Musings

It shouldn't, but it still amazes me how our brains distort information when put in certain circumstances. I had an opportunity to review my IR footage mentioned in my last post, and am almost gobsmacked when seeing the risks I was taking. At the time I was not fully aware and felt slightly uncomfortable but couldn't quite put my finger on why until seeing the footage later. I was quite fortunate on a few occasions and it could of easily been a losing day, it was almost like watching a horror movie at times!

I'd like to think that some of the work I did over the past 6 months has improved my awareness and attitude towards risk somewhat, and it just goes to show that reviewing all trading, profitable or not is vitally important in giving it a fair assessment. What I have found most interesting is how the markets move IR, it's a whole different beast that's for sure, and that I knew already, but actually trading the runners and pushing money around really opened my eyes to how the book fluctuates and where the money is actually being matched.

What have I conluded from all of this?
I will be returning to prerace trading for the timebeing. Although I have no doubt that there are plenty of opportunites to profit IR, I am simply not experienced or skilled enough to have an edge longterm at the moment. I think my knowledge of racing has undoubtably grown in the past few months however it is far off what it needs to be to read these races effectively. I'm expecting it to continue growing as I watch more and more races, and hopefully one day I will give it another crack when I feel the time is right. Another reason for not persuing is that the fast pictures I was fortunate to have are a rarity, and even on the specific days they are available I could potentially be unavailable to trade, further reducing the opportunities. I was thining about the possibility of visiting one of the these trading rooms fitted with SIS pictures, although SIS is still not as fast as the picturs I was getting, perhaps something else to look at in the future. For now though I want to focus all of my efforts on prerace and see how far I can push it.

One thing I would like to point out for anyone having trouble closing trades prerace, try and trade some markets IR. After only a few it should become clearer why taking a prerace position IR is a complete gamble, it just doesn't make any sense once you see how these markets move! You would be far better off closing and using your stake on a planned IR strategy, at least that way it's not a complete gamble and has some tact to it. This experience has perhaps delivered the final blow to any IR closure notions I may still of had prerace, and in that respect I'm pleased to have gained another positive result from it.