Tuesday 27th

Good evening.
A fair few of you will have been directed here on the back of Graeme' post over at the football analyst blog (which you can find on the right hand side of my page) recommending a read of my new blog over here tonight and for that I thank him.

Now as I outlined in my first ever blog post Graeme was a big part of why a started reading form and has helped me a great deal in helping me being able to make it pay. As he alluded too I had very little if no knowledge of racing before I started out in his forum, I had many reasons to give it a go and the service he provided was second to none in that he gave sound logic to every pick that he sent out to his members and after a few months of just reading his emails I thought I had learnt a lot already. My learning process continued after numerous conversations with the more knowledgeable members in there and I went on to do alright!
That is a long story short.
Anyone who has spent time reading Graeme's blog knows that he is a pretty shrewd chap, he talks a lot of sense and is quite a bit more intelligent than me. What he has done with the football is truly outstanding and when he was tipping horses he was the best I had come across. All I tried to do at first was to imitate him really, simply put he makes the game look easy at times! If I have learnt anything at all from him then this blog will be a success but what I have to make absolutely clear is that I am still learning and I don't want people to expect too much of me or go crazy with staking...
One piece of advice I will give to anyone who wishes to follow with real money is to trade my selections as a vast majority should run well as I'll only tip a horse when it is facing as close to optimum conditions as possible. When I say 'trade' I understand that it will mean a lot of different things to different people but what I mean is just to lay off a bet if and when a horse trades low in running.

I will give myself time to make this tipping business work but if it doesn't then I shall just give up and head back to the drawing board.

Anyway my two selections today...
Land Hawk was backed in to an SP of 7/2 and looked to be in with a big chance when coming in to the home straight, at that point he looked to be going better than anything but it appears that stamina was the issue today and he couldn't quicken and weakened. eventually finishing 5th. The most frustrating thing for me is that the I identified the race that I thought the winner would come from but tipped the wrong one. 10/3 about Prince Blue was too short last night and the SP of 9/2 much more appealing but still not at a price that I would have considered backing at. At least we know a little more about Land Hawk now! Any of his form has to be taken with a pinch of salt as he is now a 24 run maiden but if dropped in trip then he may be worthy of some interest but it would have to be at a price as there are question marks over his attitude.

I was more pleased with the performance of Dear Maurice, yes it is annoying that he only finished a head and a neck outside the places but he ran well above his odds and started at 14/1 SP after I tipped him at 25/1. The one mistake I made with this bet is going in at 0.75pt EW on him. As I suggested last night his fitness was not assured so staking that amount was a bit of an oversight on my part. He will stay on my list to follow over the next few runs as he is entitled to come on now after his return from a break.

So we move on to tomorrows racing at Southwell...

14:30
Southwell tends to be a 'horses for courses' track and tends to breed a fair few course specialists. Occasionally you will find horses that only to perform well here and poorly elsewhere, one such case is a horse called Community. She has done little since winning a maiden here in December which earnt her an official rating of 69. She has ran respectably in her runs at this track each time all at fancy prices. The thing that makes her most interesting tomorrow is the application of blinkers. If these have any positive effect then she will run above her odds as she is drawn well and has been eased in the weights markedly since she was sent handicapping, too is the lowest class handicap she has entered. 20/1 looks big.
Community 0.5pt Win 20/1 B365, 18/1 VCbet

15:30
I have a theory about Bookiesindexboy in that I think he needs a breakneck pace to perform to anything like his best. He travels so well in most of his races but usually finds nothing off the bridle, the change of tactics last time at kempton didn't help his cause and in the end that race ended up being set up for a finisher. Tomorrow the pace should be fairly strong as both Slatey Hen, Magic Of Rio and Chosen One have all led before now if he can sit in behind  and doesn't end up forcing the pace himself then he can pick these off. There is no doubt that he is a difficult horse to work out but it looks like he might get the race run to suit tomorrow and if it is he is handicapped to win a race like this.
Bookiesindexboy 0.5pt Win 12/1 B365, VCbet


Good luck.