Weekly Review

I'm going to start adding a weekly review of betting purely for my own benefit. I'm thinking the act of typing out my written notes will cement them in my mind, plus they'll hopefully provide a useful aide-memoir for a year's time, when looking at the same events again. Apologies to all for the self-indulgence (like a blog isn't!) - scroll down.


St Leger:
Sixties Icon was a solid favourite, as you'll see from my tissue below, against very average opponents. People wanted to be against him on forums all week - "he's the likeliest winner but a rotten price". They were looking for reasons to oppose. Noseda's form provided one. His horses had gone a fortnight without winning, including many favourites. This was enough to push the horse from odds on to 6/4. And that despite Noseda remaining bullish, and his 2 runners on the Friday both running to form. This sort of over-reaction against the big race favourite is a feature of the betfair world and something we can exploit.


Irish Champion:
I priced this up as being a tactical affair, and if brutally honest with self was looking for revenge for Alexander Goldrun over Ouija Board after my maximum bet at Goodwood. However, Coolmore used Ace as a pacesetter, and in doing so ensured Alexander had very little chance. I should have recognised this as an obvious threat.


Racing Saturday:
There was both the above, the rest of the York/Doncaster card, plus decent races at Chester and Goodwood. I looked at 11 races in all, and found decent bets in 6. I crossed one out completely. However, the other 4 were possibles, but dodgy, including an impossible Portland Handicap. I ended up doing Last Minute Bets in all 4 - without success. I could easily have simply added them to the discard pile, and probably should have done. Be careful during similar full days.


Longchamp:
Arc Trails weekend provided the usual tactical nonsense. However, Shirocco won his race - remember that when all the guff starts being peddled about the challengers.


Mid-week Football:
I ended up rating 9 lower league matches as bets, a worryingly large amount. This was on the first night of Champions League action, and on a Tuesday. I wonder if it's possible that the odds compilers took their eye off the ball? Considering the success of the ratings it's certainly something to remember for next year, and not to be worried if it happens again.