Betting Strategy / Robin Keck / 02 September 2009 / Leave a comment

Robin admits the Flat season doesn't stir his soul like the jumps and is foreseeing bigger winnings as horses take to the obstacles...

"Passionate Flat racing fans will have to forgive me but I just don't get the same buzz from the summer fare. Seeing a horse fly through the air with jockeys risking literally everything is the pinnacle for me plus the small matter of tending to make money betting on the jumps and often losing it on the Flat."

Just 197 days to go until the Cheltenham Festival. Memories of Sea The Stars are already beginning to fade and I'm starting to dream of cold winter nights and Kauto Star and Denman going head to head and toe to toe up Cleeve hill. Passionate Flat racing fans will have to forgive me but I just don't get the same buzz from the summer fare. Seeing a horse fly through the air with jockeys risking literally everything is the pinnacle for me plus the small matter of tending to make money betting on the jumps and often losing it on the flat. As my confidence rises, I'll be taking a far more aggressive stance with my virtual column pot (ooohh I'm brave) during the winter and will reach my £1000 target hard held before my Jan 1st deadline.

Enough of dreams - let's recap on last week. Another quietish few days but producing a tidy profit thanks to a couple of healthy priced winners at Epsom from the Andrew Balding stable.

It can't be easy for Andrew to prove himself when he works in a job that had a total applicant tally of one. Owners may have been sceptical that junior has the talents of the father but perhaps the younger mind is more open to newer training methods offsetting the relative lack of experience. It's the stable's consistency that has really impressed me this season as an in form stable is often purely taking advantage of well handicapped horses due to a previous cold spell.

In his case their success has been far more sustained and his two-year-olds have particularly caught the eye this season with an impressive 20% strike rate and a handsome level stakes profit. His confidence in Andrew Buick has proved well founded as whilst he's very good now he is going to be sensational when he reaches his teens (okay I'm joking but have you seen him on the telly?).

Linda Stubbs and Debbie Mountain will remain on my hot and cold lists respectively for reasons mentioned previously and they are having too few runners to prove me right or wrong. I'm promoting Dianne Sayer, Paul Midgley and Brian Millman to the hot list for their recent 'below the radar' outperformances and I'm adding Evan Williams to the cooler. Evan is a obviously a very good trainer but the market seems to almost over respect him on occasions. It doesn't need much of a lull from that starting point to create some juice for the layers.

Total Starting Bank = £250.00
Closing Bank after Week Thirteen = £253.67
Week Fourteen Result = +£56.55
Closing Bank = £ 310.22

Tags: Andrew Balding, Andrew Buick, Brian Millman, Cheltenham Festival, Dianne Sayer, Paul Midgley