I had a mild panic attack this week as www.racingpost.com changed to a beta version.

Some of the stats I use disappeared. Thankfully, I found the old website and can continue my horse racing strategies.

Incidentally, if you still want to access the old www.racingpost.com, simply Google ‘old racingpost site’ or use this link.

There are some great jumps races this weekend and high-class to boot!

A quick look at past winners suggests I should look at these races…

13:35 Aintree

A 16/1 and a 20/1 horse each way for me tomorrow in this race. The last four winners have come in this band.

14:10 Aintree

Skelton and Henderson are the winning trainers in the last four runnings of this race.

If these two trainers have the favourite running, back it each-way. Three favourites have won in four matches.

13:55 Sandown

Paul Nicholls seems to farm this race. He runs Marracudja.

14:25 Sandown

The only recent winning favourite was ridden by AP McCoy. Without the great man, I feel we could return to a 7 or 8/1 horse each way.

These are the odds of 5 of the last 10 winners. These horses are not favourites but not outsiders.

15:00 Sandown

A race for market leaders. I would back a 3/1 to 5/1 horse each way here.

Those are the races I will focus on tomorrow from an ‘odds’ perspective.

Dobbing-tastic!

As we get closer to the New Year (don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about Christmas… when exactly is it acceptable to start scoffing mince pies? Asking for a friend…), I’ll be working on a method of finding ‘dobbers’, horses whose odds are likely to shorten in-running.

I have a number of strategies. We also have www.timeform.com, which has in-play Hi/Lo results.

Dobbing has been the hot topic of 2016 and I think it is time I tried my hand at finding selections. If you want to dip your toe into dobbing, check out Patternform and Dobbinday.

This should keep you interested in the subject. I think the potential is great here.

The next step, once we have found horses we can profit from, is to be able to place the bets and go.

This is called ‘ conditional betting’, and normally requires a betting bot. A nice side project I hope will yield some great results!

And before I go…

Here’s a great website I’ve recently found with a pure football focus, as well as bookmaker offers specific to football.

I’m sure there’s potential here. For instance, if you can Back Nottingham Forest at 18/1 with 888sport and the odds on Betfair are 4.8 to Lay Nottingham Forest, you can engineer a free bet.

Use a calculator like…

I hope you can see the potential! This will appeal to those of you who are interested in ‘bonus bagging’.

Let me know if the concept of Backing with bookmakers and Laying off at lower odds to guarantee a return is not new to you.

While I’m talking about the footy, pay particular attention to basically all of the teams mentioned on this page.

Take a particularly good peek at teams with upcoming Champions League matches who are playing away from home: Chelsea, and Leicester in the English Premier League, Sevilla in the Primera Liga, Bayern Munich and M’gladbach (if they score first) in the German Bundesliga, Paris St Germain in French Ligue 1 and so on.

I’ve seen a pattern with these teams insofar as they struggle in matches prior to Champions League mid-week matches. It is too coincidental not to be a link.

What I like to do is to Lay these teams at www.betfair.com, particularly if these teams score first. Check out these teams this weekend. I’m sure a number of these teams will lose or draw.

Have a great weekend and best of luck if you are playing at Aintree and Sandown. Oh, and as this is the mince-pie part of the year, look out for our own 12 Days of Xmas, too!