A Q and A with Nick of Cleeve Racing - Part II

This month sees the second part of our interview with Nick of Cleeve Racing where he discusses patience, discipline, consistency and racehorse ownership. (Read part one here)

What traits do you think a good racing tipster should possess and what do you think the average punter is looking for from a tipping service?

First of all, you need patience and discipline and to try and focus on the bigger picture. Any service, like any punter, will always experience losing runs, in fact, Cleeve have just closed a bad September. You need to have the discipline to keep on doing what you are doing and try to take the emotion out of it… we’ve had losing months, but we’ve never had a losing season.

Secondly, consistency. If your members know you are consistently profitable they will stick with you through the down times as they’ve been there before and come up smiling. If they sense you are changing the way you do things as a reaction to results, then confidence starts to drain.

Cleeve are a selective service and operate a reasonable staking strategy. We average around 6 bets a week (outside of the big Festivals) and stake less than 40 points a month.

However, I know services that give more than 6 selections and stake more than 40 points a day… which is just not sustainable for the average punter.

What do you think Cleeve’s strong points are as a service and what is your strategy and approach when it comes to your members?

Firstly, I think you join any service because you want to make a profit from your betting, 99% of people don’t have the time or the tools to do the depth of analysis it takes to consistently find winners. In reality, what you are doing is paying an ‘expert team’ to be your personal betting advisors.

Think about it, we expect to go to the dentist if we have toothache, or a solicitor if we need legal help… because they’re experts. If we are going to regularly put down our ‘hard-earned’ on horses why would we not pay a reasonable mount for similar expert advice?

We aim to impart a discipline on our members. Cleeve only bet in Class 2 races and above as we know for a fact that the form stands up much better than it does in lower class races. This gives us a filter which takes out 80% of races and by default provides us with important focus. Although we give ratings and a write-up on all class 2 races and above, we probably bet in less than half of them and encourage our members not to bet in races that offer poor value or are too competitive or have too many ‘fun’ bets as these soon add up.

Outside the major festivals, we give members 4 or 5 bets a week at an average stake of 2 points. We feel this is a sustainable betting profile and can be followed, rather than services that give 4 or 5 bets a day or advise £200 stakes (and you wouldn’t get on for long at those stakes if you were backing winners!)

Any service can have a good or bad patch. It is consistency and discipline of approach that are paramount. We operate at an average win & place strike rate of 35%+ and our selections average 5/1 to 10/1. We have been profitable every year since we started and now had 15 profitable seasons on the bounce. Our consistency is underlined by the number of members who have been with us for 5+ years.

Finally, we look to give our members as much added value as we can think of… For example, we have just paid for a complementary service and given it away free to our members which will give them a fantastic lead-in to the Cheltenham festival. We are also in final discussions to set up a social side to Cleeve with race days and even horse ownership on the table.

Racing is about so much more than betting and we want to give our members (and us), the best possible experience of it.

New and old punters alike can struggle to make a success of their betting. If you could give them just one piece of advice to improve their profitability what would it be?

That’s hard… there are plenty of things that are vital! If I had to choose one thing given my experience with Cleeve it would be when you have found a service that works for you and you have confidence in how it does things, then you need to stick with it through when it hits a bad patch.

If the profits trend is positive overall, then small retracements are irrelevant.

Our 2018 Flat Season performance is a classic example; We are 92 points up on the season, but in the 5 months to date we had 2 big winning months, 2 where we made a small profit and 1 losing month. Some people join for a month then leave and jump onto another service and repeat and repeat. If you find a consistently profitable service and can accept that losing runs are part and parcel of racing, you should be fine in the long run.

What would you consider to be a highlight of your racing experience to date? Do you have any personal racing/betting experiences which when reflecting back brings a smile, or for that matter any which bring a grimace; you can share with our readers?

There is nothing like owning a piece of a winner.

Ownership is within the reach of most of us through a wide range of syndicates which will suit every pocket from Elite Racing at under £200 a year to mid-market groups like Middleham and all the way to blue-bloods like Highclere.
However, if you are interested in getting involved it’s definitely worth getting in touch with your local trainer and finding out what they can offer. A big part of ownership for me is yard visits, watching work, getting to know the trainer and being part of a group of like-minded people.

My racing highs and lows both relate to owning horses (it’s amazing, even owning a small share somehow makes it ‘your horse’!). I was involved in winners 4 years in a row at the Punchestown Festival and when Very Much So won the Goff’s bumper on his debut, I literally didn’t know what to do with myself I was beside myself with joy. It was not only the best racing experience I have had it was the best day of my life (with apologies to both my ex-wives!).

The worst experience I’ve had by far (and hopefully ever) was with Avant Tout. After having both a promising novice hurdle and novice chasing season, he began his second novice chasing season as the ante-post favourite for the Hennessey and 4th in the betting for the 2017 Gold Cup. We were fully invested in ‘the dream’ and with no word of lie he was probably my first waking thought most days.

We went over to Naas to see his prep run and watched him canter at Willie’s the day before, laughing with his lass Rachel and David Casey after as we chatted and talked of what might be. He over-reached going to the first and severed a front tendon, they took him to Equine Hospital but he couldn’t be saved, it was truly devastating and completely put me off racing for many months.

What about the gambling industry, is there anything you like to see changed there? Many website forums are full of criticisms of the bookmakers and their treatment of their customers? Is this something you have an opinion on?

To me it’s obvious that bookmakers have way too much say over the sport, and take out of it a completely disproportionate amount to what they put in. I think that as corporates they don’t really care for the sport, it is just another device to relieve customers of their money.

They tell you in almost blanket advertising on live sports to ‘gamble responsibly’ then offer markets on women’s under 18 matches in Brazil.

They say ‘when the fun stops… stop’ as if punters are only betting for fun rather than to win. And heaven forbid if you even threaten to be a consistent winner, you are very quickly subject to stake restrictions followed by account closure… so they actually only want to do business with punters that lose… who are just in it ‘for the fun’.

This is boldly underlined by their position on FOBT’s. It takes a newbie a long time to become familiar enough with racing and interpreting form to place anything like significant stakes, but casino machines are another matter completely.

Just about anyone can play them and their addictive nature combined with stakes of up to £100 a spin along with a mathematically guaranteed profit sparked a stampede back to the high street and underpinned a big surge in corporate profits.

Study after study has confirmed the danger they pose to inexperienced, vulnerable gamblers, but the recent decision by the government to drastically reduce the maximum stakes prompted wholesale bleating and warnings of catastrophic impact on the industry. This just doesn’t wash… profits, share price and shareholder returns are the only real motivators for the big bookies and damn the rest of us… pure and simple.

Rant over!

What do you do to relax and unwind? What interests have you outside the world of horse racing?

I do like to travel and spend chunks of time in different cultures… Spain and Thailand are my favourites. As I said before I can do this a lot as it doesn’t interfere with my work… in fact, I tend to feel more energized when I am abroad so maybe even more productive! I also love to eat but am just as happy having street food as I am with fine dining (I’m not a fan of formality at all).

I love being in the outdoors and my favourites are long distance trekking and cycling. I tend to do one at least every other year usually in support of my favourite charity TEMWA (shameless plug) who I have worked with for over 12 years now.

My friends and family are really important to me… but ultimately, I love my work, I love racing and that is the main thing that fills my life.

Thanks for reading,

Nick