I’ve been letting the train take the strain, dear reader, over the last couple of days. The reason is that I’ve been enjoying some time in Wales with my great friend Gavin and his family (which includes my godson, Dylan 
Gavin is a racing friend of mine who I’ve known for some 17 years now - getting on for half my life!
And very knowledgeable about the game he is too. He blooming well should be: for as long as I’ve known him, he’s owned and run betting shops!
The good news for us is that I’ve persuaded him to write down some of his thoughts on the blog here over the coming months, and the even better news is that he’s going to start this week (all things being equal) with a preview of the Oaks and Derby, scheduled for next weekend.
Furthermore, Gavin’s got a few dark horses (and some not so very dark ones!) for Royal Ascot, which is only a couple of weeks away.
He takes a different approach to me quite often, by burying his head in the collateral formbook for days on end. But he’s also a trends man, so you can expect some incisive comments of the winner profiles for big races in the coming months. And, as you’d expect, having watched so much racing over the years, he has a very good eye for ‘notebook’ horses.
I’ll say no more on this now, except to advise you to look out for a piece in the next few days. If you like it, please add a comment at the bottom (using the ‘comments’ link), so that Gavin feels welcomed to our little group… :o)
Being as it is the 1st June today, I thought I’d give you an update on TrainerFlatStats.
After a modest March where we made £83 from just a handful of runners (more than enough to pay for the guide!), TFS made a flying start in the beginning of April, before coming unstuck a bit at the end of that month. In fact, despite everything, the loss for April was a paltry £23 in the end.
May has been a brilliant month, and it was topped off in emphatic style yesterday with winners at 12/1 and 15/2 (both available at significantly bigger on betfair) from five qualifiers. (We also had a 2nd at 7/2 and a 3rd at 5/4).
Total profit for May was a whopping £935, to £20 stakes on betfair (calculated at 16% over SP, and with a 4.5% commission on winning trades).
The long and short of this is that TFS is now up £995 on the season for just £20’s. Or 50 points to whatever stakes you’d use yourself.
Although the guide remains unavailable (well done if you got a copy!), you can still get a subscription to the email service. Better still, you can try it for free for seven days before even considering spending a penny (as it were). Get a TFS trial by clicking below:
Finally, the month of May was also a lucrative one for Favourites’ Phenomenon followers (that’s easy for me to write, though not to say!).
Level 3 backers collected on all betting days, for a profit of 27 points on the month; Level 2 players were rewarded with 13 points profit on the month having suffered one losing day; and, Level 1 players enjoyed 13.5 points profit in May, with just two losing days.
(Remember, the levels equate to degrees of risk, so for Level 1 punters, the risk threshold is much lower, meaning losing days are considerably more palatable).
FP is still available at the usual place, and there is going to be some more good news on this in the next couple of weeks (I hope). Stay tuned for that, if you’re interested.
Let’s hope June can continue in the same rich vein of form, irrespective of which system you’re following… (perhaps you’re one of the shrewdies whose been cleaning up on both!)
In fact, if it’s half as good, we’ll all be sitting pretty come July time.
That’s all for now, but remember to check out Gavin’s inaugural post later this week.
Matt