Twelve months ago I tidied the spreadsheet into one book and said I'd put the figures up, good and bad. So here's the year. 687 bets, 53.6 points to the good after commission, nine months in profit and three down. At my £100 a point that's £5,363, which is a good year, and it's still nothing like the numbers on the tipster adverts.
I want to dwell on that, because it's the honest shape of this. Favourites don't make you rich quickly. They make you money slowly, with fewer frights than anything else I've tried, and the frights are the bit most people never mention. The worst dip in the year was nearly fifteen points, in June. The longest run of losers was eleven, at the start of the same month. I never once had to think about the bank.
The months tell the story better than the total. January flew (fifteen points, which I knew at the time was a flattering start). March gave some of it back. Then April and May were the best two months of the year put together, twenty five points between them, before the summer plodded along, a point here, a point there. September picked up, October and December were small losers, and November was fine. Two losing months out of the last four. That's what a winning year looks like from inside it, and anyone who tells you otherwise has a short memory or a long sales page.
Plus a few things I've learned about myself, which are worth more than the points. I'm worse on Saturdays than on Tuesdays, because I find bets on Saturdays that I wouldn't find on a Tuesday. I'm worse in March than in any other month, when the jumps horses are tired and the flat hasn't started, and I can only half explain it. And the place bets, which I nearly dropped in the spring as not worth the bother, kept the book level through two months that would otherwise have been ugly.
So the rules for the year ahead are the same rules with one change. The four point daily cap stays. The forty point bank stays, and it's now forty five, because the profit went into it. The change is that I'll be quicker to have no bet at all. The thin card problem cost me more than the losers did.
The list that made those 54 points is what members get, and the figures go up every month. If you followed the list last year, thank you, and I hope your book looks like mine. If it looks better, you've got a stronger nerve on the bad days than I have. If it looks worse, email me and we'll find out why, because the usual reason is a stake that got bigger after a win.
Lee
PS: no, I'm not raising the stakes. Forty five points is the bank, a point is still £100, and the extra five points are there to make March easier.
See exactly what I do for two weeks.
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Every bet I make, by email each racing morning, with the stake and my line on why. Pay £5 today, then £49 on day 15 for the winter pass to 31 March.
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