Back to Trading School

After messing around during May with the US racing I knew that June and the re-start of UK & Irish racing would be like the first day back at school.

Not too sure how I should feel about my June Exchange Trading performance, but I am very disappointed with myself.

In my update of last month’s trading (read May’s update here) the last paragraph said I was expecting a Green month and I finished by saying “One thing I can confidently predict is, I won’t be having 6 Red days that’s for sure.”

Well, I had seven Red days and although it wasn’t by much I was in the Red overall.

On the positive side I’ve learned a lot including the following main points.

UK and US flat racing are like chalk and cheese.

5f and 6f races are to be avoided at all costs and 7f treated very cautiously indeed unless you are a very good In-Running (IR) trader. Sadly I didn’t learn this lesson till later in the month.

Straight tracks offer little potential for horses to get boxed in and present IR traders with very few totally safe opportunities.

One good thing that worked well was that towards the end of May I reset my bank to £500 and set my Bet Angel (BA) servants to have my liability set to 5% of my bank. The idea being that as I started winning my bank and my stakes would grow organically. Or my stakes would reduce if I started losing!

My daily report is here (I write this each day as I go along so mood swings are all in evidence) and below that is my summary, my thoughts and plans for July.

June 1^st

Starting bank £500

So UK Racing is back!!

Newcastle is probably the worst track for In-Running traders. The “one mile straight” is awful to trade, as it’s quite wide so almost impossible for anything to get boxed in and there is, as the name one mile straight suggests, no bend to cause the runners any problems.

With the slight uphill finish, I’ve been caught out in the past there and had a HUGE red because of a last gasp win by a horse I’d laid.

If there were 3 other meetings on today, I wouldn’t even have looked at the races as I dislike it so much.

However, after all this wait, I wasn’t going to miss it for anything.

Neither was anyone else by the look as the 1^st race had about £1.2million traded.

One thing that really made me angry was the piss poor quality of the Betfair live feed. For the last two months or more I’ve been watching US races via live feed from Tampa Florida that have been crystal clear and solid as a rock.

Andrew who runs Back For Profit made the point that Tampa is about 4,500 miles from his house and he lives less than 30 miles from Newcastle and yet they couldn’t provide in-play video that meant you could safely trade the first few races.

The pictures did slightly improve through the day, but it was very disappointing.

The day turned out well in the end though as my patience was rewarded. First 8 races zero trades, though I didn’t even watch some of them as they didn’t fit the criteria. Then race 9 Bingo!

My bank is £500 to start the month and I have my liability set to 5% of bank so just £25.

Spotted a great opportunity on the Fav and got in when the price was still very low. I was in and out of the trade very quickly and after I was fully matched the horse sort of woke up and started running properly. It went on to win so that made it slightly sweeter for me.

Laying horses with a £25 liability means you are not going to get huge wins but just over £8 from those stakes is pretty good, percentage wise.

I didn’t bother watching race 10 and just switched off and banked a winning day.

Number of Races 9

Traded 1, 0 losses, 1 win. Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £8.14

Daily Total: Plus £8.14

Bank £508.14

June 2^nd

Starting Bank £508.14

Newcastle and Kempton today only watched one Newcastle race all the rest I watched were at Kempton as the races were on Racing TV (RTV).

Only a few of the races matched my criteria and of those they offered little in the way of safe trades.

Traded just two races, both were poor prices and on one of them I didn’t even get all my lay bet matched so won just pennies.

Number of Races 6

Traded 2, 0 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £1.05

Daily Total: Plus £1.35

Bank £509.49

June 3^rd

Starting Bank £509.49

Not entirely sure what I was thinking today. It wasn’t good though.

The big loss was a B2L on a Fav that went forward and got the lead. After the back bet was placed it did start to shorten in price, and I got close but not quite close enough to getting matched.

Number of Races 12

Traded 6, 3 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss £9.47, biggest win £1.61

Daily Total: Minus – £10.85

Bank £498.64

June 4^th

Starting Bank £498.64

Bad racing again today only one meeting on RTV and that didn’t offer a lot. I traded poorly again today and even though I got away with it I wasn’t happy about the day. I need to tighten up a bit more and wait until Monday 8^th when things will be back to something like normal.

On Monday we have Chelmsford City, Haydock Park and Naas on RTV and Lingfield on Betfair Video that will give me loads to go at and should enable me to relax and pick my spots better.

I entered 2 trades today I shouldn’t have. One of them was successful but it was not a 100% safe trade the other one I at least had the sense to scratch from.

My first trade of the day was funny. I try not to Lay anything over 10.0 so I always concentrate on the top 3 in the market. I was watching a horse which was about 4.5 and when I got the confirmation I was looking for, I clicked the button. I was concentrating on the race so much I didn’t realise the price had shot out.

I laid it at 38.0 and only got a small fraction of my bet matched even at that price. I won 5p.

My last trade of the day was the only decent trade I made.

Ended up with a green day but I need to be better than this.

Number of Races 10

Traded 4, 0 losses, 3 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £1.80

Daily Total: Plus £3.19

Bank £501.83

June 5^th

Starting Bank £501.83

Tactical riding and the speed of some of these races is causing me problems at the minute. I’m going to avoid all races below 1-mile from tomorrow. Not forever but I think I need to just get used to the pace of these races for a little while.

Number of Races 12

Traded 4, 1 loss, 3 wins, Biggest loss £10.32, biggest win £2.92

Daily Total: Minus – £5.75

Bank £496.08

June 6th

Starting Bank £496.08

Frustrating day had an odds-on Fav was an easy trade but I just hesitated a bit too long and missed the price when it shot out.

Did get one half decent trade but not many races fit the criteria and had some more issues with the BF videos. My internet speed seems to fluctuate up and down a bit lately I need to try and get it sorted.

Sometimes I’m getting 100Mb download and sometimes its 20Mb.

Number of Races 8

Traded 1, 0 losses, 1 win, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £2.59

Daily Total: Plus £2.59

Bank £498.67

June 7th

Starting Bank £498.67

Slightly better day for trading with 2 meetings on RTV and only Lingfield on Betfair Video.  I was cautious and avoided lots of races.

Four small greens but all nice and safe.

Number of Races 9

Traded 4, 0 losses, 4 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £2.14

Daily Total: Plus £4.50

Bank £503.17

June 8^th

Starting Bank £503.17

A day for real patience. Three afternoon meetings all on RTV so I expected lots of golden opportunities today but that was not the case. Most races didn’t fit the criteria for my trading plan so just 2 trades today by the time I switched off Bet Angel at 16.20

So, when you look at my result for the day and see just a £1 profit it doesn’t tell the whole story. I feel I had a pretty good day.

Number of Races 20

Traded 2, 0 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £0.94

Daily Total: Plus £1.18

Bank £504.35

June 9^th

Starting Bank £504.35

Steam literally coming out of my ears I’m so mad with myself. What should have been a steady day with £5 profit turned into a loss.

I spoke to Andrew on the phone after the race. He’d not traded it, but he watched the race on replay and we discussed it.

Andrews opinion was there were reasons he wouldn’t necessarily have entered when I did, but the trade wasn’t a hugely obvious mistake and he could see why I entered the trade.

The point we mainly discussed was, “did I need to trade the race at all?”

Wolverhampton 5f race with unraced horses is not really something that someone with my ability/experience should even be looking at.

At the time the race started I was already £5.50 in profit and if I could turn the clock back, I’d have switched off the PC and called it a day before the race even started.

Number of Races 20

Traded 6, 1 loss, 4 wins, Biggest loss £11.17, biggest win £3.52

Daily Total: Minus – £3.73

Bank £500.62

June 10^th

Starting Bank £500.62

Found another way to lose today. A 1m6f race and laid one where the jockey was giving it a crack with the whip when way out. However, it was just being lazy and the jockey needed to get on its case to get it moving.

I wasn’t the only newbie in the Telegram room that made the same mistake. At least three others of the new members admitted they’d traded the same horse and had a red trade. That fact made me feel slightly better about it but only just. I’ve had this happen to me in a race over the jumps once (before I joined B4P) where the jockey was working so hard on a horse at the end on the first lap it really didn’t look like it would even complete the course but somehow it won.

Andrew posted his views on the race for us afterwards.

He said “The big mistake was not so much the entry but the fact that it looked the most likely winner from 5f out and we would have been given many opportunities to get out for a scratch at that point but turned them down”.

Its tough to judge as on many occasions I trade out for a scratch in a race being ultra-cautious and the horse doesn’t win and I’ve ended up with a zero when I could actually have had a green.

I did realise all to late it was going tits up and tried to save some of my liability (about £25 currently) and I managed to get it down to an £11 loss. Lesson hopefully learned.

Number of Races 20

Traded 5, 1 loss, 4 wins, Biggest loss £11.35, biggest win £4.64

Daily Total: Minus – £6.37

Bank £494.25

June 11^th

Starting Bank £494.25

No trades today. Betfair issues meant many races were not safe to trade. Bloody awful really on top of the shit videos we’ve had since the UK racing re-started again. The videos are so bad I can’t trade safely unless the races are on RTV so I was looking forward to a nice afternoon with Newbury, Beverley & Gowan Park all on RTV but the Betfair API crashes!

By the time it looked safe again I’d missed most races and watched a couple with no trade and called it a day. Probably best.

Number of Races 2

Traded 0, 0 losses, 0 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win N/A

Daily Total: Zero

Bank £494.25

June 12th

Starting Bank £494.25

Poor races on offer with regards to the criteria I’m looking for.

Got a couple of decent opportunities but the prices were not great, and I didn’t get fully matched so poor returns today. Happy for a small green though.

Switched off early and called it a day.

Number of Races 6

Traded 2, 0 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £0.86

Daily Total: Plus £0.98

Bank £495.23

June 13th

Starting Bank £495.23

This is the sort of day where I start to question whether I’ll ever be able to be successful at trading. One lack of discipline cost me a full liability loss and then lost another full liability where caution with my entry point meant I was so slow to enter my lay trade on the fav so it was drifting way out and I got 8.0

Others in the telegram room were in and out by that price as several did a successful trade on it. It stormed up to win and I couldn’t save any of my stake.

Currently feel I’d struggle to lay this many winners if I just randomly picked one pre-race. I just seem to be fluctuating between being too cautious or not cautious enough and I’m getting punished either way for it every time.

Number of Races 18

Traded 5, 2 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss £23.80, biggest win £1.15

Daily Total: Minus – £44.37

Bank £450.86

June 14th

Starting Bank £450.86

After yesterday where I couldn’t do anything right, today was the opposite. I took out every 5,6 & 7f race from my list of races before I even started and found a couple of good ones to watch. The best win of the day was a great trade I entered at the right time and was fully matched quite quickly. It made me feel a lot better about trading!

Number of Races 16

Traded 4, 0 losses, 4 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £3.49

Daily Total: Plus £6.21

Bank £457.07

June 15th

Starting Bank £457.07

Another day where it seemed almost too easy. In the B4P telegram group there are 3 rooms. One of them is just for Andrews Course Guides. In there he posts a video each day with his insights on trading for each track that has racing on that day.

Just lately I’ve been avoiding the 5f & 6f races like the plague but based on what I learnt from the course report I knew that a 6f race at Fairyhouse might offer a safe trade and so it proved. I got my biggest trade of the day on the Fav “Slade Runner” a L2B where my entry point was 3.10

Number of Races 15

Traded 4, 0 losses, 4 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £3.20

Daily Total: Plus £7.12

Bank £464.19

June 16th

Starting Bank £464.19

Good job I didn’t miss the first race as it was slim pickings after that one. Ascot races were very competitive pricewise, so they didn’t fit my criteria and not much obvious at Thirsk either.

Knocked it on the head early as the weather was so good, and I thought I go out for my daily walk. For the last 7 weeks I’ve gone for a walk every day. I’m doing 6,000 steps per day and it takes me about 50 -55 minutes. Most people have put weight on during lockdown, but I’ve actually lost some which is good.

Number of Races 12

Traded 2, 0 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £4.43

Daily Total: Plus £4.56

Bank £468.75

June 17th

Starting Bank £468.75

When I have a bad day its often a really bad one and this is a great example. 4 trades laid 3 winners. You’d be hard pushed to do that if you were trying to.

Shameful discipline and trying to watch races in-between working on something important is never going to work. After I switched off BA having done my bollocks (about 3.50 pm) others in the telegram group (the successful ones) had not done a single trade.

Of course, not long after I switch BA off the Telegram room lights up with everyone simultaneously typing in that they smashed a losing Fav for chunks. So their patience was rewarded with an easy trade and my ill discipline got what it deserved.

I’d just done three days where I’d waited for the easy ones, this is so poor I’m genuinely ashamed with myself. Seriously WTF am I doing?

Number of Races 12

Traded 4, 3 losses, 1 win, Biggest loss £15.56, biggest win £0.37

Daily Total: Minus – £36.39

Bank £432.36

June 18^th

Starting Bank £432.36

Day off today. I had a socially distanced work meeting to go to that took most of the afternoon and after yesterday I thought it might be a good idea to miss the day anyway. So when I got back home I didn’t fire up BA to catch the evening races.

I did spend some time reflecting on what went wrong yesterday and I’ve decided that going forward that at any one time I either need to be trading or working while on my PC I can’t be doing both.

Bank £432.36

June 19^th

Starting Bank £432.36

Right workwise I’m exceptionally busy right now so I’ve decided to pick my races to look at and concentrate on just those but give them 100% of my attention while they are on. I had it in my mind to stop trading after my very first trade of the day win or lose.

So my plan was give more attention to trading (no doing work stuff) but for less overall time so I could just switch off BA and RTV and get back to work as soon as I’d clicked the L2B button once!  

Got a reasonably good one. In @ 3.85 and out @ 5.73 (av prices).

Based on using my 5% bank as a liability (£432.36 x 5%) I can only lay something to lose about £21 so I can’t win much. So a £2.44 green is pretty good on that basis.

Number of Races 3

Traded 1, 0 losses, 1 win, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £2.44

Daily Total: Plus £2.44

Bank £434.80

June 20^th

Starting Bank £434.80

Really tested my patience and discipline today. So few races with a make up that suited what I’m looking for. I’m glad Ascot is finished as so many of the races there were super competitive pricewise.

Anyway waited and waited and finally got a small trade done.

Number of Races 7

Traded 1, 0 losses, 1 win, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £1.00

Daily Total: Plus £1.00

Bank £435.80

June 21st

Starting Bank £435.80

Just the one trade again so very disciplined but if the one you lay wins its not much use. Odds on Fav 10 lengths and 10 horses ahead of it made me enter a lay on the 2^nd Fav but then the Fav died on its feet.

Although I closed the trade as soon as I saw the favourites jockey struggling to keep it moving (It was still in about 8^th place at this point) I couldn’t save £7.15 of my money.

Number of Races 6

Traded 1, 1 loss, 0 wins, Biggest loss £7.15, biggest win N/A

Daily Total Minus – £7.15

Bank £428.65

June 22^nd

Starting Bank £428.65

Because there were some summer jumps on in the evening, I decided to effectively have 2 trading sessions today. I didn’t want to miss the jumps as I think they are so much easier than the flat.

Worked out OK and I got one (at my stakes) decent trade from a nice safe situation. 

Number of Races 12

Traded 3, 0 losses, 3 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £9.62

Daily Total: Plus £10.05

Bank £438.70     

June 23^rd

Starting Bank £438.70

Another day to test the patience and I was equal to the test. One very small red where I instantly traded out when I had he slightest inkling that the horse wasn’t behaving as I initially thought it was.

Number of Races 9

Traded 4, 1 loss, 3 wins, Biggest loss £0.39p, biggest win £2.10

Daily Total: Plus £2.97

Bank £441.67     

June 24^th

Starting Bank £441.67

In what has been an up and down June, I had my best day of the month so far results wise and I felt it was a good day as well. I treated it like two separate sessions again, afternoon flat 3 meetings on RTV for session one and an evening jumps meeting at Roscommon also on RTV. (I never even watched Windsor as the BF videos are a pile of pants currently and I didn’t need to take the added risk with 4 RTV meetings today) *

I wouldn’t normally trade just one evening meeting if I’d done the afternoon session, but I really prefer the jumps.

I actually had a red today for £4.64 but even that didn’t spoil the day. I was right to lay it (my mentor, Andrew, laid the same horse) and the only thing was I waited just a little bit longer than I should have. If I’d got in earlier, I would have got out before they came to the bend about 3f out and I wouldn’t have needed to trade out for the red. Andrew was in and out before the bend but to be fair he is different class to me.

He showed me how much he won on the race, but he won’t let me post it in here. He is very modest so doesn’t post up green screens. I wish he’d post that one up it would give the twitter trolls something to moan about. Suffice to say if I could win that much in a month I’d be thrilled to bits!

The horse in question didn’t ultimately win but I took the red to be cautious and I’m happy with that decision.

My best trade was a nice B2L for £8.48 as I win more on those than L2B’s with the way those work.

What I really did enjoy though was the jumpers at Roscommon.  Had a couple of very safe easy ones there.

* I wonder how much less Betfair get traded in-running when the races are not on RTV, it must make a difference. If you are thinking of laying something for a grand you don’t want the video freezing at the wrong moment. Even a one second freeze can be awfully expensive.

Number of Races 18

Traded 6, 1 loss, 5 wins, Biggest loss £4.64p, biggest win £8.48

Daily Total: Plus £13.97

Bank £455.64

June 25^th

Starting Bank £455.64

Not a great day for B4P members. Very few races during the afternoon that even remotely met our strict criteria.

I did one scratch and two small winning trades. The weather was baking so I think an awful lot of the Telegram room regulars opted for the garden and a cold beer today. Part timers!

Number of Races 8

Traded 3, 0 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss N/A , biggest win £3.52

Daily Total: Plus £4.49

Bank £460.13

June 26^th

Starting Bank £460.13

Weather outside extremely hot again but I had work to do, otherwise I might have had a day off today!

One race where I made a bit of a hash of things but otherwise an OK day.

The Red was a race where I had a “rabbit in the headlights” panic mode kick in. It has been a long time since I’ve had that and switching from one horse to another mid-race before getting out of the first trade was the start of the panic mode.

Anyone new to IR will go into panic mode now and then. Compared to pre-race everything happens a lot faster and when you start in a bad position and then make rash decisions to make things considerably worse.

At least this time I was able to calm down, take a breath and salvage something from the wreckage for just a £2.74 loss. To lose just 12% of my liability from the position I was in at one point was fairly good.

Number of Races 14

Traded 3, 1 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss £2.74, biggest win £6.09

Daily Total: Plus £8.07

Bank £468.20

June 27^th

Starting Bank £468.20

I was really cheesed off that I missed the very first race of the day switching on BA about a minute after it finished. Everyone in the Telegram group smashed the beaten Fav for chunks.

I then sit there all afternoon waiting patiently for something similar to come along. After loads of crap races where I don’t click my mouse even once for over two hours, I then do a trade.

At first I thought it was OK but I did have a worrying few seconds after laying it where the trade could have gone either way. I didn’t think any more of it but Andrew rang me later for a de-brief and we discussed the trade. I got a bollocking for it.

I replayed the race while he was telling me why it was bad, and I realise he was right. Basically, it was what he calls a 70/30 trade, meaning if I did the same trade 100 times, I’d get away with it 70 times but 30 times I’d be looking at a Red.

The way it works with L2B’s, with a 70/30 strike rate you’ll go broke!

My other trades were fine so as I got away with the 70/30 one, I ended up with a reasonable day.

Number of Races 16

Traded 3, 0 losses, 3 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £2.83

Daily Total: Plus £8.31

Bank £476.51

June 28^th

Starting Bank £476.51

No evening races on a Sunday and I had family popping round to sit in my garden during the afternoon (at a suitable social distance) so I was severely restricted with my screen time today.

I promised Andrew the last time I spoke to him that I wouldn’t push things to try and get back in the green by the end of the month. The best way for me to get in the green though is avoid any reds at all. So, I was actually very cautious and missed a couple of chances.

Anyway 2 small wins and I’m close to breakeven with just 2 days to go!

Number of Races 7

Traded 2, 0 losses, 2 wins, Biggest loss N/A, biggest win £2.60

Daily Total Plus £2.90

Bank £479.41

June 29^th

Starting Bank £479.41

Jumps at Kilbeggan I felt offered me the best chance of success today, so I moved my trading window from the early shift to the later afternoon and early evening slot. I switched Bet Angel on just before 3.00pm and the first race I traded was the 3.15pm.

I’m busy workwise at the moment so I can’t spare the time to sit for seven-to-eight-hours just trading. So I missed out all the races from 12.00 – 3.00 on purpose.

I’ve discovered recently that trying to trade while working or visa versa doesn’t end well.

The problem I had though was that the trading make-up of the races at Kilbeggan left a lot to be desired.

Although I promised NOT to chase a green month in these last few days, at just £20.59 in the Red at the start of play with just today and tomorrow to go, I’d be lying if I hadn’t at least thought to myself “Two x £10 days will do it for me”

I wasn’t pleased therefore that the trading make-up of the races at Kilbeggan and Thirsk left a lot to be desired. There was a run of such bad races from 5.30 – 7.30 that I couldn’t be bothered to sit there for two hours just waiting for the later ones after being on my PC from 10.00 am.

It is all flat racing tomorrow so I don’t think I can do it now without pushing things, so I’ve mentally come to terms with the fact that I will be Red for the month.

That apart I had a reasonable day with just one small Red to spoil it.

Number of Races 17

Traded 5, 1 loss, 4 wins, Biggest loss £3.28, biggest win £6.69

Daily Total Plus £7.37

Bank £486.78

June 30th

Starting Bank £486.78

So last day of the month and £13.22 in the Red at the start of play…

Well I gave it everything. The first race I watched today was 12.45 and the last one was the last race of the day at 9.00pm.

I had a couple of breaks in between mainly enforced breaks when there were no races that matched my criteria and a dinner break.

I just ran out of races in the end. 

Happy with my discipline though because although I watched every race possible to make the £13, I didn’t raise my stakes or take any chances.

In fact in the very last race I scratched out on a trade when I could easily have took a chance and let it run. It didn’t win so I could have got away with it, but trading out was the right thing to do in the circumstances.

I laid the Fav “Gold Arch” in a 2m race and it was last for virtually the whole race and never looked like it was interested but the price just refused to drift. I was in the green zone but only a small green so when it got to the business end and it started to move forward I just traded out.

It finished quite well for 2^nd place, but it never looked like it would catch the winner.

Number of Races (Lost count)

Traded 6, 1 loss, 4 wins, Biggest loss £2.14, biggest win £4.88

Daily Total Plus £10.42

Bank £497.20

Trading Results for June

Summary

I’ve been through the wringer mentally this month that’s for sure. After racing finished on the 17^th June I was ready to quit. My mind was swirling with doubts that I would ever make this pay.

It is hard to express how much of a help it is that I have a mentor to talk to after days like this. Since I joined Back for Profit (you can read my review here) Andrew Banthorpe has been most helpful.

Anyone in the room can book a one-to-one phone call with him if they want to and I’m guessing I do so more than most!

When I’ve had bad losses, Andrew reviews the race with me and we analyse it together. He is so good he really is.

Positives to move forward with.

In the cold light of day, I can point to some improvements that I’ve made throughout the month and a few minor tweaks to my trading that will also pay dividends long term.

On the mechanical side I’ve added a couple of extra rules into my BA Servants and also fixed one of the servants I’d never had set up right since I joined B4P. These small adjustments will certainly help.

I finished the month with 9 consecutive Green days and during my discussions with Andrew we have decided that I’m like a football team that doesn’t start trying until I’m two nil down.

Mentally towards the end of the month when I was fighting really hard to get out of a Red month, I traded with far more discipline and determination and as a result I was trading much better.  

It’s almost like I have to put myself under pressure to make me take it seriously.

Overall, I haven’t enjoyed the flat racing much in June but there will be more jumps meetings to come so that does give me cautious optimism.

In the last couple of months I’ve gone from being a consistent losing trader to being a break even one so that financially at least is a big plus.

My experience grows each month but I know I must approach the start of July the way I ended June. If I can continue to channel that determination I will surely do well.