Four months in profit to start the year, and then May. Six points down from thirty eight bets, with eighteen winners, which is short of the usual six in ten. Last May was the best month of the whole year, so I can't blame the calendar. That means I have to look at the bets, and I think I've found something useful.
First, credit where it's due. The bookmakers and the exchange market get May right more often than I do, and I think I know why. It's the month the flat turns over. The horses that won in April on soft ground meet horses that have been waiting for it to dry out. Three year olds improve ten pounds between runs. Trainers who've been quiet all winter start firing. The form book in May is full of lines that were true a month ago, and the market is quicker than me to stop believing them.
My method leans on the form holding. On the all weather in February it does. At Chester in May, with a sixteen runner handicap and half the field unexposed, it doesn't, and a favourite I'd have backed with confidence in March is a coin toss with a short price on it.
So what to do about it. The honest answer is not much, because the fix for a bad month is usually worse than the month. Yet there are two things I'm going to try, and I'll tell you now so you can hold me to it. One, fewer turf handicaps in May, and more of the sand, where the form still holds. Two, tighter on price. If a May favourite isn't at least 2.5, it isn't a bet, because the doubt in the month needs paying for. If you follow the list, you'll see both changes on the card from next spring, and you don't have to do anything.
If that works, May next year is a quiet month instead of a losing one. If it doesn't, it's a losing month and I've learned something. Either way the bank is fine. Forty five points, down six, and June is usually kind.
A lot of people stop after a month like this. I get the emails. The thing to remember is that the bad month is in the price of the good ones. You can't have the eighteen point Julys without the six point Mays, because the method that avoids every bad month is a method that never bets, and that one has a very steady record.
Lee
PS: the worst bets of the month were at Ayr, Beverley and Hamilton, turf tracks I don't need to be at in May. I'm starting a list of courses I should leave alone, and it's got Nottingham on it already.
Update, 16 June 2025. I did write the thin card rule down. It's here, and June came good, which is here too.
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More from the notebook: The summer the sand paid · Twenty seven bets in February