Pinza

Just a little story with extracts from The Punters Pal (About us)
http://www.thepunterspal.com/archives/20

"Eric came back from Haydock one day with what seemed an incredible tale. He had met there a man who we thereafter always referred to as “the London bloke” even after we later learned his real name. This guy was a multi millionaire property dealer who made a lot of money on the side out of horse racing as a hobby using a system for which he had paid £10,000 cash on the car park of the very same race track four and a half years earlier.

Eric got the selections. All of us, Eric included were, to say the least, skeptical. We had nothing to lose though so we resolved to place the bets and keep a record for a month. We kept backing them for him (not a penny on for ourselves) and they kept winning. It almost became boring, we were expecting to win each time. Lucky streak, fluke, they can’t carry on like this forever, were some of the printable remarks we made. But by the end of the month he had backed 19 winners out of 21 selections! And one of the 2 losers was beaten just a head at 6/1 (Tutusixtysix, August 1993).

The last we heard of the London bloke was that the poor guy had had a stroke and was in bad health and Eric, who was in his late sixties when we met him,then died age 73 in 1999.

Since those days we have been on a quest to discover the rules of this system. The only clues the London bloke ever left us were that he bought two papers a day, the Racing Post and the Daily Mail, the selection was the best horse in the race and that when we discovered it we would kick ourselves because it was so simple.


We analysed the list of selections in order to see just what the London bloke had meant when he said it is “ the best horse in the race “. You have to remember that in those days – as we hadn’t yet appreciated the full majesty of Racing Systems Builder – research meant thumbing through back issues of the Racing Post. Anyway, he identified a few fundamental factors that would consistently produce the same selections as on the list but they were among several other horses a day. However, this achieved a strike rate of 48% at just short of break even at SP. Obviously more research was needed.

So, we had the basic ingredients but there were obviously more filters we had missed. We had always wondered why he should mention that he bought the Daily Mail every day. So, one day in 2002 Mark and I spent a full day in Manchester Central Library looking through back issues, on microfiche, of the Mail. Here we made a major breakthrough. We found a factor that added 30% to the strike rate! For obvious reasons I am not prepared to divulge this factor. It took the strike rate up to 63% at an average SP of 11/10 and narrowed it down to an average of a bet a day. Not quite Eureka as we hadn’t achieved the 80% strike rate of its heyday but it looked as though we had found the system because all of his selections from his list were on ours and we had no extra over and above his list. We are not sure to this day whether we discovered his system but whatever we had discovered looked profitable ! A 31% return on investment to be precise."

Looking at their recent flat results it's not that good.

KEM 4.05  CHEEKTOCHEEK F/C 13/8F, PRICE TAKEN 7/4, SP 11/8F

Good draw but dwelt at the start. Eased up to 3rd around 4f out and had to be ridden by
Adam Kirby. He didn’t finish at all which suggests that he may have an injury or he just
didn’t enjoy running on a different surface having previously running well at Wolverhampton
in a much better race.

KEM 6.05  MARTIAL ART F/C 13/8F, PRICE TAKEN 7/4, SP4/6F

Pulled like mad from the start and barged by Rome ( 3rd ) who was spooked by something
That didn’t seem to bother him much and 2f out he looked to have a chance, but faded tamely at the end.
Possibly pulled his chance away?

LIN 12.00 SOARING SPIRITS F/C 9/4F, PRICE TAKEN 5/4, SP 6/5F – 2ND

Always front rank, one of four vying for lead off the  turn, led for a few strides 50 yards from home but mugged just before line by a Henry Cecil newcomer.
CONCLUSION; Only runner did nothing wrong, just got collared by what may be a decent sort of Cecil’s who drifted in the market

WOL 8.20 SUPER SAY F/C 5/2F, PRICE TAKEN  6/4,  SP 11/8f – 2nd

Kept in 3rd.Came to challenge off the bend, but the winner ( Desert |Vision )  had stole a march by then and kept on well.
Our jockey dropped his whip, but to be fair that made no difference and was beaten fair and square.

VIEWS
The theory about information from Daily newspapers might be workable but entails a lot of research and data input to prove the worthiness.
Having entered the spot picks from Daily Mirror and Express for the last 12 months (FLAT racing) the theory can be tested.

The database has 6273 races of which 2103 were won by a "spot horse"
Favourites account for 1167 winners and of those 348 were odds on.
Double figure S.P's (10/1 plus) amount to 130 and there were 25 winners that range from 20/1 to 33/1.

The most prolific trainer for "spot" runners on AW was Mark Johnston with 109 runners and provided 26 winners but there was a level stake loss.
Sticking to "double spot" runners provided 13 winners from 34 runners but still a level stake loss. (just backing "double spot" Southwell runners would have yielded a small profit).

It's not all doom and gloom though as there are already some gems from a skimp AW analysis.
One of them is David Simcock "spot" runners - which have a 73% strike rate when the S.P is limited
and further extract left 15 wins and 2 seconds from 18 runners to show 16 point level stake profit.

Would it have made a profit on MJ's Glorious Goodwood runners?
Actually it did this year... 7.8 points

One years results may not be enough though?