Editor's Welcome There's only one thing I love more than to drill down into a trainers performance to find winning angles and that's when somebody smarter than me does it for me. And this month Nick has done exactly that and looked into trainers who profit in the latter part of the flat season when the rest of the field are winding down. But that's not the best thing that Nick has done for all of us this month! If you've tried to emulate hid immense success in picking big race winners and not quite reached his huge profit levels then you'll appreciate his second article this month where he shows us step by step how to identify the trends that will find his selections in this year’s Cesarewitch. The process will also work for all the big races every year and if you're a keen DIYer it will move you closer to consistent profit. If you don't like to do it yourself you can try Nick's Festival Tips service for a budget access to his profitable tips. Elsewhere we talk to a full time pro punter who in his early days bet his whole bank of £2,500 on one horse at 14/1 and lost it all by a short head. I think he'd already lost his head before he placed the bet! But all is well that ends well and it's certainly ended well for Eddie Lloyd. We tell the sad story of the greatest American racehorse and Wendy shares her system collection for August's racing. I hope you enjoy this month’s issue. All the best Darren Power End of Season Flat Trainers to Follow – August to October By the time you read this it will be August and I, for one, will have one eye on the upcoming jumps season. However, the flat season will still be rolling along and the St Leger meeting is still to take place. After the final classic of the season, things start to wind down although there are still some top races including the Cambridgeshire and the Cesarewitch. However, many of the big guns from the top stables may be put away with next season in mind or packed away for stud duties. With that in mind, some of the bigger yards may still be firing their bullets at the races at the back end of the season. September and October are tricky months for punters as we transition from flat to jumps and we often see some strange results. In this article, I am going to look at those trainers who do well at the tail end of the flat season and there is no better place to start than with Mr John Gosden. As always, it will be Horse Race Base as the analytical tool of choice and we will be searching the database for the months of August to October since 2010. That should give us plenty of data to play with and hopefully we can uncover something we can use in the last 3 months of the flat turf season. John Gosden By far and away the most prolific trainer at the back end of the season is John Gosden. His bare results since 2010 are shown below: A strike rate of 21% is exceptional in any given circumstances and that has been produced from 259 winners from 1206 runners since 2010. That is seven seasons worth of data which equates to around 37 winners in the months of August, September and October since 2010 from an average 172 runners during those three months. It is always good to break the results down by year as time and time again I see systems that made a packet around four or five years ago and then nosedived. Overall the numbers would look healthy but you would be jumping on after the horse has bolted. Now for the good news. The results below show that Mr Gosden’s runners have made a profit in these months in 6 of the last 7 seasons. However, take a closer look at the results and you will see that the last 4 years (since 2013) have been better than the previous 3 years. In fact, the strike rate in the last 4 years is higher than the overall 21% strike rate since 2010. Also take a look at the P/L figures for industry SP and compare this to Betfair SP. The return on investment is double on the exchanges at SP, compared to the traditional bookmakers. Also note the very high place strike rate which routinely comes in above 40%. Obviously not all of these will be each way prices but it is something to bear in mind, especially if you play the place markets on the exchanges or adopt a 20:80 approach (20% of your stake on the win and 80% on the place). Food for thought. If I didn’t have to write anything more you could just leave it there. Indeed, if you want simplicity then just backing all of John Gosden’s runners in the months of August to October could be the way to go. However, I would not be doing my job if I did not explore those numbers further. There may be certain races or certain types of horse to concentrate on and certain races or types of horse to avoid. The first place to start is to look at the monthly breakdown across the three months in question. When we do this, we see that August and September are by far the most profitable and October is poor in comparison, especially with the strike rate down at 18%. In comparison, August and September come in with strike rates of 23%. However, the P/L at Betfair SP is still a healthy one and the return on investment of 10.5% is nothing to be sniffed at. Personally, I would strike a line through October, or at least approach it with caution, since four of the last five years have seen a loss in that month. However, in a twist of irony, 2016 was the best October by far with a record of 21 winners from 76 runners for a profit of £55.53 at Betfair SP. We can now look to break down the results by various factors to see if there are any specific angles we can exploit. The first thing I like to do is break the results down by race class. Some trainers do well in lower class races, others in the higher class races and some are consistent across all race classes. For John Gosden we can probably strike a line through the class five races and the basement class which is class six. These runners have a combined record of 70 winners from 305 runners. That is a strike rate of 23%, which ironically is in line with the overall strike rate in the months of August to October. However, these runners are simply not profitable to follow and that tells me they go off at fairly short odds. Enough of them win, but not enough to make a profit. If we stick to class 1 to class 4 races then the overall figures look like this: The strike rate is still around 21% but you will see that the return on investment is now up around 38% at Betfair SP. That is one particular angle you may wish to use. The overall profits are not that much different compared to backing all his runners (in fact you really do not gain a great deal in terms of P/L) but the ROI is far superior which means you risk less money to make the same overall returns. Always a good thing. Next, I want to take a look at those class 1 to class 4 races in more detail. The first thing to note is that his sprinters in those races fare poorly. The Gosden runners in class 1 to class 4 races running over 5f to 6 ½f have a combined record of 6 wins from 59 runners (a strike rate of 10%) and have produced losses to the tune of £33.94 at Betfair SP. In comparison, the runners over 7f do very well. In fact, you could take his runners over any distance apart from 5f to 6 ½f and they combine for an impressive record of 180 wins from 836 runners at a strike rate of 21.53% and have produced profits to the tune of £371.01 at Betfair SP. When we do this it also brings the profits up in the month of October (although not by much). Looking at all runners in these class 1 to class 4 races, running over 7f or further we see some additional interesting patterns. Firstly, the profits are split fairly evenly between the handicap and the non-handicap runners. The handicappers have a slightly higher strike rate but realise fewer profits on the exchanges (although still a very healthy £153.79 to level £1 stakes since 2010). The handicappers are profitable to follow in nurseries (2yo handicaps), 3yo only handicaps and in 3yo+ handicaps. Male and female runners both produce good profit, so no need to look out for fillies over colts and geldings and vice versa. Runners also come across all age groups. The 2yo and 3yo runners are the most prolific but they are also the more frequent runners and John Gosden has even turned a profit with horses aged 4yo, 5yo and 6yo in class 1 to 4 races over 7f and further in August to October.