Betting Strategy: All about Sir Michael Stoute

General / Robin Keck / 15 June 2009 / Leave a Comment

Robin Keck talks us through the latest developments in his virtual stable.

This column's guidance was a bit of a non event this week with hardly any runners and my least favourite trainer (Sir Michael Stoute) killing off his short run of cold form with a winning favourite at Yarmouth. My rule to immediately sack cold trainers once they have a winner proved invaluable as six of his nine runners were placed including four winners and my Royal Ascot plans to get after him are well and truly off. I've been playing around with his name and have discovered that 'Touchiest Male' is a rather pleasing and apposite anagram. If you throw in the 'Sir' bit you can have 'Heroics stimulate' but I'm not so keen on that.

On paper, Richard Ford's three losers this week won't thrill my betting balance but this included a second place at BSP [9.74] to an odds-on shot and an unseated at Aintree when Lake Wakatipu and Rhys Flint disagreed on the way home from the second last.

I'm embarrassed to say I'd overlooked this entry from the stable so didn't quite know how to react when I saw he was four lengths clear and a very likely winner when the incident occurred. There is no excuse for a serious punter to overlook a runner like this and his BSP [8.29] would have been very painful reading if he'd won. In fact, I'm so confident in the ongoing form of this stable that I'm doubling my virtual stakes on his stables runners until further notice. I feel sorry for my virtual layer who will be wearing his bicycle clips at the races this week. Cue picture of a nervous bookmaker at the top of the column.

Irritatingly, I excluded all horses above BSP [11.0] from my cold stable bets and missed out on all bar one of Amanda Perrett's succession of losers. She stays firmly on the cold list. Sacking Ollie Pears from the hot list the previous week was less shrewd with Kabis Amigos delivering at BSP [11.28] and I'm popping him back on (annoyingly he had a winner while I was typing this).

I really am thrilled to see David Pipe back amongst the winners as he seems one of the more genuine trainers around and Acambo was his third winner in five runners this week.

I've been watching this yard particularly closely for months as it was woefully out of form for a long period despite the occasional decent priced winner. Acambo's win at Stratford was a perfect example of a horse that has been struggling for some unidentifiable reason but had suddenly been freed from his ailment. He hurdled beautifully and won with authority and I'm highly confident there is to come from him and his stable peers over the coming weeks.

Total Starting Bank = £250
Closing Bank after Week Two = £282.70
Week Three Result = - £7.80
Closing Bank =£274.90