6 Months, 2,365 Bets: What Actually Works in 2025
After half a year of live testing with real money, here's the complete breakdown before I take a break till autumn.
No sugar coating. Just data.
The Baseline Reality
Let's start with the truth about 2025: if you backed every horse since June 12 at the best available price from 10am to jump, you'd be down 5.2%.
51,000 bets. Minus 5.2% ROI.
That's the market. That's what we're beating against.
Not a lot of loose balls anymore. Market efficiency is at an all-time high. This defines the difficulty level - winning in 2025 requires beating -5.2%, and everything I'm about to show you is measured against that benchmark.
The Price Reality - 15% That Separates Winning from Losing
I ran official tips through five different price points to answer the question everyone should be asking: when and where you bet matters as much as what you bet.
Here's what 2,365 bets over 6 months showed:
High Price (best available 10am-jump): +7%
This is shopping around, multiple accounts, getting the top odds. Hard to get, but the results speak.
Opening Price (9:30-10am release): -18%
More inefficient market, but you're betting into 118-125% books. Harder than it looks.
Best Tote with SP: -1.5%
Not bad if you're betting late or can't shop around. Country meetings especially.
Final Live Price (1 min before jump): -8.6%
This is where most people bet. This is why most people lose.
Betfair SP: 0%
Before commission. Essentially unbeatable because it's got all the intelligence baked in.
The killer: High price +7% vs Final price -8.6% = 15% difference.
If you just turned up and went bang at the end with one minute to go, you would not be winning off the official tips at all. That 15% difference? That's the difference between winning and losing.
Price selection is as important as horse selection. You need both.
The 6-Month Results
Official tips: 2,365 bets, 541 winners, +7.15% ROI at high price.
Breaking that down:
Golden Bullets: 352 bets, 108 winners (31% strike), +2.5% ROI
Disappointing. Small sample, high variance. I expect this to improve but it's not where I want it.
Backs: 1,500 bets, 346 winners (23% strike), +8.5% ROI
Right on target. This is what I was hoping for.
Good Ruffies: 432 bets, 31 winners (7.8% strike), +7.7% ROI
The value proof. Winning 7.8% of the time but still making 7.7% profit. ROI > strike rate. Always.
Beating the market by 12% overall. I was hoping for 10%. If I had to predict the next six months, my answer would be 10%.
Selection 1 vs The Lays - The 20% Spread
Selection 1 (one bet every race): 7,150 bets, +5.8% ROI
The Lays: -13% ROI (if you backed them)
That's a 19% spread between the horses I like and the horses I don't like.
Here's what's interesting: Lays at high price lose -13%. Lays at Betfair SP lose only -3%.
What does that tell you? A lot of horses I don't like drift. They're better prices on Betfair at the end. That information alone is valuable when predicting fluctuations - even if you think my form's garbage, understanding which horses are likely to drift helps you time your bets better.
10 Systems Returning 10%+ ROI
I went through the analysis screen live, testing factors one by one. Here's what actually works:
1. Official Tips + Cruising Rank 1-2 + Very Slow/Slow Tempo + Sprints (800-1200m)
88 bets, 36 winners, 31% ROI
On-pace horses in slow tempo sprints. Makes sense. Scenario doesn't happen often, but when it lines up, it pays.
2. Official Tips + $3.50 to $15 Price Range
+8.8% ROI
The sweet spot. Under $3.50 there's no value anymore - too much early money, market's too efficient. I used to bet bigger on odds-on chances. Not anymore.
3. Official Tips + First-Up (Runs From Spell = 0)
538 bets, +15% ROI
This has been the game-changer. I put a heap of work into first-up horses - watching trials, incorporating trial data, reading market intent. Adding the human element to the computer model.
Result: 15% profit on turnover. I've never made that sort of money out of first-up horses. I expect it to come back a bit, but I do expect it to stay over 10%.
4. Class Edge + Race Strength 95+
166 bets, +12% ROI
Higher-end races, group races, listed races. I've put extra work into these. Used to struggle with them because markets are more accurate. Turned it around.
5. Selection 1 + Trained at Track
1,074 bets, +15% ROI
Home ground advantage. Backing all horses trained at the track loses -2.2%. Adding Selection 1 takes it to +15%. Finding reasons for improvement - horses more comfortable, know the track, training there daily.
6. Selection 1 + Excuses Last Start
165 bets, +12% ROI
Small sample but logical. Another reason to improve rather than regress. Horses that had legitimate excuses last time, ratings might be lower than ability.
7. Selection 1 + Days Since Last Run 1-7 (Backing Up)
473 bets, +13% ROI
Quick backup, horses fit, ready to fire again. Racing close to last run, nice and fit, go to another level.
8. CAM Rank 1 + Days Since Last Run 1-7
194 bets, +10.45% ROI
Good cruising/acceleration combination with backing up. Marrying reasons to improve with real numbers.
9. Selection 1 + Good Value in Early Betting
2,025 bets, +10.6% ROI
This is the big one. Good value alone: +7.3%. With Selection 1: +10.6%. Adds 5.5%!
About 2,000 of the 5,000 Selection 1s are good value. The other 3,000 probably break even. Shows how important these prices are.
10. Ideal Distance + Good Value in Early Betting
1,761 bets, +11% ROI
Horses racing at their optimal distance where they've performed best, combined with good early betting value.
What Doesn't Work
Jockey Edge: Market prices jockey ability perfectly. James McDonald is brilliant - best jockey in Australia. But everybody knows it. His price is shorter. Comes back to value all the time.
Jockey edge alone: -4.5%. With Selection 1: +3.7% (worse than +5%). Doesn't add value.
Upside Factor: Market finds these horses early. Alone: -8%. With Selection 1: -7%. Well backed, overvalued.
Weight Drop: Alone: -10%. With Selection 1: +1.4% (worse than +5%). Taking away value.
Excuses Last Start (currently): Alone: -10%. Market's finding a lot of these horses. I do expect that to turn around, but right now it's not working.
The Betfair Reality
Betfair SP without commission: essentially 0% ROI.
Why? Because it's the most accurate price available in the market. All the smart money's gone in, all the pros have bet, everyone who wants to do anything has put their money on. The punters have shaped the market into a very efficient market.
The Betfair SP is more efficient than opening price, more efficient than high price, more efficient than totes. It's essentially perfect pricing.
But - and this is important - Betfair itself is a fluctuating market. That Betfair SP is accurate at the END. Five minutes out, one minute out, it's still moving. You can still find value if you're watching the market, understanding fluctuations, getting on early when you see smart money hitting.
The lesson: Betfair SP is hard to beat. Betfair itself is a fantastic place to bet if you're in tune with the fluctuations.
What's Next
I'm taking a break from The Grind weekly episodes to focus on:
Hong Kong Racing: Getting it live on the TKZ platform in 2-3 weeks. Sundays and Wednesdays. If your package includes those days, you get Hong Kong included.
The Analysis Screen: Working on the load capacity and presentation so you can use it properly. It's happening, just needs more time.
Japan Cup Preview: Next week (Nov 30 race)
Hong Kong International Preview: Mid-December (Dec 14)
Season 2: Autumn 2026
The Bottom Line
November: 17.6% ROI
October: 14.5% ROI
September: 3.8% ROI
The variance is real. The cycle proven. Two months of hell, then two weeks of winning at 30%. That's punting.
Everything's small margins in this game. You're never going to be winning 20-30%. You need to eke out every little bit you can get. The 15% difference between high price and final price. The 6% improvement just getting best tote vs single tote. The 5.5% boost from good value in early betting.
1% here, 6% there - it adds up.
The longer you do something with advantage, the more consistent the results are going to be over time.
This is a long long game.
The hard work never stops.
The King Zone: theking.zone