Cleeve Racing

A Q and A with Nick of Cleeve Racing – Part I

Hi Nick, and many thanks for joining us this month, first off would you start by telling our readers a little about yourself and your background?

I have been a serial business owner (read: failed entrepreneur) virtually all my working life and Cleeve is my 5th company, I have very strong ideals on how things should be done and that if you do them right it is possible to create win-win situations where the customer and the company are both happy. This seems to pass a lot of companies by, especially most, if not all the large corporates who are only about protecting their bottom line… no matter what they say with their public voice.

I was born in Sheffield but spent a good chunk of my childhood growing up in Africa. I was a bit of a tearaway and ended up getting kicked out of school with no qualifications, so was faced with the prospect of working in a factory which was not an option, so I shocked everyone by joining the army.

The culture shock of basic training was fairly traumatic but it sorted me out good and proper and taught me a begrudging respect for discipline.

The two most important things I took away after my 6 years were

1. It is a truism that you need to work hard because you only get back a multiple of what you put in, and,
2. I can always go a fair way further than I think I can… which is very empowering. I recently completed a gruelling 4-day bike ride for charity where I gave most of my 14 colleagues at least 30 years. I was the slowest and at times wondered if I’d get there… but I kept putting one foot in front of the other and turning the pedals and got there.

The Army also gave me some great mates plenty of whom I’m still in touch with (that’s you Fatty). In fact, I met Mark who is one of my co-Directors at Cleeve nearly 40 years ago when we were bright eyed 19-year-old lance corporals!

Would you say that you have a “typical” working day, and how would you describe it?

I am very, very lucky to be able to say that it’s not typical at all and vive la difference as I don’t cope well very with routine. Occasionally it can be 4 hours a day, but more often than not it’s 10. My working hours can be spent in a wide variety of ways… on the track, visiting a trainer, writing our Ten to Follow guide or trying to tweak the hideously complicated algorithm which we developed ourselves to produce race ratings, which is the vital first cog in our selection process.

Days, weekends and bank holidays all blur into one. I do a fair amount of travelling, but always have my laptop with me… consequently, I don’t really have holidays as such. I’ve only had 4 days ‘off’ this year, which was when I completed the charity bike ride from hell. Saying that I have lived in Valencia for 9 of the last 18 months, so it’s not all bad!

The ever-changing narrative of racing keeps the whole thing fresh and I wouldn’t swap what I do. As I said I’m very lucky, I don’t really have a work life divide as I don’t class my work as ‘work’, my work is part of my life and vice versa.

What do you think of the world of sports tipping in general and what do you think people are in search of when it comes to their hunt for a successful tipster?

Tipping services still seem to be unable to shake off completely the image of being shady operations characterised by a nod and a wink, or someone who tips every runner in a race under different ‘brands’ so he can always trumpet the fact that he tipped the winner.

Yes, there are still undoubtedly some questionable claims out there, however, I personally know at least a dozen services who are very professional and work really hard to make a profit for their members.

Think about it, if I charged you £40 for a month’s membership and you were tipped loser after loser how long would you last? For us it’s all about building long-term relationships with our members and the only way that we can do that is if they understand and respect how we do things, and they trust us… and they have to make money of course!

Do you regularly bet yourself? What style of approach do you take to your betting? What do you think of staking plans, loss retrieval systems etc.?

I personally use a couple of services for my football betting. It’s a simple logic, I am a busy person and don’t have the time to put the analysis in required to become an ‘expert’. So, in effect, I pay someone who really is an expert to be my personal advisor. I stake anywhere between £1,000 and £3,000 a month so a good service is actually very cheap to me in the grand scheme of things.

I obviously bet on all the Cleeve selections, but nowadays tend to bet less and less on horses, in fact, I can now enjoy a day at the races without having a bet at all which would have been impossible in my younger days… in fact, I would have laughed at me for even suggesting it!

I mainly bet on football, but this is down to my ‘personal betting profile’.

I prefer to bet on a 90-minute match than a 90-second race, I believe that the longer the event is the more chance there is that class will come to the top… also, there are only 3 possible outcomes. This does put me into a shorter odds and bigger stakes position, so you need to have to have the strength of will and confidence to put those larger stakes down.

I tend to concentrate on returns if you win £500 by putting £20 on a 25/1 winner or I win £500 on an even money chance… it’s still £500 profit. Your downside is obviously much more limited on the 25/1 shot, but by the very nature of the odds so are my chances of winning.

I now play the Scoop 6 every Saturday to give me a fun interest on the TV racing (be careful of fun bets, they quickly add up to a surprising amount), but as I don’t have the time to go through all the races or want to stake large perms, I join a syndicate run by Cleeve and a Scoop 6 specialist.

What attracted you to the world of horse racing and what do you enjoy most about the sport?

I first went racing around the age of 7 with my grandfather. About the fourth or fifth meeting I went to was at Pontefract where I had a shilling on a horse called ‘Pontam’ which I picked only because I remembered it had won when I was at Doncaster and my Grandad had backed it… of course, it won at 50/1 and I remember walking up to the bookies joint and my grandad handing me the first ‘paper money’ I had ever held! It was probably the most exciting day of my young life and obviously, I was hooked on the sport forever.

I love being at the races, I am a jumps man by preference and being somewhere like Sandown on a crisp winters day with sunshine and blue skies is my idea of heaven. I like to get there early and soak up the tangible air of anticipation that is created by a racing crowd that is always made up of a ‘Heinz 57’ cast of characters.

The horses themselves are always the stars of the show, I challenge anyone not be impressed by a gleaming thoroughbred with jockey up in colourful silks, jig-jogging around the parade ring with twin jets of steam pluming from its nostrils and ready to race!

What led you into the world of racing tipsters and what do you feel you can offer racing enthusiasts and punters that other tipsters can’t?

Well, that’s a very long story and it’s also pretty random so I’ll keep it short. In 2010 my online travel business of 10 years suddenly went bust when we were dragged down by a supplier defaulting. It was quite traumatic and I ended up going to Buenos Aires for 6 months to lick my wounds and think about what the hell I was going to do next.

I was on the wrong side of fifty with a patchy CV and knew I’d struggle to get a job at the level I wanted so would probably end up in one I hated.

I decided I wouldn’t apply for any jobs and to strike out again on my own.

I completely randomly came across Matt Bisogno’s ‘how to set up your own online racing brand’ course which complemented both my passion for racing and my business experience. I took the course and pretty soon after, was (again, randomly) introduced by a friend to Cleeve who were at that time operating as a private service. I offered to come in for a share of the business and steer the commercialisation of the business utilising an internet model and we subsequently launched in 2011… the rest is history!

We take our responsibilities at Cleeve very seriously indeed. We are keenly aware that we are telling our members where to put the cash which most of them work hard for. We always intended the business to be as professional as anything out there and we know that a well thought out selection method, good customer service and transparency on results can be just as important as picking winners.

To me, there is nothing worse than getting a text or an email telling you to back a horse with no reasoning as to why… If I understand the reasoning behind why a selection has been made and it loses, at least I can buy into it and that makes me feel involved.

You can read part two of our chat with Nick Mckenna here .