The book was twenty odd points up on the year when the run started and it's eighteen up now, so I'll say first that nothing much happened. What happened was nine bets in a row that lost, Friday the twenty fourth to Tuesday the twenty eighth, the longest run of losers since I started the book. It ended with a quarter point place bet at Lingfield landing at 1.29, which is about as undramatic an ending as you could ask for.
I'll list them because that's the deal. Organise at Sandown on the Friday placed and then got beaten for the win. Another at Perth got beaten at 2.0. Saturday, two at Sandown including Palamon, both lost. Sunday, one at Nottingham, lost. Monday, three at Lingfield, a horse I'd backed twice before and liked a lot, win and place, and another, all three lost. Tuesday, one at Punchestown, lost. Then Wild Thoughts placed at Lingfield and the run was over. Nine, counting the place bets, and about six points.
The thing about a losing run is this. While it's happening, it feels like information. You start to think the method has broken, the form book has changed, the market has worked you out. It hasn't. A method that wins six in ten will throw nine losers in a row about once in a thousand bets, and this is the one. The maths doesn't care that they came on consecutive days, and neither should I.
The thing that got me through it is the same thing every time, which is that nothing was ever at stake. Six points of a bank that's well past sixty. No stakes went up to get it back. No bets were skipped out of fear. Tuesday's card was read the same way as Friday's, and Wednesday's had two winners on it.
The one thing I did take from it is the Nottingham bet. That's a course that has cost me money for two years, and I had a bet there on the Sunday because the questions said yes. From next month the questions get an extra line, which is whether the course is one of the four I've said I'd leave alone. If it is, the answer is no, however good the line looks.
April finishes about level. The run took back what the first three weeks made. I'll take level, and May is next, which for two years has been my worst month, so I'm going in with my eyes open.
Lee
PS: a few of you emailed during the run. Thank you, and the answer to all of you was the same. Same stakes tomorrow.
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More from the notebook: A new bet: the comeback horse · The courses I leave alone