Good morning...
As I mentioned yesterday...
I'm not too comfortable about rating the non-Group or non-Listed French races.
It's a lot of work for me and I know that the ratings for the Group/Graded and Listed races are far more accurate.
Having said that, from the ratings for the four French races that I published yesterday, we got 1 top rated winner.
Arise (in the 12:50) won at 16.70 so, by blindly backing the top rated horse in all 4 of the rated races you would have have 16.70 points returned to the 4 points staked.
And I guess that a 317.50% profit on stakes isn't too shabby.
And a 25% strike rate is sort of what you'd expect from a ratings agency.
I did get one email yesterday from a long standing Focus Ratings member...
Bonjour Keith,
Nice going so far on ze french I’ve had 2 losers 1 winner 9/5, 1 placer 80/1 and I winner 12/1 and one to go 9/1
Lovely thanks
Roy
So I guess that I might have to look at rating some of the non Group/Listed races after all.
There are 2 Group races and 2 Listed races at Longchamps tomorrow so I will rate those.
They start early; the first starts at 10:10 UK time so I'll try to get the ratings out for those races by lunchtime today.
Hong Kong Ratings
The link to today's ratings for Happy Valley (top 3 rated) is here... http://compassratings.com/data/compassratings-2020-05-13.pdf
The link to today's ratings for Happy Valley (all horses) is here... http://compassratings.com/data/compassratings-full-2020-05-13.pdf
French Ratings
The link to today's only Group 3 race at Chantilly is... http://focusratings.com/french/FrenchRatings-2020-05-13.pdf
The ratings look like this...
I'm still not sure if I'm actually going to bet on this race or, if I am, how I'm going to do it.
At the moment I think that I'll probably bet...
6 euros on My Love's Passion to win
6 euros on My Love's Passion to place
3 euros on Mutual to win
3 euros on Mutual to place
1.50 euros on My Love's Passion to win and Mutual to come second
1.50 euros on My Love's Passion to win or come second and Mutal to either win or come second
However, I haven't had my breakfast yet and so everything could change.
It's not that the ratings aren't good for this race, it's more down to the shape of the ratings; Wooded and Alocasia are just too close together in terms of ratings and horse value.
Once I've had my croissant and dunked my baguette in my bowl of milky coffee I may just decide to have 6 euros on the top rated horse to win and another 6 euros on him to place. Or...
I may just do the sensible thing and avoid the race; I really am quite happy just to have 3 to 4 bets a week. I find that if I have to overthink the race then it generally never works out well for me.
For those of you thinking about betting on French Horse racing, you can obviously do that on both the Betfair Sportsbook and the Betfair exchange (there was a reasonable amount of liquidity (to my eyes, anyway) this morning.
Alternatively, PaddyPower is supposed to be the leader in French betting but I have found that RaceBets.com looks good to me - they explain the betting here... https://blog.racebets.com/7-reasons-bet-french-horse-racing
Something to make you smile...
The Nut Case
Jim and Edna were both patients in a psychiatric hospital.
One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Jim suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there.
Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled Jim out.
When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act, she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.
When she went to tell Edna, she said, "Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged. Because you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of another patient, I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness.
The bad news is that Jim, the patient you saved, hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead."
Edna replied, "He didn't hang himself. I put him there to dry."
"How soon can I go home?"
The Moped Race
Well,
An elderly man on a Moped, looking about 90 years old, pulls up next to a Doctor at a street light.
The old man looks over at the sleek shiny car and asks, "What kind of car ya got there, sonny?"
The doctor replies, "A Ferrari GTO. It cost half a million dollars!"
"That's a lot of money," says the old man. "Why does it cost so much?"
"Because this car can do up to 220 miles an hour!" states the doctor proudly.
The Moped driver asks, "Mind if I take a look inside?"
"No problem," replies the doctor.
So the old man pokes his head in the window and looks around. Then, sitting back on his Moped, the old man says, "That's a pretty nice car, all right.... But I'll stick with my Moped!"
Just then the light changes, so the doctor decides to show the old man just what his car can do. He floors it, and within 30 seconds the speedometer reads 150 mph.
Suddenly, he notices a dot in his rear view mirror. It seems to be getting closer !
He slows down to see what it could be and suddenly WHOOOOSSSHHH! Something whips by him going much faster!
"What on earth could be going faster than my Ferrari?" the doctor asks himself.
He presses harder on the accelerator and takes the Ferrari up to 180 mph.
Then, up ahead of him, he sees that it's the old man on the Moped!
Amazed that the Moped could pass his Ferrari, he gives it more gas and passes the Moped at 200 mph and he's feeling pretty good until he looks in his mirror and sees the old man gaining on him AGAIN!
Astounded by the speed of this old guy, he floors the gas pedal and takes the Ferrari all the way up to 220 mph.
Not ten seconds later, he sees the Moped bearing down on him again! The Ferrari is flat out, and there's nothing he can do !
Suddenly, the Moped plows into the back of his Ferrari, demolishing the rear end.
The doctor stops and jumps out and unbelievably the old man is still alive.
He runs up to the banged-up old guy and says, "I'm a doctor... Is there anything I can do for you ?"
The old man whispers,
"Unhook my suspenders from your side view mirror!"
The Dog Food Diet
Yesterday I was buying a large bag of Nutra Nuggets Dog Food and was about to check out.
A woman behind me asked if I had a dog. What did she think I had, an elephant?
I'm retired now, with some spare time on my hands.
So, on impulse, I told her that no, I didn't have a dog, and that I was starting the Dog Food Diet again.
Although I probably shouldn't, because I'd ended up in the hospital last time, but that I'd lost 50 pounds before I awakened in an intensive care ward with tubes coming out of most of my orifices and IVs in both arms.
I told her that it was essentially the perfect diet and that the way that it works is to load your pants pockets with Nutra Nuggets Dog Food and simply eat one or two every time you feel hungry and that the food is nutritionally complete so I was going to try the diet again.
(I have to mention here that practically everyone in the line was by now enthralled with my story.)
Horrified, she asked if I ended up in intensive care because the dog food poisoned me.
I told her no. I stepped off a curb to sniff an Irish Setter and a car hit us both.
I thought the guy behind her was going to have a heart attack, he was laughing so hard!
The manager won't let me shop there anymore....
Today
Whatever you are up to today...
Stay safe and healthy.
As always...
My kindest regards