The 1st of November approaches and for those of you who have been dropping sonar buoys to determine my activities, read onI’m currently on a business trip in the US and work and some personal issues may delay my punting activities after the 1st November.How are the new punting methods going? Very well! As I wrote previously, I’ve taken a more targeted approach to punting as it keeps things nice and simple instead of trying to be a jack of all trades and master of none.

The chosen mode of punting is the All Weather, in summary here’s how the methods have changed to attack this race category.

Firstly, as Mark Cotton wrote in “100 hints…”, I am evaluating each and every contender in All Weather races during my analysis of the race. Why? The majority of races on the sand are framed by the BHB to be contentious. Therefore nothing can be assumed and dismissed lightly.

My experiments have determine the key to determine contenders in a field of unreliable and low grades horses is to look for horses that have things going for them given the current conditions of the race.

I wrote previously that pace within the race is more important that draw berth. This is the case however further analysis of my records have determined that the pace aligned with the draw should be factored during analysis for each and every distance (up to 1 mile) at all the All Weather circuits. Why? In summary draw position is a factor of how close the first bend is to the start. I’ll leave the reader to work out details.

I was fortunate to meet Tooting in person during slipperytoad’s birthday bash at Wolverhampton and in the bar during post race analysis of each race on the card that day, he shared with me a technique he uses to visualise the likely positions of each runner when the gates open. I’ve modified my current pace analysis technique to accommodate his method and this change has improved my prediction of the likely pace scenario in the race no end.

Other factors that I have modified, Trainer and Jockey form All Weather form are modifiers and not eliminators; the process of assessing the changes of All Weather debutants has been enhanced and includes the use of use sire progeny statistics.

No more tissues! Observations have determined that the benefit of early morning prices is to determine which horses have their cards marked by the bookmakers. Betfair prices provide an accurate enough guide to the chances of each contender..

Overall I now tend to give a horse the benefit of the doubt if it has been running poorly; as we’ll all seen, horses with a string of duck eggs win at some tasty prices.

The changes above are really modifications to the existing process, but the big change for the winter is that I will be joining the ranks of layers wishing to oppose horses on the All Weather circuits. Also after taking some advice from Mark Iverson I’ve also decided to join the trading ranks.After reviewing my experimental notes over the weeks (on months from previous records) I feel that I have determined laying and trading scenarios that should provide a steady drip of profits to add to my normal punts. Finally the major change is deployment of bets and when I bet if I cannot see the betting market just before the off then I’m afraid its no bet. I will also limit the majority of activities to weekend and evening races to ensure I keep the plates spinning in my day job which is becoming more and more demanding.

It’s been three years since embarking on my chosen path and I have the feeling that after some critical thinking, this winter is the start of stemming the steady decline in my performance.

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