What a good win we had on Monday with the selection STRAIDNAHANNA staying-on strong to win at the rewarding SP of 9/2, but readers of the blog were on at 10/1 in the morning. Unfortunately, the early-fav for the race, Another Hero, was withdrawn during the day resulting in a Rule-4 deduction of 25p in the £1 on winnings, effectively reducing our 10/1 odds to 15/2 – but still (I’m sure you will agree) a lot better than the 9/2 SP.
Currently, blog selections are showing a profit of £430.69 this season, on total stakes of £747.00; that is a Return on Investment (ROI) of 57.66% (I will update the header to reflect the current stats later). STRAIDNAHANNA was the 70th selection of the season to-date, of which there have been 13 winners and another 14 have been placed. That means a total of 27 of the 70 selections have been “in the money”.
Not only that, but the wealth of information given in the blog narrative meant that, for the 3rdtime in a week, readers could have placed an exacta wager on the 1st-2 finishers in the reviewed race which paid the equivalent of about 20/1, or 10/1 for a “reverse-exacta”.
Selections like this are when the alert list pays dividends, as I’ve had STRAIDNAHANNA on my alert list since he ran a good 2nd on his seasonal debut. He should almost have certainly have won at Haydock on his next appearance (we were on) but he fell at the 3rd-last fence when leading and looking to have the race at his mercy. When he went to Doncaster next, he ran well again but could not cope with the strong pace set by the improving Sego Success. This formline looks like coming to fruition this weekend should Sego Success run at Haydock in the Grand National Trial there on Saturday.
I’m hoping for a wager tomorrow, but it will all depend on the odds available when they are published. Be on the alert for an early email. The whole point about value wagers is that you consider the risks involved, and build them into your odds assessment. For instance, I knew STRAIDNAHANNA was apt to make errors when jumping (he nearly lost the race at the final fence) and so the odds at which the wager was struck had to allow for the “place” element to recover the “win” wager should the horse have only been placed, due to jumping errors. Hence, the lowest odds I would have accepted were 5/1, as most bookies were paying 5th odds for a place.
And, the same rules apply to antepost wagers.
So far, I’ve not recommended an antepost wager on the Cheltenham Festival, mainly as the plans for which races the horses will actually run in are rather fluid. However, this afternoon we have learned that the “Fav” for the Champion Hurdle: FAUGHEEN, is an non-runner due to a ligament strain. This brings a couple of factors back to the fore: (1) horses are flesh and bone like any other animal, and can suffer injury; (2) getting a horse race-fit to run perhaps the race of their lives at the most competitive meeting of the season is a gamble in itself. I remember when I was young that a well-known pundit (it may have been Alex Bird) reckoned that it was 5/1 a horse actually lining-up in a specific race – like the Grand National - so taking odds less than that antepost is lunacy.
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