And now a word form the Minister For The Bleeding Obvious: eliminating the bad races, the races where your selection system is least effective, increases the winning percentages in the fair to good races.
As I wrote - it could have come from the Minster For The Bleeding Office's press secretary but it is one of the most common faults you can see every day at your nearest betting shop or on track. Punters scrambling to get on as they go to the start, scratching around looking for a form guide line with seconds to go. Desperate for a horse or dog to bet on - any horse or dog, it doesn't matter - as long as they think they can find an angle.
The surest way to increase your winning percentage is to reduce the number of races you bet on if you can identify the weakest link in your chain.
In my case I simply won't bet on Maiden or Class 1 races anywhere in Australia. Why?
Some years ago, I was part of a syndicate that raced a horse. It actually won two races, a maiden at Devonport and a Class 1 at the old Deloraine course in Tasmania. Wonderful news, you say. Well, here's the rub - in reality that horse couldn't run out of sight on a foggy night over a cliff and yet it still managed to win two low class races. From that time on I started looking very closely at maidens and class 1 races and the very inconsistency of those races.
How many times do you read a race report for a Maiden race where the winner is described as "improved many lengths on it's only other run" and there was no way that you, astute punter that you are, could possibly have entered that improvement in to your calculations. Have a look at today's Maiden race fields - doesn't matter which day you are reading this - any day is the same and you will see in open Maiden class races horses that are 4 year old or 5 year old or 6 year old maidens!
Some poor sod has been paying up for these horses for years without a return. You want to join them in that pursuit? An astute trainer once told me he never bet on any horse that hadn't done the same "job" before - in other words, had won or placed in that distance range or had won so strongly in a weaker class of race that it was obvious it would handle the increase in class today.
In the week February 1, 2010 through to February 7, 2010 there were 243 races around Australia you could have invested your "hard earned" on - that's just about all all provincial tracks and the major meetings in each State on the Saturday. It does not include the plethora of overseas races either.
Because my weakest sector of my methodologies always is betting in maiden or Class 1 races I was able to eliminate IMMEDIATELY from consideration, 96 races out of the 243 - that's nearly 40% before I started applying the other filters that I usually do.
It greatly increases my winning percentages by simply making my life easier. 96 races I didn't have to rate. Hours and hours and hours freed up to other things rather than"study the form" or whatever you want to call it. Many hours not sitting in front of a live computer screen on race days - doing the other things that have to be done!
How do I really know that they are the weakest races? Records. Records. Records. I am sure you have read elsewhere many times about the importance of keeping records. It is essential to be able to review your favourite system's weakest links and eliminate them.
I keep every form guide for a year. Yes - every electronic form guide I download, I download it to a particular folder on my computer and leave it filed away there for a year. It's not like the old days where you would have kept every Sportsman and Sunday paper of choice and filled up half the spare bedroom with newspapers - much to your partner's disdain!
Electronic files take up very little space - in fact I can tell you exactly - from September 1 2009 through to February 10 2010 there are 5338 files in 770 folders taking up 171 MB - that's because that's what Windows Explorer tells me in their cute little square!
Before you can be successful at gambling on racing you have to be organised. A haphazard approach can only lead you to the door of doom.
You may find that your weakest form moments are looking at 50 to 55 rating races in New South Wales and 56 to 64 class races in Victoria. You want to know how many of them there are in any calendar month? Simply eliminate these races - reduce your loss leaders - stay in front.
It's not brain surgery yet so many punters seem to want to make so hard.
Every losing bet you don't have is really a winner in the overall scheme of things. Eliminate the bad races and turn your losers in to winners.