Systems

Cherry Picking - A Method

For a while now we, and many others, have been looking at the ratings and seeing a horse winning with a stand-out figure from the ratings.

Such selections, which are known on the forum as 'Cherry Picks' have come in with some tasty prices. In the last week or so the record price for a placed horse is 97.0 on the exchanges. Today Silver Prophet won the 3.35 Plumpton at 25/1 though anything up to 70/1 could have been had on the exchanges.

Finding a Cherry Pick is rather simple; look through the ratings and find a figure which, in the context of the race, stands out like a sore thumb and if it makes the reader utter "Cor Blimus! Look at that value!", then there is every chance that it will be ripe for a Cherry Pick.

Five Examples

Here's four example of four races from the 22nd November, 2007 ratings.

Whilst this one wasn't a winner, Antonius Caesar came in second at 33/1 and available at over 100s on the exchanges.

The reason for this selection stands out; Antonius Caesar's Cls (class) rating is 14.3 which is far ahead of the other horses' Cls rating. The TrForm of 120, second best in the race, was rather promising as well.

Spring Margot is top rated, rated seven pounds clear but the stand-out figure is the Spd (Speed) rating of 20.5 which is far ahead of the next Speed figure of just 3.0.

Spring Margot won at 7/1 though 10/1 could have been had on the exchanges.

This was a great start for the Cherry Picks. Dark Artist led from the start and held on to win by three and a half lengths at 20/1. One could have had over 40/1 on Betfair.

Dark Angel's figures certainly do stand out. The Conn (Trainer/Jockey connection rating) of 13.5 is the stand-out figure. In addition there are some other positive figures for Dark Angel; the TrForm (Trainer's recent form) is a massive 166 and is ridden by the top rated jockey in the race.

Sometimes in a race more than one horse stand out. This race is shows two such horses which were both selections.

The first is the winner, Cryptic which won at 9/2. The stand-out figure with the "Cor Blimey!" reaction here is the Cls rating. The other horse which stands out is Flemens River didn't win but ran well and just missed out of the places by less than a length at 100/1 which isn't shabby at all. The figure here is Lst (Last run rating) which is 13.0; in excess of ten more than the next best Last Run value.

Back to Silver Prophet; the ratings for today's race can be seen here (see page 26). The interesting statistic here is the high Cls figure of 27.7 which certainly stands out heads and shoulders above the rest of the data.

Now it must be mentioned that not every stand-out figure results in a good priced winner but on the 22nd there were other Cherry Picks and between those not listed they would have paid for the unsuccessful ones. And, of course, on some days there will be days where nothing of value wins but if one has a wide enough betting bank then the higher priced winners should see you through.

On the day after these, the 23rd November, they were reported to show up to 55 points profit on the exchanges and then, on the 24th, they posted a loss. However, one doesn't need too many selections at 70s, as in Silver Prophet today, to do well from the Cherry Picks.

And don't take our word for it. Have a look through the ratings archive, find the stand-out values and then look up the results.

Cherry Picking Spreadsheet

One of our subscribers, MrClox2, has kindly created a spreadsheet to select the day's Cherry Picked selections automatically. The spreadsheet requires MS Excel to run. The spreadsheet uses our daily CSV file to generate the selections.

One of the great features of MrClox's spreadsheet is that one is able to customise some of the parameters to change the selections if one feels that some aspects, for example the TrForm (Trainer Recent Form) should carry more or less significance. MrClox's spreadsheet is simple to use and is quick.

Please note that the macro security should be set so that the VBA code within the template can run.

Please download Mr Clox's spreadsheet (1.1 MB) here.

Thanks to MrClox for the spreadsheet, it is certainly appreciated by a good number of people.