Well that’s Cheltenham done for another year and glad to say a nice profit made yet again for readers of my What Really Wins Money Cheltenham special article.
Meetings like Cheltenham always get me thinking of the differing approaches punters take. Some may opt for the big handicaps and hope for a big priced winner at the expense of longer losing runs in between. Others, like myself, opt for the more solid and reliable form of playing in Non Handicap races.
The profits from such will never set the world alight, however they are strong steady gains that over time build and build without the massive fluctuations between profit and loss that playing in tricky handicaps normally delivers.
Ideally a mix of both race types would be good but in this game you have to play to your strengths and weaknesses and handicaps are not my area of strength so I tend to swerve them unless playing for a bit of fun.
I do have friends that absolutely love handicaps and can make some really nice gains over a very short period due to the odds they play at. The flip side is they can have losing runs of 20 or 30 on a pretty regular basis. However it works for them and they do tend to have huge betting banks in place and some mighty resilience to persevere when reaching their 29th losing bet in a row. Not for me however, as I would get to the stage where I would question when the next winner would arrive!
Short losing runs and smaller gains are my ideal route to profit and if possible plenty of turnover to upscale these smaller gains. There are plenty of non handicap races to choose from daily, not on the grand scale of Cheltenham of course, but get to know these races inside out and you’ll soon be making some very accurate predictions.
Don’t let me put you off handicaps either if that’s your wish but do remember under normal circumstances you will need a larger betting bank and a strong constitution unless you specialise in short priced handicaps, or ‘good things’ as they are called.
A book that has helped many in this area is a book by Stewart Simpson first published in 1981called ‘Always Back Winners’ and is available on Amazon. In this book Stewart points you in the direction of winners last time out and ones that quicken off the pace. The book is a bit dated now but the formula behind it still holds to this day and worth a read.