Betting Strategy / Robin Keck / 19 October 2009 / Leave a comment

Our betting blogger has played his wildcard drafting in a phalanx of new handlers as the racing

"The final addition to my all ‘Hot’ list stable is Alan Fleming who trains the highly promising Starluck. After an excellent debut season last year Alan’s runners ran poorly post Cheltenham as though something was amiss. I’m hoping a few of them will be a little over priced for their seasonal debuts based on those poor runs in April/May and there may be a little bit of value for us."

It's bye bye to an old friend this week as we bid so long and a final farewell to Ronnie Barr. He's been a star for this column and his followers over the last two months but after four losers this week I suspect the handicapper has most of his string within his grasp. I'll miss the one-eyed 'Sea Salt' the most who has landed me a couple of punts this season.

Whilst it was a quiet week in terms of total runners for this column it was still a poor result and I'm going to have a total clear out. My speculative support of Stuart Kittow didn't pay off and he's cut although I have a terrible sense of foreboding about that decision. Ditto Kim Bailey whose recent runners haven't showed signs of continuing his smart early season form. Opposing Tim Vaughan was plucky but didn't do too much damage as his second runner obliged automatically cutting him from my cold list.

I first caught on to the importance of stable form many years ago when the harvest mice at James Fanshawe's stable were winning races (I'm bored of the stable cat metaphor). Well he's back again with his last four going in and he's on the hot list.

James Lambe isn't as 'below radar' as I usually like due to his regular booking of AP McCoy but with recent form figures of 1112121 I simply can't ignore him and I'm playing double-stakes on all of his for the next week. To complete the James' obsession I'm adding Mr Hetherton who is a more speculative choice with just two recent winners (including Madam Macie at BSP 95.14) and he can be joined by Nigel Tinkler and Lee Smyth whose strings are running better than their prices would suggest.

The final addition to my all 'Hot' list stable is Alan Fleming who trains the highly promising Starluck. After an excellent debut season last year Alan's runners ran poorly post Cheltenham as though something was amiss. I'm hoping a few of them will be a little over priced for their seasonal debuts based on those poor runs in April/May and there may be a little bit of value for us.

An all 'Hot' stable of six trainers isn't my usual style but I believe the seasonal hand over from Flat to jumps is the perfect time to strike. Some Flat trainers still have their teams in excellent form and the jumps trainers have varying schedules on how cherry ripe to have their runners for their seasonal debuts. Identifying the right jumps trainers quickly and being aggressive with my stakes is my strategy as this a make or break week as I strive to get momentum back towards my £1,000 target by New Years Day.

Total Starting Bank = £250.00
Closing Bank after Week 20 = £665.77
Week 21 Result = - £52.20
Closing Bank = £613.57

Tags: James Fanshawe, James Hetherton, James Lambe, Kim Bailey, Nigel Tinkler, Ronnie Barr, Starluck, Stuart Kittow, Tim Vaughan