Hi All,

I'm a new member (albeit long-time gambler), so this is probably a stupid question - but I have been following (backing) the C+D winners sent out by Martin in his daily email for the last couple of weeks. It saves a lot of time, so I'm all in favour of the email.

But I was in the preset of that strategy today 'Back the C+D winner at odds 2-7', when I noticed one of the selections was not in the upcoming qualifiers list, despite being listed in the email. As it happens that horse (Blazing Hot 17.10 Southwell) lost (which is fine and I promise I'm not moaning about results!) - but I just wondered if anybody knew why it wasn't appearing?

I checked several times during the day and tried re-running the strategy to see if it changed the upcoming qualifiers, but it never appeared. As mentioned, I'm not in the the slightest bit bothered by the result, I just wondered if anyone else noticed this or might know why it might not appear later in the day when (I presume) it was showing when the email went out?

It's really just so I know moving forward and can form a more educated opinion if it happens again.

Thank you in advance for any advice!

@michael-chalk I'm just updating my results and noticed the same with Snowy Clouds. I've used a bot and it's down as a loss so it's followed the strategy as per the software. There was also Ten Past Midnight on the 16:25 at Fakenham on 2nd February, however the odds are showing at 15 so makes sense why that might have snuck in.

On the other hand, I've also had winners for 4 other trades which aren't showing on the software.

Are you OK to share your results? I'll be curious to see how they compare with the software. Like Adam said these things average out in the long run but just want to make sure there's nothing we're doing/ not doing that's throwing things off.

@michael-chalk :

99 times out of 100 this comes down to tiny differences in the betting times. For example the betting rules for the Pace Lays say to enter any time between 1 minute before up until the race start. In that time, our database doesn't have Barretstown as reaching 11, although it did reach 11.5 several times in the last minute, including in the last second before the start.

These things average out in the long term.

That's an interesting point. I'm not sure about selections changing with odds - I've run the system literally seconds before the official start time and found a 'selection' for the pace lays (odds 3-11) that is 100.0 on betfair and never been closer than 80.0. I'm new to BTC though, so it is likely my inexperience, but I would of thought if they odds-responsive to be a selection, they wouldn't be appearing at that point.

I've bet on horses profitably for years so do know a bit about horse racing (a million miles from everything of course), but don't enjoy the sifting through videos/ past performances and a mountain of data anymore. Travelling to tracks is also far too expensive/ time consuming with a full-time job as well, so I'm really looking for a lazy alternative.

My biggest difficulty is still getting 'my selections' to match the systems' historical record. I'm sure there is nothing suspicious going on, it just seems like bad luck. Take yesterday (3rd Feb) - at 6.30pm, 'Barretstown' was being given as a pace lay (3.0-11.0) in the 7.30pm at Dundalk. I layed it at 7.30 (start time) at exactly 11.0. It went on to win, costing me 10 points (no problem with that). Today though the historical system is not showing it at all - declaring a tidy profit of 4 from 4, while I'm down 6pts, although if you run it at 1 hr and 1min before start time, the historical record is less profitable and does have Barretstown at 10.0. So I'm guessing at the exact second the system took the snapshot it may have been 11.5 even though I got it at 11.0 still within the 60 second timeframe. Small margins and all that.

The same happened in the 'Lay The Beaten Favourite' (3.0-15.0) with Snowy Clouds in the 3.10pm Catterick. I checked at 2pm, backed it at 3pm and it must have dropped out just before as a selection. It won at 8.2 on betfair, I dropped another 7.2pts, but the system shows a tasty profit, while my version shows a dreadful afternoon. This one never appears now as a selection even if I make the time earlier, so it must be that something changed immediately before post that took it out from being a selected race.

I guess the only way to be sure of following the selections, is to re-run the selections seconds before every time to check. I would be interested (and might try to keep a record) to see how the original morning selections fair against the 'final' selections. Otherwise bots like Bet Angel that I have and use when I'm out, become redundant as they are too different from the original.

@michael-chalk you could always record the results yourself, timeform has the BSP odds each day and see how it compares to official software results

@michael-chalk The C+D strategy is one of them more complex and actually has the most moving parts

The horses in each race who have one over the course and distance do not change but.......

The horse has to be within an odds range, in the top 3 favourites, and the only one of the top three that has won over the course and distance

You can imagine as the odds shift through out the day a specific horse can move in and out of the odds range, out of the top 3, or another horse could move into the top three which excludes both from the qualifying

This is what i learnt from comparing my results to the backtesting and also increasing my understanding of how the daily qualifiers are generated

Hi Andy,

Thank you for taking the time to respond. That makes perfect sense. I was a bit confused because sometimes the early morning selections would not be showing and others would just before the off, even though it would still be displaying choices for meetings that were cancelled that day.

When it was for a C+D winner, I couldn't see any metrics that might change later in the day to mean it no longer qualifies but I suspect that is just where I'm fairly new to the software.

I want to make sure that if I'm following a preset, that my results track that of the software, so I'll try wherever possible to pick them up just before the race.

Many thanks,
Michael

@andy-donnelly perfect answer

If you want the most up to date selections you need to download direct from the software.

Martin is only sharing the selections at one point of time in the morning, but there are plenty of variables in a lot of the strategies that mean qualifiers will change up to the point of the race.

Key factors for me that often mean change from the morning email are any strategies with the below:

• favourite rules - favourites can change throughout the day
• going - going can change
• number of runners - non runners could happen which reduces the number
• Pace ratings - my experience is that it often takes a bit later in the day for these to load, and better verifying around 10am

I’m sure there are others that I’m forgetting but best to look at the rules of the specific strategy you are following and see if it has any rules within it that could change from the morning to the start of the race

Hope that helps