I've had more bets at Lingfield than at any other course bar Southwell. Thirty three in the book so far, and twenty one of them won. That's nearly two in three. And the total, after commission, over thirteen months, is nothing. Not down, not up. Zero.
I've been looking at why, because it's a useful puzzle. Two in three is a fine rate. The problem is what the twenty one won at and what the twelve lost at. The Lingfield winners have mostly been short ones on the polytrack, favourites in small fields that did the expected thing at 1.6 and 1.8. The losers have been the slightly bigger prices, the horses I liked at 3 and 4 because the last figure didn't match the line. At Lingfield, more often than anywhere else, the last figure was right.
My guess is that it's the track. Lingfield's all weather is quick and tight and favours a certain kind of horse, and the form from there travels badly to other all weather tracks and back again. So a horse with a good line at Wolverhampton and a poor figure at Lingfield might just not like Lingfield, and my questions, which are about the horse, miss that the course is the answer.
I'm not going to stop betting there, because thirteen months at level isn't a disaster, it's a draw. What I'm going to do is tighten up. At Lingfield the bets that have paid are the short, obvious ones, so for now that's what gets backed there. The 3 and 4 shots with an excuse can prove it somewhere else first.
This is what the book is for. I'd never have noticed by feel. By feel, Lingfield was fine, because I remembered the twenty one. The book remembered the twelve. Members get the benefit of the book without having to keep it.
Lee
PS: the opposite course is Doncaster. Fewer bets, far more profit, and no idea why. The book will tell me eventually.
Update, 29 April 2026. Three of the nine losers in April's run were at Lingfield. It's now 122 bets there and the total is still about level. Still its own category, still the short obvious ones only.
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More from the notebook: Four bets in Festival week, and none of them at Cheltenham · The summer the sand paid