Today’s finishing bank: €1024.18
Amount turned over: €22,630
On paper, day one of my challenge went very well as I earned €24.18 which is nearly half my monthly target but it was an incident filled day that could have been a lot smoother so the figure is down to luck in some ways.
First, the positives: I only lost on two races today (out of fifteen) which is extremely positive. The target for the day was €3.33 and I had that earned after two/three races. To get such a head start is great and it means I can relax a bit more now that I’ve bagged a few bob.
But there were a couple of things today worth discussing…
One race went against me and I let my discipline slip by moving my stop loss further back. Eventually, the stop was hit and I had a red book. I should have just accepted this and moved on but the horse in question is always slow to start and usually makes a dash late on. When trading, you’re not really supposed to get into this type of thing but I layed it at the off and then backed it in-running for a profit in the knowledge that he’d probably drift in-running. While I made a profit on the race in the end, it’s not the type of thing I want to be doing.
The second incident was terrifying! I was trading jus t before the off in the 5.55 Ripon where Saltergate was fairly short in the betting. I had already made €0.10 on the race but got out of the market because I didn’t like the feel for it.
The wife came in and I decided to call it a day as I was getting tired anyway and didn’t want to do the evening stuff. But when I went back to turn the laptop off, I got greedy and went for one last big trade to top off the day. I suspected that Saltergate ‘s price would come in so I backed with around €600 in total. This was way too much but I had decided that I would get out instantly if the market didn’t go my way.
Then… Absolute chaos in the market. I’m not 100% sure what happened but when I looked at the TV screen, the jockey was off the horse, possibly thrown off. He then got back on and the race was off but I wasn’t sure if he was taking part or not. The price drifted out to 100 and I was staring at a €600 loss!
Thank God, there was a rule 4 for the horse and the money appeared back in my account!
I took a screenshot (below) to remind me not to be so bloody stupid and greedy! It was taken as the race ended and as far as I was concerned, I was looking at that loss. The other screen shot is of today’s profit.
Lessons for today:
1. Stop moving my stop losses.
2. Stop using my own form knowledge in-running – this is just punting my opinion and should be kept separate.
3. Get out well in time before the off.
4. Don’t go back to a market that I have dismissed as difficult earlier.
5. Don’t use silly stakes looking for a quick buck to finish the day on a high. It very nearly blew most of the bank.
In fairness, I got out with a very good profit but some of it was down to luck and I don’t want to put my nerves though that again. I’m off out shortly for a run to clear the head. So in summary, today was a good day profit wise but it was way too stressful. That said, a turnover of 22 grand was good for the number of races traded and I got my money though the market each race a number of times over.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow where the markets should have plenty of liquidity and hopefully it will be a relatively incident free day.
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