Directory of Past issues - October 2011 5th October - Stats that split this season's Cesarewitch field in half... 12th October - Focusing on McCoy and his disciples... 20th October - Angles that make McCoy profitable... 26th October - Putting the focus on Grade 1 chases RETURN TO MAIN MENU Good afternoon, friends, In today's Horse Racing Focus.... Was it something we said, Clive? Making an initial split in the Cesarewitch field.... The 'ready-to-win' signals.... The signals deliver a 12/1 winner.... Was it something we said, Clive? Here at Horse Racing Focus we are a modest bunch. We know that our work will not change the course of the World. We know that the conclusions we reach and the judgements we make have no impact or influence beyond the confines of our readership. Of course, we hope that we serve our readers well in our own small way. Horse Racing Focus - and the insight we strive to provide - comes to you free of charge. But we like to think we provide value for money all the same. We work hard. From time to time we call things right. We frequently call it wrong too. But that's probably what horse racing is for - to make a monkey out of those of us foolish enough to follow and try to predict its ebb and flow throughout the year. We follow the racing and try to make sense of it - always from a betting perspective - because we love the game and because beating it (or at least trying to) is, has always been and always will be an endless source of fascination and pleasure to us. We must be built that way. It must be in our blood. We can't imagine things any other way. But we would never like to think that our work in this column negatively impacts anybody. Our statistical analysis, our insights and our thoughtful meanderings are committed to print with the sole intention of helping keen racing punters squeeze some points of profit out of their betting. We aren't looking to put anybody out of a job. So we hope very much that our recent column on Philip Robinson - published a mere fortnight ago - was in no way responsible for what happened shortly afterwards. Just a matter of hours after our stats and analysis had appeared news reached us - and the wider world - that the jockey and Clive Brittain had parted company by 'mutual consent'. Shortly afterwards Brittain commented: 'The owner pays the bills and he wanted to use a different jockey for some of his horses.' Clearly a return of 10 wins from 136 rides at 7.6% over a 7 month period wasn't sufficient to retain the confidence of principal owner, Saeed Manana. Not so long ago Robinson's seasonal strike-rates were the envy of most of the weighing room. Without doubt - given circumstances that suit - he is a top rider. We commiserate with him over recent events and wish him all the best for the future. We take no pleasure from his situation - only that our stats and analysis were a little way ahead of the curve. Which is just how we like it. Making an initial split in the Cesarewitch field.... Saturday afternoon will find the field for this year's Cesarewitch lining up at Newmarket - it's a race that represents the finale to the flat season in my book. Over the last 11 seasons an average of 33 runners have gone to post for this race. I don't imagine anybody in their right mind either has or wants to spend the time required to plough through the form record of each and every runner in some kind of masochistic narrowing-down process. What we need for a handicap event with a field of this size is a quick and effective way of reducing the number of runners we need to focus on. And that's where the stats come in.... Given that the race is run over 2 miles and 2 furlongs you might not think that the draw would be of much importance or significance. But you'd be wrong. The Cesarewitch field is big and spread deep across the track. Just about a mile into proceedings the field must sweep round a right- handed bend into the straight. The horses drawn on the outside (low numbered stalls in years gone by) are at a distinct disadvantage. Just take a look at the stats below: In the last 11 renewals of the Cesarewitch just a single winner was drawn in the bottom half of the field. Just 3 of the last 11 runners-up in the race came out of a stall in the bottom half of the draw. Five of the last 11 horses to finish 3rd, four of the last 11 to finish 4th and 6 of the last 11 to finish 5th ran from a bottom- half stall number. In total 19 of the last 55 horses to finish in the 1st 5 (or 34.5) ran from a bottom-half stall position. Clearly the percentage play in this race is to use the draw to split the field and focus your attentions on the horses running on the inside half of the draw. In years gone by the high-numbered stalls were on the inside. Remember that THIS YEAR you're looking for LOW NUMBERS.... In the past the high-numbered stalls were on the inside of the track at Newmarket. But that all changed in March this year when all right-handed courses in Britain reversed the draw numbers so that the low numbered stalls were closest to the inside rail - harmonizing British racecourses with the rest-of-the-world's tracks. So this year it will be the horses in the bottom half of the draw with the advantage - and the horses in the top-half of the draw which will be most likely to be inconvenienced by being wide on the turn. Bottom-line: Focus your attention on the horses running from the bottom-half of this year's draw. The 'ready-to-win' signals.... In addition to statistical analysis and race profiling I'm a great one for trying to spot horses that strike me as ready-to-win. I take my cure from nay number of different 'signals'. It might be the horse that went close and ran a big rating having been off the track for a while. It might be the horse that ran competitively despite being drawn on the wrong side. It might be the young horse who demonstrated his mettle running against older horses for the first time - an experience you'd expect it to improve for. It might be the horse who did a decent job and finished not- too-far away whilst contesting a specific trip for the first time.... or encountering a left-handed track for the first time... or a big field... There are myriad ways and methods of identifying horses that might well be 'ready to win'... whichever 'signal' you take as your cue the important thing is to do the noticing, make the note and be ready to bet the horse on its next 3 or 4 runs - assuming it gets conditions and circumstances that suit. The signals deliver a 12/1 winner.... I highlighted Pastoral Player to my Racing Angles readers as just such a horse following his 5th placed run in the Ayr Gold Cup behind Our Jonathan last month. Pastoral Player had made my shortlist for that race on the basis of my Winning Profile - and he secured a nice each-way payout at 18/1 for anybody who chose to back him each-way with a bookmaker going 1/4 the odds 1-2-3-4-5. In a Racing Angles column the following week I noted:  'The 4-year- old son of Pastoral Pursuits ran on very strongly in the closing stages of Saturday's race. It was only the 2nd time he'd encountered soft ground. Saturday's effort followed a 3rd place effort behind Deacon Blues at Royal Ascot - again in a big field.... he remains in good heart... and might well take a decent race before the season is out. Look for him on a straight track - he's been beaten once going right and has never gone round left-handed. His two career wins came in the months of September and October - suggesting he's competitive at this time of year.' Last Saturday he made it a third career win at this time of year - conquering a 16-runner field over the straight 7f at Ascot. He was sent off at 17/2 - but had been available as big as 12/1 in the hours leading up to the race.... It was a nice reward for simply noticing the quality of his finishing effort at Ayr and then digging into his form record and identifying a couple of strong supporting stats. More of the same and more besides.... My Racing Angles service is kind of a three-pronged approach to race-analysis and betting.... It's very strong on straight statistical analysis (the kind of thing you're used to in HRF... just more of it.... and deeper....). We focus a lot of time on race-profiling... playing the percentages in the big handicaps and using 'deeper' methods of statistical analysis to get the right line on the big pattern races (on the flat and over the jumps).... And we spend some time watching and listening for the oft- missed signals that suggest specific horses are going to improve.... and are maybe ready to go out on the racetrack and record a win.... just as Pastoral Player did on Saturday.... Right now we're gearing up for the jumps season... where the chasing division will represent our primary focus for the winter. It's a great time to sign up and take a look at what the Racing Angles service can bring to your betting - because you can't lose. It won't cost you a single penny to put me and the Racing Angles service to the test for the next month. We're offering all HRF readers a free-trial of the service. All you have to do is sign-up, sit back and judge for yourself what the Racing Angles service can bring to your betting. Over the next month I'll be bringing my Racing Angles readers a wealth of useful information.... details of chasers to follow over the coming season coverage on how to play the chasers from a host of the top jumps yards the lowdown on lesser-known jumps sires and how to play their progeny over the fences analysis of up-and-coming jockeys it will pay you to take note of this winter and I'll be building up the profiles of the big races due to be run from November onwards   It's a great time to get onboard and I very much hope you'll join us for the winter jumps programme. If you'd like more details then simply click here. Until next time, be lucky.

Good afternoon, friends,

In today's Horse Racing Focus....

• The AP McCoy disciples....
• Old Nick is here to help....
• With McCoy it boils down to class....
• What we can extrapolate from the figures....

The AP McCoy disciples....

Spend a couple of hours in any betting shop in the country and
you'll identify at least one AP McCoy disciple - a punter whose
strategy for making money from his race-betting  revolves around
backing whatever the great man is booked to ride.

The strategy is generally as 'blind' as old Pew - -

It doesn't matter what horse McCoy is on. It doesn't matter what
horses he's riding against. It doesn't matter who he's riding for.
It doesn't matter what type of race the mount is down to run in. It
doesn't matter what price the horse is trading at in the market. The
bottom and defining line is that McCoy is onboard - and the horse's
name is going onto the betting slip.

There are - of course - variations on the theme. Some more subtle
than others.

McCoy's various rides on any individual card might be combined in a
series of doubles and trebles or as an all-out accumulator. His
bigger price mounts might be taken on an each-way basis. His rides
might be dutched with other contenders, backed in a 'Top 2 Finish'
market or supported by a bet in a market that revolves around
McCoy's performance at the meeting as a whole.

However they are backed, the principal point is that the money is
down owing to the presence of McCoy in the plate. 

Old Nick is here to help....

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not scoffing and I'm not mocking.

After all, who am I to argue with another man's modus operandi? It's
not the way I go at the game - but that, in and of itself, means
nothing. We're engaged in a results oriented activity - where the
bottom line rather than personal opinion (whosoever's it may be)
determines whether we're getting it right, getting it wrong or
skating the border between the two and coming out somewhere close to
break even.

And the fact is the McCoy disciples are latching onto a lot of
winners. It stands to reason. The man's ridden sufficient winning
horses to be crowned Champion jockey every consecutive year since
Stephenson invented the Rocket (at least that's how it seems).

Since New Year's Day dawned in 2005, to go back just a few short
years, the race callers have shouted home 1344 McCoy winners - be
they over hurdles, over fences or in bumpers.

Since the beginning of the new Century McCoy has ridden 10,315
horses and never had a losing spell that extends beyond 23 rides - a
total that would encompass just 4 meetings. He's never been on the
'cold list'. No wonder his disciples love him. He boots the winners
home with unerring regularity. Nobody does it better - in terms of
volume and frequency.

But the disciples are not in front. Nowhere near. If you'd been a
faithful disciple and backed every McCoy mount to win since the
beginning of 2000 to the tune of a £10 level stake you'd be sitting
on a loss in excess of £12,000 right now.

As I said, I'm not here to mock and scoff the AP McCoy disciples.
I'm here to help. To offer guidance and whatever useful pointers I
can along the way....

So ingrained is their pattern of behaviour I don't think for one
moment I can cure the McCoy disciples of their malaise or dissuade
them from abandoning their preferred betting strategy. But I can
make one or two observations - based on the stats - that might
just help them make a few positive discriminations between the
McCoy-based bets they choose to take in future and the ones they
choose to leave alone....

With McCoy it boils down to class.....

Take a look at the table below. It shows McCoy's strike rates in
non-handicap chase events (demarcated by class) since the beginning
of 2005....

There are some nice strike rates across the board. But ignore that
for the purposes of this study, and take note instead of the manner
in which the strike rate increases the further down the class scale
McCoy rides.

This is a trend that is reflected in his record over hurdles in non-
handicap events over the same period:

But it's in the handicap events where the trend is at its most
pronounced. The next table shows McCoy's record in handicap chases
from the beginning of 2005:

Once again his strike rate improves the further down the class scale
he rides. And we see it again in the next table - showing his rides
in handicap hurdle events over the same period:

What can we extrapolate from the figures....

I'm not trying to suggest that McCoy is some kind of gaff track
bully but it can't be denied that his figures reveal he's a good
deal more effective in the lower-grade events than he is in the
better grades - whether in handicaps or non-handicaps, whether
over hurdles or fences.

On the basis of this evidence you might expect me to say that the
best time to bet McCoy would be when his mounts are running in lower
class races. I can see why you'd think that but the facts are that
it's in the lower class events where his losses to level stakes are
at their highest.

Punters are onto McCoy in those lower grade races and prices are
skinny as a result. He wins more frequently in the lower grades than
any other jockey - but so slim are the prices his mounts are sent
off at as a result of the thousands of McCoy disciples it's very
difficult to turn a profit on him in low class company.

You certainly won't do it backing his rides blindly. Instead you'd
need to find some sweet spots within his wider record in lower grade
events - micro-trends that do prove profitable over time - and I may
well make some suggestions to that effect next week....

For now, on the basis of the figures outlined in the tables above,
what I'd suggest is opposing the hardened McCoy disciples in the
Class 1 handicaps over hurdles and fences - where, despite his
reputation as the best man on the block, McCoy loses almost 89% of
the time.

The fact is that most of the wins on which the McCoy legend is
constructed have been garnered in the lower reaches of the jumping
game. When it comes to the Class 1 and Class 2 handicaps McCoy is
not such a dominant force. Not that the disciples care. They'll back
him whatever he rides - forcing his price down.

In the best handicaps over fences and hurdles the majority of horses
McCoy rides are sent off overbet - thanks to the disciples. The
smart move is to look to oppose those runners rather than to oppose
them.

Next week I'll highlight a few specific angles you can use this
jumps season to make McCoy pay.

Be the first to know...

Talking of the jumps season - which is just getting properly
underway now - I've got first news for you of the exclusive new
report I've been working on...

I've put together a comprehensive report on the National Hunt
Handicap Season 2011/12...

Put simply, it contains information and advice that you will not
find anywhere else. Read it and you'll know what horses can win.
You'll know what horses won't win. And most importantly you'll know
why.

I'm covering 20 top races from the Paddy Power Gold Cup next
month... through to the Grand National next spring.

Find out more here - and get your name down on the Priority Waiting
List...

www.racingoffer.co.uk

Until next time, be lucky.

Good afternoon, friends,

In today's Horse Racing Focus....

• It's hard to win money backing a serial winner....
• Angles that make McCoy profitable....
• I hope you'll be onboard this winter....

It's hard to win money backing a serial winner....

Recent history tells us very clearly that AP McCoy rides more
winners over hurdles and fences than any other rider out there.

Since the turn of the Century he's ridden 2547 winners from 10,327
rides at a strike rate of 24.6% - a superb effort sustained over a
10-year+ period.

Over the last decade or so his record over fences is marginally
better than that over hurdles. Over the bigger obstacles he rides
winners 25.2% of the time - over hurdles the figure drops a little
to 22.5%. In bumpers he's gone along at 21% with 158 winners from
his 723.

His record is no secret. The market is more than aware of his
prowess. As I reported in this column last week there are no
shortage of punters who are prepared to back his every ride - blind.
So frequent and in such volume do AP McCoy's winners appear in the
formbook that punters might be forgiven for mistaking prolificacy
with profitability....

But it is a mistake. Blind backing all AP McCoy's runners over the
last 11 years to level stakes of £10 would see you sitting on losses
totalling more than £12,000. Backing him blind leads to losses over
fences, over hurdles and in the bumpers.

• If you backed all his rides for Martin Pipe (with whom he
  enjoyed so much success) to £10 level stakes - you'd have
  accumulated losses amounting to more than £1600.

• If you'd backed all the rides he's had for current principal
  trainer Jonjo O'Neill to £10 level stakes - you'd be sitting on
  current losses of £2670.

• Backing him on just the horses provided by principal owner J P
  McManus also leads to empty pockets - £3650 losses to a £10 level
  stake.

• Every month of the year would have produced accumulated losses
  - excepting January (962 rides in the month of January over the last
  11 years have produced 246 wins and a level stakes profit of £280).
  But this result for the month of January is not a working strategy -
  it's an aberration and you cannot rely on it to be sustained.

• Backing all the favourites he's gone to post riding over the
  last 11 years produces losses too - losses totalling £3400 to £10
  level stakes.

• Backing McCoy's rides at the 11 courses where's he's ridden
  most winners is another strategy best avoided to - to £10 level
  stakes they produced total losses of more than £8000 for punters
  over the last decade or so.

McCoy rides an awful lot of winners. But his rides attract an awful
lot of market support too - more than is probably justified - and
making betting profits out of following the serial winner's rides is
a much more difficult occupation than it might appear when you look
at his bare performance stats. 

Angles that make McCoy profitable....

I'm not one to shirk a challenge and I've been crunching the numbers
this week in an effort to identify 'sweet spots' in the McCoy record
- micro-trends and niches which we can exploit in the months to come
with a view to turning a few points of profit from his rides....

It's not easy...the pickings are decidedly slim... but here's a few
promising angles to play over the next few months...

• Keep an eye on the entries for those occasions when McCoy is
  riding for Phillip Hobbs - McCoy gets most of his rides from Jonjo
  O'Neill but it is always worth monitoring the rides he takes for
  outside yards. He doesn't take many bookings to ride horses for
  Philip Hobbs - just 19 since September 2008. But it's worth noting
  that those bookings have proved significant. The 19 rides produced 7
  wins and a useful profit of 5 points to level stakes. It's a
  profitable micro-trend worth looking out for this term.

• The Tom George yard has been a source of useful rides in
  recent years - since the beginning of 2008 McCoy has taken 22 rides
  from George and the partnership pays dividends for punters who take
  the time to monitor the entries. McCoy has won on 6 of the 22
  returning a 12 point profit for level stakes backers. 

• Back McCoy when he's riding a specific owner's colours - most
  punters confine their interest to partnerships between trainers and
  jockeys. But it can pay you to expand that interest to partnerships
  between jockeys and specific owners. McCoy is well-known for his
  relationship with principal owner, JP McManus. Flying lower on the
  radar is his relationship with another big jumps horse owner, Trevor
  Hemmings, but it's a successful pairing nevertheless. McCoy has
  ridden 44 times for Hemmings since the beginning of 2008 - 11 of
  those horses won and backed to level stakes the Hemmings/McCoy
  horses have generated a profit of 13 points.

• McCoy is worth latching onto at Cartmel - the Cumbrian track
  doesn't host too much racing but when there's a fixture it is worth
  following McCoy's rides. His last 22 rides at the course have
  produced 9 winners at 41% and the profits aren't bad either -
  amounting to 21.3 points to level stakes. He clearly rides the
  course well and it's an angle well worth putting into the notebook
  for use down the line.

Just a few small angles to be aware of as we get underway with the
2011/12 jumps season....

I hope you'll be onboard this winter...

I recently finished work on a set of Winning Profiles for this jumps
season - covering 20 handicaps from next month's Paddy Power Gold
Cup at Cheltenham all the way through to the Scottish Grand National
at Ayr next spring.

If you followed my Cheltenham Festival service in March - where we
found a few winners, a few placed horses and also endured some very
close and frustrating misses - you'll know what it's all about and
how it all works.

• Step 1 - I send you my new manual containing comprehensive
  Winning Profiles for all 20 of the races I'm covering - outlining
  all the key statistical indicators which enable you to make sense of
  the races and the chances of the likely runners weeks and even
  months before the races are run (a great edge in the markets).

• Step 2 - In case you don't want to do the donkey work yourself
  I'll contact you in the days running up to each of the races having
  applied all elements of the profile to all the runners and having
  compiled a shortlist of the horses which look like this year's
  'live' contenders - along with advice about their preferred
  conditions and circumstances, market analysis and any other
  considerations you'll need to bear in
  mind.

We'll be using an approach that nobody else out there is using -
based on data that nobody else has got access to. That gives us a
real edge and I'm hopeful we can find some good bets in the months
ahead.

But I'm really keen (I'm sure you'll understand) to preserve the
integrity of my methods and my data. I put in some hard hours in to
produce the Winning Profiles and I'm loath to pump this service out
to all and sundry. I want to keep it as exclusive as possible so
that it goes out to what I call my 'family and friends' readers -
people who stick with me through thick and thin, people who know how
I work and people I can trust not to start distributing these
profiles on forums and devaluing the service as a result.

For that reason I've asked my publisher to limit places on the
service and to operate allocation of places on a first-come-first-
served basis. If you'd like to know when the book and the service
are 'ready to go' (it won't be long now) then please sign up on the
Priority Waiting List today. You can do it here.

It won't take a moment. And I can personally assure you that if you
sign-up to the waiting list today you are doing so early enough to
be guaranteed a place on the service - should you decide to get
onboard when the time comes.

I very much hope you will. Some of the big races I cover on the
service can appear really complex when you come to look at them
cold. But the stats I've uncovered for the Winning Profiles service
enable you to get to grips with a race straight from the get-go and
quickly reduce the field to the runners that really matter. That's
the beauty of a Winning Profile. It's a cutting-edge tool that
enables the punter to attack these big, tough betting heats with
confidence from a totally rational standpoint.

If you'd like to get involved over the winter then simply sign up to
the Priority Waiting List here to ensure you get first refusal...

www.racingoffer.co.uk  

Until next time, be lucky.

Good afternoon, friends,

In today's Horse Racing Focus....

• Putting the focus on Grade 1 chases....
• The stats point the way forward....
• I hope you'll be onboard this winter....

Putting the focus on Grade 1 chases....

Grade 1 races over fences are the top events in chasing. As such the
Grade 1 races attract the best horses in training. They are highly
competitive events - befitting races that offer the best prize money
in the game - and they don't tend to be won on the basis of fluke.

Think of the Grade 1 chases as Championship events. They are not
like handicaps - where horses carry weights based on the official
handicapper's appraisal of their talent. In Grade 1 races horses
carry weight based solely on their age and their sex. And in Grade 1
races horses are not asked to carry penalties in the form of weight
for previous wins.

As racing fans we all look forward with a sense of relish to Grade 1
chases like the King George at Kempton and the Gold Cup at the
Cheltenham Festival. But just because these are the best and richest
events on the National Hunt programme it doesn't mean they are
necessarily any easier to solve than a lowly Class 4 event at
Fontwell. Indeed sometimes they are a damn sight harder - simply
because they are more competitive.

With the jumps season stretching out in front of us, right now seems
like an opportune time to crunch some numbers and see whether or not
a simple statistical analysis can help us find some useful pointers
for solving these events - or at least splitting the fields - as and
when they come round....

The stats point the way forward in the Grade 1 chases....

Since February 2000 there have been 142 Grade 1 chases run in Great
Britain.

The attributes, characteristics and credentials of the winners of
those races represent a road-map of sorts for picking the wheat from
the chaff... the most likely 'live' contenders from the most likely
'also-rans'... in future Grade 1 events....

Here's what my statistical analysis reveals:

• The 7- and 8-year-old Grade 1 runners are the most successful
  group over the last decade. Horses of that age are responsible for
  just over 50% of the 142 winners of Grade 1 chases in Britain since
  2000. The average age of Grade 1 winner over the last decade is 7.4
  years old. Don't get me wrong, 6-year-olds win these events too (22
  of them). So too do 9-year-olds (21 of them). But the sweet spot in
  the statistical record is clearly the 7- to 8-year-old band. For the
  record, only a single 4-year-old has won a Grade 1 chase over the
  last decade - Long Run in last year's King George (proof if further
  were needed of his quality and potential). And just 5 horses aged 11
  or older have prevailed - and Moscow Flyer was responsible for two
  of those wins.

• Oppose the more experienced chasers in Grade 1 races. The
  average Grade 1 chase winner over the last decade had raced just 9.3
  times over fences. Kauto Star, Best Mate and Long Run demonstrated
  their quality early on - winning a Grade 1 with 3 or fewer chases
  under their belts. At the other end of the scale Edredon Bleu was
  winning a Grade 1 with 30 chases behind him. The percentage play is
  to side with horses in Grade 1 races with 15 or fewer chases in
  their legs. Of our 142 Grade 1 winners over the last decade 111 had
  raced no more than 15 times over fences.

• It pays to stick with the French and the Irish-breds - again
  that might sound like an obvious statement to some of you. We hear a
  lot about the dominance of Irish- and French-bred horses over the
  jumps but the stats reveal exactly how dominant those two breeds are
  at the highest level of the chasing game. Horses bred in either
  Ireland or France are responsible for a whopping 126 (89%) of the
  142 winners of Grade 1 British chases since the beginning of 2000.
  British-bred horses have won just 12 Grade 1 chases in that time - 9
  of them at trip shorter than 3 miles. It clearly doesn't pay to
  follow the 'home' horses at the top level.

• Don't be tempted to bet the fairer sex - because the
  historical record is against you. 30 mares have tried their hand in
  a Grade 1 chase run in Britain since the beginning of 2000 producing
  not a single winner. Every Grade 1 chase winner over the period was
  a male horse.

• Back Grade 1 runners off a decent break - a Grade 1 race is a
  competitive affair that demands a lot from a horse and takes a lot
  out of it. As such horses need to go into Grade 1 races in peak
  condition - if they are to win them. The stats suggest that horses
  going into Grade 1 races having had a recent race lack the necessary
  shine to produce of their best. Over the last decade more than 200
  horses have gone into a Grade 1 chase less than 3 weeks after a
  previous run - just 12 managed to win. 130 of our 142 Grade 1
  winners had been rested for 3 weeks or longer before their Grade 1
  triumph. The percentage play is to side with rested horses.

• Be wary of horses wearing blinkers - these are often a sign of
  a horse with a slightly suspect temperament. The stats suggest such
  horses cannot be trusted at the top level of the chasing game. 50
  horses have gone to post in a Grade 1 chase wearing blinkers over
  the last decade. Just 2 have won. On the stats they are best voided.

• Big margin Grade 1 wins denote horses of serious quality. It
  sounds like a painfully obvious thing to say - and it is. But
  sometimes we know what to think without really understanding why we
  think it. Of the 142 Grade 1 chase winners over the last decade or
  so just 35 won by 10 lengths or more. Their names read like a
  who's who of top chasers - Kauto Star, Master Minded, Voy Por
  Ustedes, Moscow Flyer, Long Run, Best Mate, Flagship Uberalles,
  First Gold and Denman. When a horse wins a Grade 1 chase by 10
  lengths or more you know you are looking at a superstar. One name to
  take off this exalted list for this season is Riverside Theatre. He
  hasn't been seen since winning a Grade 1 at Ascot by 10 lengths in
  February. And he won't be seen until later in the season. He is well
  worth latching onto when he does - he's a true Grade 1 performer who
  might just be flying a little lower on the radar than he should be. 

Just a few useful statistical pointers to bear in mind when you come
to look at Grade 1 chases in the weeks and months ahead....

I hope you'll be onboard this winter...

I recently finished work on a set of Winning Profiles for this jumps
season - covering 20 handicaps from next month's Paddy Power Gold
Cup at Cheltenham all the way through to the Scottish Grand National
at Ayr next spring.

If you followed my Cheltenham Festival service in March - where we
found a few winners, a few placed horses and also endured some very
close and frustrating misses - you'll know what it's all about and
how it all works.

• Step 1 - I send you my new manual containing comprehensive
  Winning Profiles for all 20 of the races I'm covering - outlining
  all the key statistical indicators which enable you to make sense of
  the races and the chances of the likely runners weeks and even
  months before the races are run (a great edge in the markets). 

• Step 2 - In case you don't want to do the donkey work yourself
  I'll contact you in the days running up to each of the races having
  applied all elements of the profile to all the runners and having
  compiled a shortlist of the horses which look like this year's
  'live' contenders - along with advice about their preferred
  conditions and circumstances, market analysis and any other
  considerations you'll need to bear in mind.

We'll be using an approach that nobody else out there is using -
based on data that nobody else has got. That gives us a real edge
and I'm hopeful we can find some good bets in the months ahead.

But I'm really keen (I'm sure you'll understand) to preserve the
integrity of my methods and my data. I put in some hard hours in to
produce the Winning Profiles and I'm loath to pump this service out
to all and sundry. I want to keep it as exclusive as possible so
that it goes out to what I call my 'family and friends' readers -
people who stick with me through thick and thin, people who know how
I work and people I can trust not to start distributing these
profiles on forums and devaluing the service as a result.

For that reason I've asked my publisher to limit places on the
service and to operate allocation of places on a first-come-first-
served basis. If you'd like to know when the book and the service
are 'ready to go' (it won't be long now) then please sign up on the
Priority Waiting List today. You can do it here.

It won't take a moment. And I can personally guarantee that if you
sign-up to the waiting list today you are doing so early enough to
be guaranteed a place on the service - should you decide to get
onboard when the time comes.

I very much hope you will. Some of the big races I cover on the
service can appear really complex when you come to look at them
cold. But the stats I've uncovered for the Winning Profiles service
enable you to get to grips with a race straight from the get-go and
quickly reduce the field to the runners that really matter. That's
the beauty of a Winning Profile. It's a cutting-edge tool that
enables the punter to attack these big, tough betting
heats with confidence from a totally rational standpoint.

If you'd like to get involved over the winter then simply sign up to
the Priority Waiting List here to ensure you get first refusal...

www.racingoffer.co.uk/

Until next time, be lucky.