 35 onwards. I am expecting my totals to start to decline now.

I am posting this as the York meeting disintegrates in the water that is flooding the course so with this and other meetings being abandoned I am expecting a very poor week. Hopefully I can report something useful for the next week. It seems a little bizarre that I am probably going to have my worst week of the year in the summer!

Week 32 - Some good runs

Last week was quite curious. Quite often you have a constant battle with the market and your P&L is littered with losses from one source or another but last week I hit my highest strike rate of the year for some reason.

I wasn't doing anything special it just turned out that most things I did worked or that I was able to pull a small victory out of the jaws of defeat. Despite that I didn't add signficiantly to my weekly total as while I didn't lose that often, I didn't exactly have any major results either, just steady progress. Overall I managed to hit a 90% strike rate last week which is well above the 70-80% I would normally expect. I fear that while I had a good run last week it is quite likely it could reverse at any moment! Whatever happens I don't think I'll see 90% again as that is well above average and I can't immediately explain why that happened last week so my expectation is for a return to more normal levels this week.

Week 31 - Jumps season knocking on the door

Another steady week but I notice this week that the card is starting to think out. This can only mean the jumps season is just around the corner. There will be evening racing in the winter but its probably only going to be the all weather tracks and at best one an evening from Wed through to Fri. I'll have to change stance a little and get a bit more focused when we switch back to this pattern. At the moment I am being pretty picky which races I do, I probably can't afford to miss a race in the winter?

The football season is almost upon us so I may play around again with a few strategies. My usual stance on playing around seriously is to use a separate account. I don't mind losing money when I am trying to find something that works but I don't want to suffer the psychological damage you can get with a ruined P&L. So for that reason I will set up or use another account to test things.

The Olympics are just on our doorstep now so I will have a look at that, but I have no idea what to do on it. I'll have a poke around anyhow so I can try and work out if there is anything interesting in there.

Good luck for next week.