I love this time of year. Crisp autumn mornings, going out with the kids at the weekends to stomp through the leaves looking for apples and plums to pick, and the first log fires of the winter.

But enough of that crap. What really makes this time of year so exciting is the National Hunt season getting off and running as the better animals are reintroduced to the track. Each year, as soon as the Chepstow meeting which was held on Saturday has been and gone, my thoughts turn to Cheltenham in March which are, in my humble opinion, the best four days racing of the year. Soon it will be the Haldon Cup at Exeter, the Old Roan Chase at Aintree, and then the various big weekend meetings that light up the winter to look forward to.

If you're considering following a tipster who has a real talent for spotting ability in a racehorse that almost everybody else has been blind to, and who can ensure that followers get on good bets at real value prices, then may I humbly suggest you follow The Value Bettor, who is running a cheap and (what has so far been) very profitable service, from November 1st to the end of March. His roi last season was in the region of 30%! And in addition to the daily analysis and bets, TVB will build up a strong Cheltenham portfolio to add to the excitement.

The only reason I'm not following TVB myself is that as you know, my access to bookmakers for betting on horses is limited. I reckon I am at just about maximum capacity as far as betting on the nags goes, even with my strategy of following the Winning Racing System's favourites system to bigger stakes in an attempt to make me look more like a mug punter who is happy to go in big on odds on/short price horses. It's a shame. The Value Bettor is a cracking service, run professionally but with a strong personal feel to it. The link lies to the right.


Monday's Betting
A break even day although it took a stroke of luck. There were two Winning Racing Systems (Favourites) bets, but the advice from the service is to never back at shorter than 1/3. One of yesterday's selections was best priced 1/5 when I looked at lunchtime, 2/11 in places. Due to work, I was unable to track the on course market in the ten minutes prior to the off, and so didn't place the bet. The horse finished a short head second at 2/5. The other selection was a loser too, but my losses on the day were half of what they could so easily have been, and avoiding the loss almost wipes out the profit I missed on the 5/4 winner on Friday that I was going on about the other night.

Elsewhere, Northern Monkey weren't able to continue the recent fine run (0/1), but the one bet from Sportyy was successful and recouped the losses made on the racing.

Northern Monkey: Staked 0.75pts, -0.75pts.
Winning Racing Systems (Favs): Staked 1pt, -1pt.

Sportyy: Staked 2pts, +2.5pts.