Not a good start...

 Not a good start today, unfortunately. Benzano really went close, finished a good 2nd, just beaten by a 25/1 shot, the other two selections ran disappointingly, though. So a really bad day as I felt very confident about all three chances actually. 

> 3 Bets / Staked: 11pts / Profit: -11pts

15.20 Bath: Scottish Boogie @ 15/2 bet365 - 3pts win

Scottish Boogie looks to regain some of his old form and looks sure to take rather sooner than later advantage of a slipping mark. His most recent performance at Sandown in a good class 4 handicap - when he was racing for new connections for the first time - was eye catching enough to suggest that he's well handicapped at the moment. The race wasn't really ran to suit him. The pace was rather modest while he was racing in rear of the field. The horses that came from off the pace found it impossible to peg back the leaders after all in this race and so it was no surprise that the first three places where filled by horses who were ridden prominently, won by a front-runner. That says Scottish Boogie ran with loads of credit to finish from well off the pace in 6th place only four lengths beaten. He made stylish headway on the inside in the closing stages without being fully ridden out. This form works out well already with 7th finished Borug winning a Handicap today. Scottish Boogie gets another pound off his already low handicap mark as a result of this performance and drops in class here. His last win on the flat is already two years ago (won by 19 lengths in heavy conditions a 4 runners handicap off 76) but he showed some creditable performances in Ireland of higher marks after that. Overall I think he should go close tomorrow.



15.50 Bath: Hawaana @ 12/1 Bet365 - 2pts win

Very competitive race but Hawaana really is an attractive prospect here for different reasons for this price I feel. Most importantly for me he caught my eye at Brighton recently. He was outpaced 3 furlongs out and looked very much beaten at that stage as he was relegated to second last but he stayed on very well to finish a fine 3rd in the end. He had no chance with the first and second, two progressive horses, though. Surprisingly he really gets a chance by the handicapper as a result of this performance as he drops another 2lb in the mark which brings him down to 68 which is 7lb below his last winning mark. Ground shouldn't be a problem even though in an ideal world there would be a bit rain at Bath tomorrow. That looks not on the card, but he has form on a fast surface and the pace should be decent enough with a couple of horses in the line-up who are preferring to race prominently or even from to front. There are a few interesting figures about trainer and jockey as well. The Callan/Gay Kelleway combo relished an almost 20% strike rate the last twelve month while Kelleway didn't have one runner at Bath this year but brought in 2011 three times horses to this track and went home victorious twice!

Hopefully a good start...

15.20 Epsom: Benzanno @ 5/1 Bet365 - 5pts win

 Benzanno ticks all the right boxes here tomorrow. He ran impressively at Sandown in a good class 2 handicap two weeks ago. He finished 3rd there but could have gone much closer if he would have got a clear run over 2f out when the eventually winner denied him a clear passage on the inside rail. He stayed on very well nonetheless and wasn't far beaten in the end. He takes a drop in class now, but the handicapper was lenient and didn't raise his mark for the recent effort which means he can race of a mark off 79 in a weaker contest tomorrow. Benzanno also fine form at Epsom to offer. He finished a good 2nd in July earlier this year and followed up with an impressive win in the same month here. He also demonstrated that he handles softish ground very well. He's still open to further improvement anyway and I expect him to go very close in this race tomorrow.



16.10 Musselburgh: Sangar @ 9/2 Bet365 - 3pts win

 Sangar looked to regain a bit of her best form when racing in first time blinkers at Pontefract ten days ago. She surly didn't have a dream race there though. She settled nicely in rear and made some fine progress turning into the home straight but her headway came to an end when she was hampered f out or so. She had to switch to the right as a result and started to motor home eventually but the bird was flown of course. She stayed on very well and ran a very good race considering the circumstances as the trip was also a bit on the sharp side for her and it's well known that so easy to do well from well off the pace at Pontefract. So all in all this was an excellent performance. With that in mind she should be very competitive tomorrow of a tempting mark (1lb above last winning mark), the right ground and a longer trip.



16.30 Epsom: Kathleen Frances @ 9/1 VC - 3pts win

 Big price for a mare that looks poised to win finally a race again. She was narrowly beaten here at Epsom in July and was desperately unlucky at Thirsk two weeks ago. She travelled like a dream there and looked 2f out the likeliest winner until she was really badly hampered by two horses as she was literally in a sandwich. That surly cost her the win. She doesn't win often and the last win is quite a while ago which also came of a 4lb higher mark but she really looks in fantastic form and with the excellent apprentice Adam Beschizza booked in this apprentice race I feel she will go very close. I would be disappointed if she wouldn't anyway.

New start for horseracing-international.com...

New look, new format... this site certainly needed a restart and here it is. I wasn't quite sure what to do with this site and therefore not much happened in recent weeks. From now on this site will be a site with a pretty puristic focus of attention: Finding winners! Which means I'll write about what I'm best at: Finding eye-catchers - or better to say - finding horses that ran better than the bare result suggested in their races and who could be potentially interesting next time out. In the last two month or so I changed my betting completely, put the form study away and solely concentrated on visual impression. Sure, in the aftermath a check of the form-book is vital but in first glance a horse has to catch my eye indeed. It's that simple for me because the form-book tells a story of course, but usually it's only a limited one, missing the most important thing: the visual truth. They say in football "the truth is on the pitch". And so it is for racing. 

Before I changed by betting style I had to accept the fact that I had no edge about the general betting public any longer with the way I was approaching the game. Working intensively through the form book is simply not enough any more. This game is too complex, the general racing public gets more and more educated and is capable or reading the form-book as well. Sure, you can still come to different conclusions, but in general it's difficult to find value using this old method I think. It's what leading professional punters are agreeing about as well. The difference to my new approach is though: Sure, racing replays are out there free for everyone. But it is much more a matter of opinion how to judge the performance of a horse in a race, judging the pace and so on. If I see things in a race, or draw a conclusion, that others are not seeing - of course this goes still along with the form-book to some extend - I simply have and edge, I have an advantage probably. What I mean is: Visual impression is very much a subjective thing. It's very much dependent on your own evaluation. This is not an easy thing though. It's time consuming, and exhausting, you need to be fully concentrated and have to watch certain parts of races again and again. But it goes along with my passion for the sport. I love to watch racing. So it's not entirely considered as work for me. But that was very much the case with long and extensive form study before. Now I watch races, find interesting horses, check then the form-book, but the visual performance always is the most important part. The form-book only delivers some facts about the horses, but the visual performance is decisive for me.

When I started my new approach of betting I wasn't sure what to expect. I had an idea, though. Because I knew horses of my eye-catcher list - work I did before already as you can see - were usually running very well. But of course it's still a different thing to concentrate entirely on this sort of approach. During a "trial period" of 8-10 weeks I regained my confidence and found out that my betting was never so precise, profit orientated and focused now. Profits were massive and even though the trial periode wasn't that long It really gave me a feeling that this is surely the right way forward.  

So from now on I'll post my tips and bets here on this blog again (in addition to the At The Races forum on the punterslounge where I did it already before). My confidence and joy of the game is back and I'm pretty sure this blog will show up some nice profit.

Important things to know about my bets here on the blog: Generally I bet win only, and stakes will be 1-10pts maximum. Selections posted here are strongly fancied by myself of course. There will be days, sometimes even weeks without a bet, if I don't find a really strong chance, though.