Robin Keck's Stable Form: Edging the profit upwards

Betting Strategy / Robin Keck / 14 July 2009 / Leave a Comment

Read Robin Keck's weekly assessment of the trainers to be with and to be against in the UK racing scene.

A gently positive week for this column with Andrew Balding having four winners from his 19 runners including Danger Mullally and Cool Strike obliging at BSP [14.33 ] and [14.3] respectively. I'm going to take a risk and stand him down this week as I sense his good run may be dying out.

Timing is everything in life and after enjoying a highly profitable week with Brian Meehan he had only Arcano's Newmarket victory to enjoy this week from 17 runners and he's off the hot list. On the flip side I got the timing wrong on David Pipe who had a couple of winners at a working man's price (I love that expression) and I'd sacked him a week too early.

Richard Ford is having very few runners but Inspirana won very easily at Chester on the Friday night before the same horse failed to justify favouritism the following day over a shorter trip. Back over a mile-and-a-half he'll oblige again as he was simply outpaced when attempting the follow up. I have a great reason for not backing the Friday evening victory as I was in a bar at Chester Races (!) and misjudged the off time. Amateur.

Speaking of Chester, forgive me relaying the following anecdote but it's made me chuckle ever since. I was staring up at the Tote screens when an apoplectic old man came up to me and said "I put £50 on earlier at the Tote desk on horse no 7 at York and the lady accidentally put it on a horse at Chester!!". I tried to look as alarmed as possible and replied "jeepers...and your horse won at York?" He looked up and said "nah, it got stuffed" and then walked off. I was dying to ask if the Chester horse had won but he was gone. It's those special moments on this ship of fools that make it all worthwhile and I'm convinced these things happen more often in this secret world of ours.

Anyway, back to my hot stables and Ian Williams' horses continued to run well and made a marginal profit for me but I think the value is disappearing and he's cut. Barry Hills and Michael Jarvis appear to have gone genuinely cool so they can have a week on the cold list while James Bethell's horses seem to have turned the corner after a quiet period and he's a hotty.

Total Starting Bank = £250.00
Closing Bank after Week Six = £276.22
Week Seven Result = + £32.20
Closing Bank = £308.42

It's hardly a Blue Peter Appeal but I'm grinding out a result here and only have £691.58 to go to reach my £1,000 column target by the end of the year.