A very brave and honest post, Danny.
Hope you manage to get of what must be a mind-numbing job.
The very best of luck, Sir.
Seconded.
Without checking, I'd be pretty sure Mohaayed will be on the radar for something like the County for me too but I wouldn't go in ante-post on anything in the race until more firms offer NRNB.
Having spent a lot of time in the last week or so reviewing last season's festival - something I haven't really done before as I only bought my PVR just before last season's festival - I do feel better armed going into this one. It has given me a 'feel' for horses, trainers and/or owners for whom only this event matters.
For example, I'll be very interested in anything Joseph O'Brien sends over.
To come back on to the topic, one of the best decisions I ever made was to compile my own ratings, something I started doing while I was still a student and developed more intensely after I was married a few years and realised I was getting somewhere with it. I've evolved and developed my methods pretty much ever since and am always looking for ways of improving them, hence my interest in [other people's interpretation of] sectional times.
One of the next best decisions I made was to focus only on the better races. I very seldom bet midweek now, outside of the festivals and other televised meetings. In fact, I really don't even look at any midweek racing. I tend not to even look at the threads on here that deal with it.
But earlier time spent looking at midweek racing, studying results, compiling my own time ratings etc probably gave me more of a positive grounding than I realised at the time. I probably stumbled upon what later became known as the bounce theory without realising that's what it was. I noticed in the early days of Pipe and Scudamore that some of their winners were posting some very serious time ratings then losing at short odds. I then noticed after two or three runs the horse would make a comeback. I just presumed they were going easy on it to take away any hype the first fast time might have attracted. But, of course, it was probably the bounce since those Pipe horses were out every week in those days.
Once I started concentrating on the better televised weekend races my success became more consistent and over time I could gradually increase my stakes with a fair degree of confidence that I could withstand a losing run.
I can state with complete honesty that I am miles and miles ahead of the bookies in the sense that I have a separate bank account for my activity which is extremely healthy despite, over the years, withdrawing chunks to cover holidays (three a year at one point), part-payments for cars and jaunts to Cheltenham, Ascot and Newbury to meet fellow-forumites. Mrs O has no idea what's in that account as I downplay all my activity. When she asks me if I won I might say something like yes but only enough to cover the fish suppers or a bottle of wine. She knows I'm downplaying it, I think, because my blabbermouth brother can't keep a secret from his wife!
I'll maybe talk about my 'Ocean King coat' (which I no longer have, of course) bought with the proceeds of a 50p ew ante-post 25/1 bet on the Cesarewitch winner, for a laugh. Recently at a party my daughter said, "Oh, you're wearing your Rooster Booster suit!" a really smart made-to-measure bit of gear which didn't really dent my returns from his Champion Hurdle. I think that's something I get from my father. He was always buying stuff with his winnings. My brother also still talks about the suit he bought with his winnings from Ten Up in the Gold Cup.
But she has no idea just how much is in that account. I can't tell her as she'd either faint, get really mad that I've been keeping it from her (she doesn't know how much of it went on one of her cars) or she'd ask me to put it into the general domestic savings aimed at getting our house in Spain. Aint happenin'!!
Anyway, I'm rambling again...
