From November there's one new check in the book. You'll never see it on the card, so I want to explain it here.
At the start of each month the book looks back over the last three completed months at one kind of bet, a group of my hurdle picks. If part of that group has clearly been struggling, it sits out the month ahead. If nothing stands out or there isn't enough to go on then nothing is rested. The card carries on as normal.
It isn't a ban. A ban says this kind of race is bad forever, and the book doesn't believe in forever. The horses that come through any way of picking change from one season to the next, so something struggling now can be fine again by spring. That's why the decision is made fresh every month and dropped as soon as the evidence goes.
Two things don't happen when a group is rested. Nothing else gets brought in to fill the gap, and nothing else gets a bigger stake. A day with one bet fewer is just a day with one bet fewer. The temptation with a rule like this is to keep the number of bets up, and that's how you end up backing horses you'd never have picked on their own.
I ran it over the whole record before it went in. Earlier this year it would have rested some hurdle bets in the first five months and left everything alone since June. In the replay that added about eleven points to 2026. It's still a small change and it won't stop every bad week. What it does is stop one kind of bet dragging the rest down while it's having a bad time.
If you're a member you won't need to do a thing. The card simply has the right bets on it, and on the odd morning it has one fewer. Join here and the card does the checking for you.
Lee
PS: there's more on reviewing your own bets at set times in my free guide, How to pick the right favourites.
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More from the notebook: Why I've dropped the extras' place bets · Mojito Des Mottes, and the best month in the book