There's a rule in my book that isn't about horses, and it's the one I break most. The thin card rule. If I've read every race and nothing passes the questions, I don't go back and read them again more generously. I close the book.
I break it because the card is there and the afternoon is there and the telly is on, and a punter who doesn't have a bet on a racing day feels like he's missed something. He hasn't. He's missed the chance to lose, which is a chance that comes round again tomorrow.
I went back through the book this week and marked the bets I'd only had because the card was thin. I know which they are, because they're the ones I remember talking myself into. There were fourteen in eighteen months. Four won. Together they're six points down, which is a decent month's profit, given away to afternoons where I should have had a walk.
The tell is always the same. The horse is near the front of the market, so it looks like my kind of bet. But the line doesn't say anything. There's no poor last figure the rest of the line explains, no drop in trip to a distance it's won over, no mark that's come down. It's just a favourite, and a favourite with no story is a bet the price has already made for everybody.
So, the rule, written down properly so I can be held to it. No bet is a bet. A day with nothing on it is not a wasted day, it's a day the bank is exactly where it was. If I find myself reading a race for the second time, the answer was no the first time. Members get a line saying there's nothing on, and that line has saved them more than any single winner.
I'll tell you now, I'll break it again. It's the hardest rule in the book because it's the only one that asks you to do nothing. But fourteen bets and six points is the cost of not having it, and I've paid that now.
Lee
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More from the notebook: Why my reasons are one line · Sunday night, and the week's cards