Do others ever undertake to evaluate their own betting strengths and weaknesses by way of reviewing performance over a period of time?

I have recently completed a review of my own betting for the racing season just completed.

Some of the most startling facts I discovered included:

distance range
worst - 1201-1400 (this is also where I had the most bets!)- I am not sure what to make of this as it is very much worse than the other brackets?
best - < 1200

field size
worst - 13-15
best - < 8

note - significantly poorer SR and profitability on fields > 12

metro track (min 10 bets)
worst - Randwick (slightly over Kensington/Inner)
best - Sandown (not a huge sample)

Provincial results were also considerably poorer than metros.

I hope I haven't bored anybody with this small piece of self indulgence however I hope it encourages you to have a look at your own operations. (this will of course require diligent record keeping)

thekey,

Self analysis and intense recordkeeping are some of the most important ingredients to a successful punting career. Congratulations to you.

I have also done a bit of streamlining of late and came up with these little gems...

1. Two and three year old horses are much more likely to string two or more wins together (in a row) than say five or six year old horses.
2. The older the horse, the more runs it takes to hit best form.
There are exceptions to the rules, but I would have avoided many losing bets if I had taken this into account.
E.G. Had I waited for the older horses to win after a spell and then let them have one run after that win and backed them from there on, I would have made a much greater profit for the year!
Obviously Sports was an exception here, but it's second placing before the win was a very good run.

There was a period of about 5 years before I started punting seriously, where I never kept records and just hoped for a winning day based on my own hunches and very basic form assessment. After making a few calculations on average bets etc, I was astounded as to how much money I was losing!!!
So from there on, I started devoting time and energy to record keeping and intensive research and analysis to turn a very big loss into a reasonable income.
Just shows that whatever it is in life, you only get out what you put into it.


[ This Message was edited by: Equine Investor on 2002-08-25 18:19 ]

I totally agree that you must keep detailed records of your bets and regularly review them if you want to be successful. This is the only way you can find out where your strengths and weaknesses are - you can then concentrate on improving your weak areas or simply cutting them from your betting system and going with your strengths. For example through my record keeping I identified that my system was losing money on Slow/Heavy tracks so I have simply stopped betting on these conditions until I can work out why.

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