Today was my first day of testing my approach against January races.

You may recall that I've spoken about how The Whales lose in December & January.

Personally, I haven't made a bet from about Dec 15 to late in January in perhaps 20 years.

Well, today I played Jan 24, 2024 and my horses never got calls.

I mean, unnaturally so.

Several years ago, one of our long-time HSH users (named Matt) kept playing the system I'd used the year before, even after it stopped working around Thanksgiving. I was shocked when he called me and said, "It came back to normal during the last week of January."

My Theory
I've long-attributed this to altered training patterns - especially from the big trainers.

My theory is that from the week before Thanksgiving, until just after the football games around January 1st, the big trainers take time off to be with their families.

The do this because they can.

Sure, they still show up for the big race days, but their assistants are handling the day-to-day.

Then, after New Year's Day, they get back to real work and it takes 3 weeks or so for things to return to normal.

I've got no idea if this is true, but it is what I have surmised.
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I actually thought that DET might handle this well, even though there is no seasonality in the training.

My reasoning was that I paper-played 5 or 6 days in early December - about 125 races or so - and did quite well.

So, I shall repeat the warning one more time...
TREAD CAREFULLY UNTIL THE END OF JANUARY!