February had twenty seven bets in it. That's fewer than one a day, over a month with racing six days a week, and it was the second best month I've had since I started writing them down. Nineteen won, and the book is up nine points.
I'm telling you this because it's the opposite of what the trade wants you to believe. Every tipping service sells volume. Three naps a day, a Saturday special, tips in every race at the big meeting. The idea is that more tips means more winners, and that's true as far as it goes. It also means more losers, and the losers are the ones that empty the bank.
What happened in February was simple. The weather wrecked half the jumps cards, the all weather was thin, and most days there was nothing near the front of the market that passed my questions. So most days I had nothing on. The horses that did pass were the ones I'd have backed in any month, and they won at the rate they usually do, which is a bit over six in ten. Fewer bets, same rate, better month, because the bets I didn't have were the ones that would have been mediocre.
Which brings me to the thing I keep relearning. The list isn't a quota. Some days the form hands you three horses and some weeks it hands you none, and the worst thing you can do is go looking for a bet to fill the gap. Yet that's what every punter does, me included, when there's a card on the telly and a cup of tea going cold. On a thin day members get a line saying there's nothing on, and I've come to think that line is worth as much as a winner.
The handful of bets there were came mostly off the sand. Southwell, Newcastle, a couple at Kempton on the Saturday nights. One at Musselburgh on a Saturday that I nearly didn't bother with because the ground was heavy, and then remembered that the horse had won on heavy, which is the whole point of reading the line instead of the last figure.
March will be busier. Cheltenham is in it, for one thing, though the Festival isn't the bonanza people think it is for a favourites punter, and I'll explain that when we get there. If February taught me anything it's that a quiet month is not a month to worry about. It might be the best kind.
Lee
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More from the notebook: A year of the book · May, and what changes for next year