After 3 years in a row of brilliant profits during Cup Week for Dean's Tips, unfortunately we had our first losing Cup Week in 2016.

In total it was a 23.52u loss for the Week.

This was in stark contrast to the previous 3 years where Cup Week had produced the following profits:

2013: 28.07u Profit
2014: 22.01u Profit
2015: 18.84u Profit

The breakdown of the 2016 Cup Week is as follows:

Flem Win/Place: 2.97u Profit
Flem Trifectas: 8.93u Loss
Flem Trebles/Quaddies: 7.17u Loss
All other venues: 10.38u Loss

The win and place bets were profitable. We started the carnival in the best possible fashion with our first bet in the first race on Derby Day, Comin' Through storming home from last to win at $7. Awesome Rock at $19 was another notable winner, and I'm pleased to have tipped the winner of the Mackinnon (now called the Emirates) Stakes 4 years out of 4 (Side Glance $19, Gailo Chop $9 and Happy Trails $8). There were the usual string of 2nd placings also, the most frustrating of which was McCreery at $23 ($36 Betfair) who was desperately unlucky getting blocked for clear running in the straight, and the jockey hopped off and simply said 'should have won'

With the trifectas, the Cantala Stakes trifecta was 'the one that got away', paying $7,200 and we had 1st, 2nd and 4th beaten a nose for 3rd.

With the quaddies, the Emirates Stakes day quaddie was no doubt 'the one that got away'. It paid $47,000, and we had 3 out of 4 legs, finding Awesome Rock at $19, Malaguerra at $9 and Lord Aspen at $6. Unfortunately we missed Jessy Belle who won the Matriarch Stakes in an afterthought race where the stable admitted they were going to spell the horse but the owners wanted to run again during the carnival. To add salt in the wound we had 2nd and 3rd, with the rider of 2nd horse Sort After saying post race the horse 'should have won' after missing the start, doing a heap of work to circle around them and lead, and just being nailed near the line. 3rd horse Happy Hannah was absolutely flying home from last and was in front not far past the post. That's racing!

With the other non Flemington venues, it was suprising to lose during this week given the 450+ units of profit we have made in the past 15 months. Perhaps trying to cover so many meetings whilst also covering the huge 4 days of big fields at Flemington was too big an ask. I was exhausted and it's something for me to think about for next year's carnival.

The pleasing aspect of the Cup Week Carnival however was that our other services performed well. Pedigree Power had some big winners like Illustrious Lad at $14, Malaguerra at $9 and The Chairman at $8, and won 14.63u during the week. The NZ service won 30.5 units on the last Saturday after amending its staking strategy with three winners over $12, and Gary's Ratings made a couple of units profit as well.

Fortunately for Dean's Tips we recently won 35.34u last Saturday & Sunday to more than compensate for the losing Cup Week, still managed a profitable October, and are up 17.04 units for the November month so far thanks in no small part to ripping days at Sandown on Saturday and Mt Barker on Sunday. Hopefully we can make it 15 winning months in a row.

All the best.

Dean