I said in April, after the nine losers, that the questions would get an extra line. They have. Before anything else, is the course one of the four. If it is, there's no bet, however good the line reads. The four are Nottingham, Hamilton, Fontwell and Fakenham.
I resisted this for ages because it felt superstitious. A racecourse doesn't make a horse lose. My questions are about the horse, and a good line at Fakenham is a good line. That's what I told myself for two years while the book quietly added up the bets at those four tracks and came to a number that's cost me the best part of thirty points.
I've thought about why, and I've got guesses rather than answers. Fontwell and Fakenham are tight, idiosyncratic jumps tracks where course form matters more than most, and my questions don't ask about course form. Hamilton has a stiff finish and a draw bias I've never properly understood. Nottingham I've no idea. It's a fair, galloping flat track and it owes me money. Maybe the answer is that two years isn't enough to know, and the honest thing is to admit the book says no and I can't say why.
The point is that I don't need to know why to act on it. The book has told me, in the only language it has, that my method gets the wrong answers at those four tracks at a rate that's cost real money. If I ignore that because I can't explain it, I'm choosing my opinion over the figures, and the whole point of the book is that the figures win. Members get the benefit without having to keep the list themselves.
So the four are off until the book says otherwise, which it will if a year of not betting there turns out to have cost me winners. I'll check that at the end of the season. My guess is it won't.
The opposite list, for what it's worth, is Southwell, Catterick, Doncaster and Musselburgh. I don't bet there because they're on a list. I bet there because the questions keep saying yes and the answers keep being right.
Lee
PS: no, Lingfield isn't on either list. Most bets, least to show. It's its own category.
Update, 17 October 2026. Four months on, I've checked. None of the four tracks has had a horse I'd have backed and regretted missing. They stay off through the winter.
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.
If your first month on the £49 loses, I refund it. Nothing renews after 31 March. Full details.
More from the notebook: Mojito Des Mottes, and the best month in the book · Breeding says where a horse should get the trip. The record says where it does.