Well that was a St Patrick’s Day to remember, especially if you were shrewd enough to follow Yours Truly on Twitter @whatreallywins for my market movers for the Cheltenham Festival. I gave you a flavour in last week’s eletter regarding how I find market movers, and boy did they work on Friday 17 March!

Where’s my trumpet? Because I’m going to be blowing it!

The first winner I picked at Cheltenham on Friday was Sizing John at 7/1, followed swiftly by Pacher du Polder at a tasty 16/1, then Champagne Classic in the next at 12/1, followed by second-placed Gardefort at 20/1.

Yes I was rather disappointed with Gardefort, who looked as if he was going to win – only to be mugged by Rock the World (who did not rock mine, the bar steward)!

Two of the winners came in 23-runner races. The second at 20/1 came in a 24-runner handicap. Usually these are races best left alone, but quite clearly the market movers strategy was extremely accurate.

Coincidence? I’d like to think not. I relayed to you in last Friday’s eletter how I picked some tasty priced winners and horses who ran big races.

These market movers may be the bookies’ ‘tell’.

They say in cards that everyone has a tell. Do bookies, whose contacts relay that a horse will run well, show their tells by manipulating the odds? Do bookies, on receipt of late shrewd money, change the odds subtly?

This is an angle that warrants further investigation, and even some more live racing sessions on Twitter. What do you think? Aintree is the next big festival and I think the markets are so liquid that my version of finding the bookies’ tells may work out well again. I’ll let you know when I do the next live horse racing Tweeting session.

So, for those of you who backed Sizing/Pacher/Champagne/Gardefort, well done. And for those who used Betfair SP – kerching! It quite simply knocks the bookies terrible odds out of the water: so do note that the next time you back double-figure-odds horses!