There is a particular kind of losing day that hurts more than a straightforward beating, and Steve Ryder had it at Kempton on Monday. Not two horses that ran badly. Two horses that ran well enough to make you look at the photo.
Oddschecker’s flagship free column went into 10 August on 7.50 units, already the second-lowest bank on the tracked roster. It came out on 5.50 units. Two bets, two Kempton all-weather races back to back, no return from either, and a bankroll that has now lost 4.5 of its original 10 in eight advised selections. On this ledger only Alex Hammond, frozen on 4.00u, sits lower.
Performance Summary: The Bottom of the Table
Bank Yesterday
Tips (1u each)
Winners
Current Bank (units)
Status
Oddschecker running record: 8 tips, 1 winner, 12.5% strike rate, 5.50u from a 10.00u start. For context at the other end of the roster, Harry Wilson sits on 14.50u and Pricewise is untouched on 10.00u. The full ten-name table is in Monday’s flagship review.
The Big Hits
Not here. The one winner the entire roster produced on Monday was My Old Mate, the 8/15 favourite that took the 20:15 at Windsor for Templegate’s nap and Rob Wright’s nap in The Times — worth 0.53 of a unit each and nothing at all to this column, which did not have it.
What Oddschecker did have was the shape of a decent day. Roi De Coeur was advised at 6/1 each-way in the 16:00 handicap, a Class 5 over a mile with 14 runners, on the strength of having beaten Fallacious Promise a month earlier. The market agreed enthusiastically and then some: 6/1 in the column, 2/1 favourite by the off. He led. He was pressed inside the last furlong. He emptied, and finished fifth — behind Fallacious Promise, the horse the write-up had used as the evidence. Santiago Boy came second at 50/1 and Alkumatic Jo Jo third at 18/1, which tells you the race did not run to the book at all.
Thirty minutes later, Believitanducan in the 17:00 stayers’ handicap, advised at 7/4, off at 3/1. Third of 12, beaten a nose for second by Maxident, with Senor Cortez gone at 8/1. A win-only advice, so a nose is worth precisely nothing. That is two units gone on a day when a place-only ledger would have shown a profit — which is exactly why we do not keep a place-only ledger.
The Eliminations and Misses
Nobody was eliminated on Monday, but the bottom of the table is starting to look like a queue.
Alex Hammond remains the closest to the exit on 4.00 units after six losing selections on her debut day. She is not charged for Monday: Sky’s Tip of the Day page is overwritten daily and her 10 August selection had been replaced by the time this desk looked for it. An unverifiable tip is never guessed and never settled here, so her bank stands still. That is a reprieve, not a recovery — she still needs a winner and has yet to have one.
Templegate is the cautionary tale for anyone who thinks a winner fixes things. He napped My Old Mate and it obliged, but at 8/15 (settled at Racing Post SP, because The Sun’s own quoted price could not be verified — the trackers carrying his selections disagreed with each other across 8/11, 4/7 and 5/4). Meanwhile his next best Star Cast was second at 6/1 in the 15:15 at Ayr and his treble leg Sudden Flight was twelfth of 16 in the Windsor sprint final. Net damage: 1.47 units, down to 6.53u.
Newsboy and Robin Goodfellow each drop a unit to 8.00u — Another Abbot eighth in that same Windsor sprint, Black Rock Beauty ninth of 12 at Ayr and returned at 18/1. Both are now two tips into their records without a winner between them, as covered in Saturday’s newspaper review. Paul Kealy published no free Monday tip and is not charged.
Full disclosure on the ledger itself: this desk did not run on Monday, so Sunday 9 August is unsettled for every tipster on the roster. Banks carry from Saturday’s close directly into Monday’s. Skipping a day uniformly is defensible; settling some columns’ Sunday and guessing the others would not be.
Today’s Outlook
Tuesday is four British cards and nothing from Ireland: Lingfield on the all-weather at 14:30, Carlisle at 14:45, Hamilton at 17:30, Nottingham at 17:45. Low-grade summer racing, big fields at the sprint end, and the sort of programme where a column on 5.50 units has to decide whether to chase or to sit.
Oddschecker have already gone in hard, publishing a selection in all six races at Lingfield — the full card, runners and prices are in our Lingfield preview. Templegate’s nap is Bone Marra in the 16:30 there at 11/8; Newsboy’s is Moulin Booj in the 19:45, covered in the Nottingham preview. For context on the man Ryder is chasing, see how Harry Wilson built the biggest bank on the roster.
The arithmetic for Steve Ryder is unforgiving and simple. At 5.50 units he can afford roughly two more Mondays. A 6/1 winner would put him back above his starting position in the pack; five more losers and he is in Hammond territory. Everything gets settled here tomorrow, at Racing Post prices, with no allowances for noses.