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Rules for 2008-9 Jumps TTF Competition
 
Column 2 Rule

The first step to entering this competition is to reduce the official master list of 500 horses down to a manageable shortlist from which to perm your lines of ten.

Our table automatically limits the number of horses in the shortlist to not more than 36.  The nine subgroups defined in Column 2 further ensure that each line of ten permed from the list will be well constructed.
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Columns 3 and 4 Rule

All horses which are under consideration for the shortlist theoretically begin life in column 4.  Each horse must be put in the correct subgroup as defined in col 2.  A horse which does not comply with any of the eight defined subgroups can be put in a small Miscellaneous section at the bottom.  The best horses in col 4 should be progressively promoted over to col 3 where they should be listed (weighted) in a perceived order of merit.  Column 3 is what ultimately forms the final shortlist from which to pick the lines of ten.

The subgroups in the shortlist are generally blocks of four horses.  Once any such block in col 3 is full, no other horse can be moved from col 4 to the corresponding block in col 3 except if an existing horse is taken out of 3 back to 4.  This stringent, disciplined approach keeps the mind focused at all times on keeping the quality in col 3 high but the quantity reasonably low.  Inevitably, many horses starting out in col 4 can never make it to col 3 because of these quantity limits.  When the competition gets underway, many of the horses that were left in col 4 may be deleted from it as otherwise they become an unnecessary distraction.  One exception is if a horse in col 4 was a recommendation from somebody - by not deleting the horse, a check can, at least, be kept on its progress.

If there are not enough worthy contenders to completely fill a particular block of four horses, then a blank space should be left somewhere in the group.  These 'vacant slots' are an integral part of the system and must be permed into the lines of ten just as if they were a horse, albeit one with no name initially.  The blanks are to be used later, as a final-step, like a wildcard, for fine-tuning any lines containing a blank space.  More on that is further down in a wildcard rule.
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2½m Chasers Rule - Paddy Power Gold Cup (November) & Ryanair Chase (March)

The first bonus race in the competition is the Paddy Power Gold Cup and it is the first race specifically targeted by the system's shortlist.  The race is important because the likely runners and the betting are common knowledge before the deadline for posting competition entries.  That means a huge number of entrants will kick off with the PPGC winner and you must, therefore, try hard, within reason, to be one them - with the winner of this race in a good proportion of your lines.  Otherwise you will be toiling behind from the very start.  In particular, if the actual winner of the race proves to be a popular fancy in the betting, and you do not have it in any of your lines, you could be in very deep trouble from the off.  That is because those players who do have the (well-fancied) winner are going to be people who know what they are doing - so many of them will have it in strong sensible lines.  On the other hand, if the race were to be won by an outsider, missing it should not normally matter in the long run because those players who have fanciful horses in their lines are going to be people whose lines will probably lack quality in depth - so will eventually be caught and overtaken by all the shrewder entries.  For those reasons, the system concentrates on just the first four in the very latest available ante-post betting for the race.  The perming instructions in the third section down in the shortlist ensure that you cover only those four market leaders, and use only of them in each line.  If, in any year, you were to fancy only two or three of the first four in the betting, you would then just cover those two or three, instead of all four, but still with only one in any single line.

If one of your lines of ten has a vacant slot in it this is the only valid circumstance under which to consider putting in a second Paddy Power selection in the one line (i.e. as a wildcard).  However, you would need to be very confident of one of the two horses actually winning the race because having two Paddy Power losers in a single line would be as good as £12 down the drain straight away!

The later Ryanair Chase at Cheltenham is another bonus race over a similar distance to the Paddy Power.  The Ryanair is not specifically targeted by the system in November.  Fuller consideration of the Ryanair can wait till substitution time in February.
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3m+ Chasers Rule - Hennessy, King George & Cheltenham Gold Cup types

The 3m+ Chasers' group is where each line is loaded up with three quality, seasoned, 3m+ chasers.

There was a time when half of the 50-point bonus races were for these staying chasers, so it often used to pay to weight entries heavily in favour of them (extra ones could always be added via the system's wildcard opportunities or at substitution time).  Subsequently, however, new bonus races have been added to the competition for completely different types of horses (most recently, two for novice chasers and one for 2m 5f chasers).  The overall effect has been to reduce to only one third the number of bonus races for the seasoned staying chasers, hence blindly weighting any lines with more than three of those may not be as advantageous as it sometimes was in the past.
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Miscellaneous Group Rule

A strong staying hurdler, one which could win the World Hurdle at Cheltenham, should go in the No. 1 slot in the first block in the Miscellaneous section.  If a second staying hurdler is added, it can be weighted further down, say at No. 5.  The other six spots can be filled with anything as long as each one is seriously expected to clock up 70 points by the end of the season (e.g. 20 + 50, or 20 + 25 + 25).

It is usually difficult to foresee as many as eight 'miscellaneous' horses all capable of achieving such scores, in which case one or two vacant slots can be left somewhere in the group for use as wildcard opportunities.
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Wildcard Rule Part 1 (of 3)

Using Vacant Slots as Wildcard selections
If, in any block of four horses, not enough good-enough horses can be identified, pre-competition, to fill the block, that will leave an empty space.  These vacant slots are, in fact, an important feature of the system.  If, in the final shortlist in November, there are, say, 32 named horses, that would leave four vacant slots dotted around the shortlist.  Those vacant slots are basically a good thing to have as it means the base horses will be permed more tightly - though there should never be too many empty spaces or you run the risk of not having enough runners through the season to keep your interest going.

A vacant slot in a block must still be regarded as a horse, albeit an unnamed horse initially.  A vacant slot must not be ignored or bypassed.  It should be permed into your lines of ten in proportion (i.e. weighted) according to its position in its respective block (i.e. if selection 1 in a block of four horses is shown as a vacant slot, it should go in twice as many lines than if selection 4 were the vacant slot).  When there are several vacant slots in the shortlist, you may find that two or even three vacant slots might be permed into a few of your lines of ten.  Normally, though, most lines will inevitably have ten named horses straight off and no vacant slots.

Actual names should be put in the vacant slots as a very final step.  Hence a vacant slot effectively works like a wildcard and, as such, can be a very powerful tool for the final fine-tuning, strengthening and varying of individual lines.

There are two ways in which a vacant slot in a block of four can be used.  Either or both ways can be used if the same vacant slot appears in more than one line of ten.  Firstly, the vacant slot in a line can be filled by any of the other three horses in its base block.  That will mean the three horses are being covered more tightly in your entry, which is obviously a very good thing if those horses prove to be high-scorers.  Alternatively, a vacant slot in a line can be filled by any horse from anywhere else in column 3 - in which case it is serving as a full-blown wildcard.  This latter strategy is what is probably more likely to pull off a jackpot win or a £10K consolation prize though, mathematically, it will always be really difficult in practice to bring in the right horse as the wildcard.

If the same vacant slot is permed into more than one line of ten, the vacancy does not have to be filled with the same wildcard name each time - the horses which fill vacancies can be varied at will.  Butt take care not to put in a horse which is already in the line - this error is surprisingly easy to make when horses are, ultimately, identified by a 4-digit number not their name.
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Wildcard Rule Part 2

Using Linked Vacant Slots as Linked Wildcard selections
If one horse is known to be strongly fancied, pre-competition, for two different target races in the shortlist, then one of those instances may either be used to bring in another horse from column 4 of the same subgroup or, if there isn't one worth bringing in, be left as a blank space, in a position corresponding with the perceived strength of the horse relative to the others in the block, for use as a 'linked wildcard'.  Then, whenever that 'linked wildcard' happens to be permed into a line of ten which does not contain the dual-race horse, it has been duly flagged up that consideration should firstly be given to bringing that horse into the line as the 'linked wildcard'.  If the horse is not brought in, that line would, of course, be left without that particular fancied horse for both of the key races.  Which may or may not be what you want depending on the overall makeup of your other lines but, at least, the 'linking' ensures the situation cannot go unnoticed.

As an actual example of a linked wildcard, in the 2006-7 season, Kauto Star was the ante-post favourite for the Queen Mother Chase and the King George Chase, both at Cheltenham.  A ludicrous situation as Kauto would obviously run in only one of them.  It suited us, strategically, to list Kauto in the Queen Mother's block, consequently leaving the first line in the King George block empty and, hence, designated as a 'linked wildcard'.  That meant, in lines of ten which contained that 'linked wildcard', priority would accordingly be given to including Kauto if it wasn't already in the line in question.

Conversely, if a linked vacancy happens to be permed into a line of ten which already contains the dual-race horse or, if the dual-race horse is not high calibre, and does not warrant being in too many lines, then the linked vacancy can be used as a full-blown wildcard.  In which case the vacancy can be filled by any horse from the same block/ same section/ any other section, in column 3, provided, of course, that horse does not already appear in the line in question.  If the same linked vacancy appears in more than one line of ten, and is used as a full wildcard in more than one of them, a different horse can be brought in each time as the wildcard, if that seems the tactical thing to do.

Wildcard Rule Part 3

Exclusivity
For the purpose of the system and validating the system's performance, selections for filling any vacant slots shall be taken only from the named horses in column 3, not from the those left out in column 4 nor from all the others completely outside of the table.
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Bonus Horse Rule

Substitution time used to be early January.  From 2009, it is late February.  As before, two horses can be brought in, but for free now, and two will no longer have to be taken out.  The best ten from the twelve will be counted.  This is a great change as it will take all the stress and cost out of substitution time.  Delaying the transfers to just before Cheltenham is another nice touch as it means all persons who, by then, are already out of contention for the overall prize, can, at least, bolster some of their lines in the hope of being one of the two people who will win the consolation prizes for most points at Cheltenham (£25K) and/or for March (£10K).

People who intend to make their substitutions by internet should leave themselves sufficient time.  If you have never done it before, do a practice run a couple of days before the deadline day so you will know exactly how the process works when you come to do it for real.  Furthermore, the Racing Post entry form carries a warning not to leave it to the last minute in case it might overload (crash) the Tote's server computer.
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Totesport Trophy Hurdle Rule

This race is run in mid-February and has always been a 50-point bonus race.  However, it has never specifically been targeted in our system.  The problem is, nobody knows in November, pre-competition, what is likely to run in this race and, even if they did, they still would not have a clue what would win it.  Some long-range hints, tips or rumours always abound for the race at competition entry time but are best ignored.

The race is sponsored by the Tote, who jointly administer the Ten To Follow competition, which explains how a moderate handicap hurdle race comes to carry bonus points it does not relatively deserve.  The race has almost never had any influence on the final outcome of the overall competition.

The substitution window thankfully comes after this particular race in 2009 so that will finally dispense with the other annual temptation which was to waste a January substitute selection on the race.
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Grand National Rule

In all the years the competition has been running, the winner of the GN has never come from the four horses which were heading the ante-post market in November.  Furthermore, when substitutions previously used to take place in January, the ante-post favourite in January never went on to win the GN either.

Occasionally, GN candidates have emerged, by the end of March, out of the system's Hennessy/ King George/ Gold Cup section, horses which have looked far better, on the day of the National, than anything which could have been picked back in November or January - but they have never won it either!

On only two occasions has the competition's first prize been won by somebody with the GN winner - but in neither case had they put their clinching horse in as a GN fancy!

Notwithstanding the above, the later date for adding bonus horses in 2009 will mean the GN will be only 6 weeks away so there are now serious prospects that this most difficult of races could play a bigger part in the final roll-call of the competition.  However, consideration for including an Aintree Grand National sort is obviously best deferred until February.
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Betting

NEVER back your own horses in the TTF competition.  It's the kiss of death.  If you are in a syndicate, that goes for everybody in the syndicate too.  Don't let anybody break that rule!  If they do and it loses, lynch them!

If you must have a bet in a race in which you have a TTF runner, look for the most dangerous rival in the race to yours and, provided it has an obvious good chance of winning, cover yourself by backing that one.  If that rival horse is also running for any of your opponents in the TTF, so much the better!

This is a form of 'cover betting' or 'insurance betting'.  Sometimes also called 'superstition betting' - though usually only by those who don't understand racing is a prime example of the Chaos Theory in action.

What your cover bet will actually mean, in practice, is that you are going into the race with a triple-edged sword.  You will collect the cash or the points or, if you get neither, you will, at least, have successfully stopped the opponent collecting the points as well.  It's a win-win situation as it were.
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Denman Dilemma, Nov 2008

The one horse which everyone was looking forward to seeing again, more than any other, and, no doubt, to putting in every single line as the biggest cast-iron cert-banker of the century, instead, because of a delayed start while recovering from a heart operation, turned into the most difficult dilemma ever faced by TTF fans.  Would he actually run this season?  If he runs will he lose one or even both of his projected races?  Or will he make a great recovery, run his two races, and brush everything else aside with disdain again just like last season?  As that's all still in the future, nobody knows - least of all, it is worth thinking about - Denman himself!

One thing we are fairly sure of, though, if Denman does run at Cheltenham, win or lose, is that those who leave Denman out of all of their lines in November, with the intention of adding him to their lines in late February, will be in a very different, potentially doomed position compared to those who put him in in November.  This is because those who did put him in in November will, come February, be in the very happy position of being able to bring in two, fresh, in-form additional horses to each line.  Whereas, those who leave it till February will, effectively, only be able to bring in one.  The other, being Denman, will be wasted, serving merely as 'damage limitation' if, as we imagine will be the case, most if not all of the front runners in the competition, come February, will already have Denman in their lines, especially so if he has actually won his early-February 25-point prep run.

We therefore believe it will be correct to leave the decision till February only if you are of the opinion, in November, that Denman will probably lose, or not even run in the Gold Cup.  A costly compromise could possibly be to put Denman in half the number of lines in November you would have put him in if there had been no setback - so as to be only half wrong come February.  It really is a tough call.

Update 5.12.08 - Denman is doing so well his reappearance might only be a month away.  Connections are saying the 3m Grade 2 Peter Marsh Ltd Hcap Chase at Haydock on 17th Jan.  But why consider throwing a hospital case back in prematurely at such a fairly high level?  Unless it's just a publicity spin?  A bad run, pulled up, fall, or worse could see him out for good.  If that was our horse (we wish!), we would be looking for a piddling little race somewhere down south where all circumstances would be kinder for that time of year - so he could run at a relaxed pace purely as a confidence building pipe-opener for the Aon Chase at Newbury a month after.  Gung-ho is great if you get away with it but we've seen such gambles backfire badly with one or two stars with question marks over them in the past, so we can't help but worry.

Update 18.12.08 - Seems somebody was listening.  At least, they won't now be forcing Denman to go up to freezing Haydock in January.  He might not even be fully ready for the February Aon target, it's a case of wait and see.

Denman was in only 11% of lines at the off.  We were surprised it was that low.  That means our original theory that those who left Denman out of all of their lines in November could be in a potentially doomed position is in question now simply due to the sheer weight of numbers (i.e. the overwhelming 89%) who did leave Denman out.
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Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to provide accurate and helpful guidance for entering the Totesport Ten To Follow competition with a view to winning it with our system.  However, no liability can be accepted by Capital Ratings nor by any other party or persons involved therewith or contributing thereto in the event of any erroneous information or ultimately mistaken or misleading information.  The system's shortlist, rules, permutation instructions and substitution guidelines may be used only and purely on that understanding.

As with all gambling systems, past success does not guarantee future success - so always keep your outlay within reason so there is no risk of any anxiety being caused to yourself or to those close to you.  This competition is mostly about enjoying the excitement and anticipation of what might happen each time your horses run.  Actually getting the best winners to line up in one line, with or without our system, is always going to be extremely hard and can only ever be achieved by a tiny handful of players each year.
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