A Betting Plan for 2018 - On Course Profits

Need a betting plan for 2018?

Where does the time go? 2017 is now well and truly behind us and it is two years ago now when we first introduced the Here Come the Girls to the punting table. You may remember that we flagged up several smaller trainers we felt were worthy of note, Jennie Candlish, Sheila Crow, Tracey Collins, Julie Camacho, Mrs Gansera-Leveque, Margaret Mullins and Pam Sly together with Sheila Lavery plus of course the more well-known female trainers such as Sue Smith.

So, the question is, are we prepared to stick with them for a betting plan for 2018?

Jennie Candlish

Jennie Candlish is a dual trainer operating from her base at Basford Green, Staffordshire. She has a reasonable number of runners throughout the year but it is clear that backing blindly over the past 5 years would have seen you make substantial losses although the place strike rate certainly isn’t poor with on average just less than one in three of her runners finishing in the places.

As can be seen below success with her National Hunt runners is minimal but her Flat runners and in particular her Handicap Flat runners are far from shabby.

Overall had you backed all of Jennie’s Turf Flat and All Weather runners over the past 5 years you would actually have made a profit of a shade over 31 points, nothing much to write home about but a profit nonetheless.

The bulk of the profits generated are thanks to excellent years in 2014 and 2015 but the past two years have been far from poor with an excellent place strike rate and pretty much break even in the profit returns department.

It is pretty clear though that her Handicappers have been the profit generators, and in particular her handicappers on the Turf Flat.

We also pointed out that her Turf Flat Handicap runners in Class 4 or lower races were the place to find the profits and in 2017 Jennie Candlish added funds to our bank account in the sum of +11.75 points to ISP or +14.05 points after commissions to BFSP.

That may not sound massive but at £10.00 per point an extra £117.50 in the holiday fund certainly kept us happy.

Sheila Crow

Sheila Crow operates nearby in Shropshire and the numbers of runners each year are few and far between with the past 5 years having seen just 43 runners in total, however don’t be put off by that as sometimes being selective with your bets can pay dividends.

There were 10 runs from her stable in 2015, 11 in 2016 and 10 in 2017 with 2015 having been her best year with 8 of her 10 runners having been placed and of which 2 had won their races, but backing to Win or Each Way surprisingly wouldn’t have seen you make a profit but backing to place only would have been lucrative.

2017 would have seen you make a small profit (+2.50 to ISP and +3.36 to BFSP) but a loss had you backed Each Way. Our suggestion though last year was to back her runners on the Exchanges to Place Only. Had you followed our advice you sadly we would have made a loss of -2.88 points to BFSP.

Given that there are just the three horses in training with Sheila Crow, Mr Mercurial, Connies Cross and Abbeyview we feel it prudent to omit Mrs Crow from our plans for this year.

Tracey Collins

Tracey Collins is the daughter of Con Collins who trained for more than 50 years in Ireland with his greatest success being Princess Pati in 1984 winning the Irish Oaks.

A much better number of runners over the years to get our teeth in to which saw us see during the 2011-2015 period a positive return with her All Weather runners of +31.41 points.

2012-2016 saw equally positive 5 year return of +39.46 points.

As Collins is based in Ireland we decided that we should concentrate on her Dundalk runners as this is Ireland’s first and only floodlit All Weather race course. There has been very little difference in the success of her Handicap and Non handicap runners over the past 5 years.

The angle we decided to concentrate on were her runners over the shorter distances of 1 mile or less and priced in single figures.

Unfortunately the results this past year were poor with just 3 horses from 12 landing in the places and not one winner!

Interestingly we did point out that if she had any runners going off on the UK All Weather it may be worth backing them as horses sent over to the UK from her stable were rare, and when they were sent over they performed exceptionally well.

In 2016 she had one runner during the year at Lingfield in the Ladbrokes All-Weather Mile Championships Conditions Stakes over 1 mile in Captain Joy which won at 11.00 ISP, while in 2017 she had a short priced favourite winner at Kempton in Almoner 1.63 ISP.

So we will be keeping an eye on any horses she happens to send over the water.

Julie Camacho (Miss JA Camacho)

Julie Camacho from Yorkshire was another trainer we picked as worthy of following and we suggested backing her 3 year old Handicap Turf Flat runners to place only on the Exchanges or if you preferred backing Each Way.

There were 12 runs during 2017 between April and September and interestingly once you got in to the last couple of months of the Turf season success fell off dramatically which was very likely down to handicapping.

With the 12 runs coming from just 4 horses, Majestic Stone, Dreamofdiscovery, Marseille and Dandy Bird any place profits would have been expected in the early part of the season which proved to be the case. That said backing on all 12 runs to place only with the Exchanges would have seen you clear 6.71 points profit to BFPP.

So we will be keeping with Miss Camacho for this 2018.

Mrs Gansera-Leveque

Back EACHWAY any Gansera-Leveque runners during the month of AUGUST on FLAT TURF

Just two runners and both were sadly out with the washing during 2017.

Margaret Mullins and Pam Sly

We suggested following the Mullins and Sly Handicap Chasers during the months of November and December on an Each Way basis.

Just 5 runners over the period but 4 of those were placed including 2 winners which would have seen 8.75 points to ISP. Thank you 🙂

Looking again at these two we have also decided that they are worthy of merit through the bulk of the national Hunt Season so we have extended their coverage from October through to March inclusive going forward.

Sheila Lavery

Our All Weather selections for the end of the year came from Sheila Lavery and she didn’t disappoint. As we have mentioned before we like the lesser known trainers with their handful of runners as they can quite often land some nice priced selections.

In Lavery’s case there were 17 each way qualifies in all over November / December and we suggested backing each way. With 6 placed horses, one of which was a winner you would have seen 12.50 points to ISP.

A little more digging shows that November is definitely the month to be with Lavery.

She has had 26 placed horses including 9 winners from 74 runs throughout the last 5 years in total returning 3.24 points profit to ISP backing Each Way.

Of those 26 placed horses 11 of them including 4 winners have come from just 19 runners in the during the month of November and backing Each Way would have seen a profit of 40.42 points to ISP over the last 5 years.

Sue Smith (Mrs SJ Smith)

Okay we need something of interest for this month’s racing.
Last year for the month of February we suggested that you would do worse than following Sue Smith’s Handicap Chasers going off in single figures.

Well it didn’t bring in a winning lottery level of profits sadly in fact, if you had backed to win only you would have just about broken even and backing each way would have seen you make slightly more than 3.50 points profit thanks to the excellent place strike rate of almost 60%.

In general it is over 3m or further that the profits really come from and in particular in Class 3 and Class 4 with 21 placed horses including 12 winners in all of 2017 alone coming from just 33 selections, which would have returned an Each Way profit to ISP of almost 26 points.

We’ll be following Sue Smith for 2018 as January already got off to a good start with 5.00 points profit (ISP) each way from just 1 each way selection.

The girls may not provide the prolific number of bets some of you may be after but for us they are offering a good building block to add to over the coming year.

For 2018:

National Hunt
Margaret Mullins and Pam Sly – Handicap Chasers during October through to March inclusive (EACH WAY).

Sue Smith – Handicap Chasers in single figures in Class 3 and Class 4 running over 3 miles or further. (EACH WAY Yes this may seem odd given the price restriction but it appears to pay as if they don’t win their races her horses are usually in the frame).

Flat Turf
Jennie Candlish – Handicap runners in Class 4 or lower – WIN ONLY.

Julie Camacho – 3 year old Turf Flat runners – PLACE ONLY.

Flat All Weather
Tracey Collins – Runners if they are running in the UK – WIN ONLY.

Sheila Lavery – Back all runners on the All Weather during the month of November only – EACH WAY