A few of you noticed that some of the win bets this month have been going on at half a point instead of a point, and asked why. Fair question. The answer is the one part of what I do that I've never properly explained, so here it is.
I don't run one way of picking horses. I run several, side by side, and I keep score on all of them. Some lean on the mark and the trip. Some lean on the days between runs. Some are stricter on price. Each one produces its own selections every morning, and the BSP Favourites you get come from the methods I'm backing most heavily that quarter.
Every three months I look back at the last two years for each method, with the recent months counting double, and the one with the best return gets the biggest stake for the quarter ahead. The others get less. That sets the base for the quarter. Then, at the start of every month, there's a shorter look. The book compares the last six completed months and asks whether moving some of the stake from one method to another would have paid. If the answer is a clear yes, that's what happens for the month ahead, and if it isn't, nothing changes. The daily cap and the weekly limit stay exactly where they are whichever way it goes. That's what's happened this month. Part of the main win list is on half a point, because the six months behind us said the other method deserved more of the stake, and the method that's been running best has the full point.
The important bit is when that decision gets made. Always on bets that have already run, before the quarter or the month starts, and never changed in the middle of it because a fortnight went badly. If I let myself tinker with the weights after a bad week, I'd be chasing, and chasing is the thing the whole book is built to stop me doing.
I know this sounds colder than the way most tipsters talk. They have an eye, a feel, a contact in a yard. I've got a book and a set of questions, and the book decides which questions are working. The reason I trust it is that it has made the decision for me on days when I'd have made the wrong one. September was a bad month (eight points down, the worst I've had). The book said hold. I held, and October is already back in front.
So when you see a half point against a horse, that's not me doubting the horse. It's the weighting, set in advance, and it'll be looked at again on the first of the month with the same cold eye. If the figures say the main list is back, it goes back to a point. If they don't, it doesn't, and I'll tell you either way. Members never have to decide any of this. The stake is on the card, set in advance.
Lee
PS: I've binned more ideas than I've kept. Several sounded clever and did nothing to the figures. The book doesn't care how clever they sounded.
Update, 30 March 2026. Most of the win bets went back to a full point in January, and some went to half again from April. The April decision is explained here. The book still doesn't argue with itself.
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More from the notebook: Mojito Des Mottes, and the best month in the book · Seventy seven bets in November, and the four point cap at work