Saturday 1st December

This is one of the most eagerly awaited Saturday's of the pre-Christmas National Hunt Autumn programme with the headline Fixture at Newbury backed up by top class action at Doncaster and Newcastle; a decent Irish NH Card and always competitive Bangor, there is also AW action for AW aficionados in there somewhere.

Whilst field sizes are a little below normal, and subject of hot Industry Press debate all week, there is no denying the quality. 

One aspect of Race Analysis and Tipping that can be a handicap is "perception". I am ever more mindful of this as we are in the process of preparing to launch some exciting "Systems Generated work" from an outstanding exponent in that field, and it strikes me that with a "system" you rely totally on something that a computer generates based on the information and criteria you request it for. The skill is of course in "asking the right questions and playing the right angles" and that is equally if not more skilled than old fashioned race analysis; but a computer has no "perception" like a human does, and in some scenarios I am beginning to see this as a significant benefit. Why so?

The Racing today again shows a significant and disproportionate number of quality horses making seasonal debut, that opens up all kinds of questions about fitness and well-being that we would normally be having in late October, yet we arrive at what is really normally the end of the beginning of phase 1 of the National Hunt season, with many Yards, especially the bigger ones yet to really "get going". It may be that there is another; potentially worrying factor at play here though; and that is that CHELTENHAM has become "so big" that it is beginning to affect some of the old wonderful and historic Autumn Fixtures, so that training programmes and schedules are becoming more and more focussed on 4-5 weeks in March and April than preparing in the Autumn for the Autumn Races and then slackening off training to come again in the Spring. I hope that this is not the case and that 2018 is just a "freak". This brings me back to the perception that in terms of form analysis, there are more unknowns than there would usually be, as so few top horses have yet run, hence a lack of confidence in their well being, and their trainers form, until they have.

All of that considered, it makes a tough Saturday doubly tough. We lost our planned most confident tip with THE SWEENEY - Doncaster 2.15 an early non runner this morning and today's logic is very much built on Race Fitness, Softening Ground form and seeking some value, so a 1/4 point Mention seems the logical staking route. I am desperate to get us back to full Staking Plan as that will happen in the coming weeks as things finally gain momentum.

We have Elite Service from David covering the 1.50 and 3.00 Races at Newbury. We also have Mentions (part of Daily Tips) in the 1.20 at Newbury; 2.5 at Doncaster and 3.20 at Newcastle.

DE NAME EVADES ME the sole tip yesterday ran a decent enough place to be 3rd, a small each way profit and we will hope for more of the same today from Daily and Elite selections (Elite was issued around 7am).

We will be formalising a lot of the RACING CLUB Plans over the weekend and some exciting and overdue plans will be announced next week, and as 2018 draws to a close a lot of planning and hard work for 2019 will start. The rationale has to be "evolution not revolution" and we will seek to evolve and to build a bigger and stronger Admin Team and function. As SP2A Owner I have been too pre-occupied with other things for most of the second half of 2018; and that either has to end or better support mechanisms have to be bought in to SP2A to facilitate getting back to what we do best which is delivering winners and profit and final decisions will be made over the weekend and rolled out to all SP2A Members early in the coming week.

 

Have a Great Weekend.


We will be back tomorrow at the usual Sunday time of around 10am and also be telling you a lot more then about a few exciting SYSTEMS that we have helped to mentor and work with and which have delivered some excellent and fully proofed results over the past 6 months on a Mentor Platform that we set up last year.