Rusty...

Today has had to of been one of the tightest days I've seen a long time. I eventually only had two bets and unfortunately one was a winner. Brighton was a no go for me, with the card offering absolutely nothing in the way of interesting to me. I was quietly content to see quite a few favourites go in. My first bet in anger was at Newmarket in a tight handicap over 7F. I love these types of races and when a horse is as short as Big Noise was I was certainly happy to take it on. I was pretty sure there were at least 3/4 horses in the race that could run Big Noise to a decent race and with Big Noise having his season opener against some race fit rivals it looked a nice lay. The negative was he was unexposed but my thinking was he'd of needed to run right upto his best form to be win and at 2.9/3.0 I certainly didn't think that was value. So 3% up and I'm thinking a nice 6% can be made...

My only other bet was using my two year old system, it happened to be at Haydock. It ended up being somewhat of a nightmare as the 2nd fav ended up with a S.P of 2/1 which meant it should also of been a lay but the price never got close on BF. I layed the favourite some way off it's SP too which didn't help matters lol. I guess I'm a little 'ring' rusty when it comes to reading the market. Having a whole winter off certainly has it's effects. So the outcome was a 6% loss on the race which should of been 3% but for the missed bet on the second favourite. The two year old system has been performing very well of late, it's only natural a winner will occur every so often, I'll calculate the exact percentage over the weekend...

So 3% down on the day, nothing disastrous on what was a very awkward day with most the favourites in my opinion holding very valid claims. I'm sure some of you might wonder what the hell? It's favourite for a reason dummy etc, but I make my living on finding false favourites and poor value ones, today just didn't offer those..

A big weekend ahead in terms of racing and hopefully ample opportunity for a successful weekend.

On a side note, I'm gutted United won the Champions League, Alex Ferguson grates me like nothing else, quite like his fellow countryman, Andrew Murray but that's for another post...

Get Paid.

My main aim for this summer's flat season is to get paid. Hopefully large amounts. That is probably stating the blindingly obvious but let me explain...

Ever since being a teenager, I've pretty much day dreamed/dreamt about having absolute boat loads of money to be able to whatever I want and buy whatever my heart desires. It burns pretty intensely in me, every single day. I know practically everyone would like that little bit extra cash but how many actually go after it? I am more hungry than I've ever been and I want to build on last season's successes and more. Keeping my hunger in line will be important as I've mentioned a thousand times on here, you are nothing without discipline.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm extremely passionate about my racing and I enjoy it more and more. It's a mental challenge that changes every single race with a whole new set of parameters. There aren't too many jobs in the world where that happens..

My next post will actually contain some actual racing in but I just wanted to get that little bit off my chest. My staking plan will be exactly the same as last season, and although I came in for a lot of criticism using it with it being so aggressive, it ended up working out very nicely. Don't fix what isn't broken as they say..

John.

Links...

Just a quick one.... I've noticed most of my links are to blogs that aren't around anymore, I'll delete the dead links and if anyone has an interesting blog, I'll add it to the new list. Looks like I'm going to have to generate traffic the hard way!!! Bring back the days of 200+ readers a day! lol.

John.

Life's Twists...

Well hello!!!!!!

I'm posting to such a small audience, I'm wondering why I'm bothering but I've been asked by a few guys to update my very, very slack blog of 2008!

Things have changed to a whole new level for me, business wise and in my personal life aswell. My girlfriend is pregnant, and we're delighted to have a little 'package' on the way. I'm extremely nervous at the thought of raising a child but everyone keeps telling me I'll be great and it'll be a wonderful experience once the baby is born. It was unexpected but we both feel we're at the right stage in our lives and living in Dubai, we couldn't ask for a better City to raise a baby.

I've had pretty much the whole winter off racing, concentrating on my business which I briefly spoke about in January. It's a Geotechnical company in which we specialise in Ground Improvement and soil testing. It's a huge industry here and the work just keeps piling on. The company is looking to take on a General Manager to run the company day to day.

I've also been heavily involved in kart racing and car racing. I only took kart racing up early last year but it's a second passion for me and I kart probably 3/4 times a week and I'm in the process of buying my own Rotax kart to race in the UAE championship with. I've amassed a nice little collections of cars too, my favourite being, the Jeep SRT8. Sweet mother of troy, the thing absolutely flys for a SUV and provides endless entertainment.

Anyway, I don't want to ramble on too much, but fingers crossed, my posts will appear more and more as the racing season is well and truly underway.

I just hope there are a few people still reading.....

John.

New Year!

Slack, slack, slack!!!

First off, Happy New Year to the few readers that are left! I'm putting finishing touches to an end of year review summarising how I thought the year turned out and where I see myself going.

Briefly, on a whole it's been a fantastic year and I couldn't of imagined a better year to my first year as a full time punter. Let's just hope things continue forward and a more productive year on the blog front.

I've taken on a new business venture here in Dubai aswell, it's actually six months old and expanding at quite a rate of knots with contracts fixed for the next 5 years in numerous areas. For those that aren't aware of the huge expansion in Dubai, it is quite simply mind blowing. They are building so many projects that will announce to the world what Dubai is all about. I'll mention more in my next post.

I'll post soon... I promise!!

Anybody Out There??

Wow, seems like forever since I last posted and I've definitely missed writing about my daily happenings in the gambling world and life in general!

I've been insanely busy the last 7 weeks or so and once you break the habit of posting every day, it becomes harder and harder to start back again.

If there are any people still reading, I'm looking at starting my blog again...

John.

Back To Reality...

Again, apologies for lack of updates of late but last week was my birthday and I ended up parting pretty much every night and never felt upto doing any racing all week. I've finally uploaded my pics from my holiday and I'll add a few here later on I think.

So back to reality this week and I'll looking into the racing and hopefully be able to find a few losers! I'll also be spending quite a few hours at the Kartdrome practicing for my 24 hr race coming up soon. I managed a personal best of 1.14.780 which I was very pleased with. The very best guys go around in 1.13.300 so I've still got some way to go but considering the average time is around 1.19, my progress has been swift.