Alastair

Yarmouth 2.55
Without Parole
Bet365   2/5

Friday
Musselburgh 1.15
Smiling Jessica
Bet365 4/1
£20 win
 
 

Navan 5.20
Order of St George
Bet365   1/5

I think you should re-consider Betfair. You refer to your Bet365 account being limited and I afraid that the reality is that you will run in to similar problems with other online bookmakers. However that is not a problem with the exchanges and whilst they are applying a 5% commission to winning bets at Betfair you should be able to overcome the disadvantage with the more generous prices that are usually available.

On another thread earlier this year I put up a little "system" for the National which has produced some very long priced winners - namely horses who had finished in the first 4 in one of the Irish, Scottish and Welsh Grand Nationals. This year there seem to be 6 qualifiers :
Seeyouatmidnight
Thunder and Roses
Raz De Maree
Houblon Des Obeaux
Bless the Wings
Final Nudge
I've backed all 6 at small stakes. If I had to narrow it to 3 it would be :
1. Seeyouatmidnight
2. Final Nudge
3. Houblon des Obeaux
 

On another thread earlier this year I put up a little "system" for the National which has produced some very long priced winners - namely horses who had finished in the first 4 in one of the Irish, Scottish and Welsh Grand Nationals. This year there seem to be 6 qualifiers :
Seeyouatmidnight
Thunder and Roses
Raz De Maree
Houblon Des Obeaux
Bless the Wings
Final Nudge
I've backed all 6 at small stakes. If I had to narrow it to 3 it would be :
1. Seeyouatmidnight
2. Final Nudge
3. Houblon des Obeaux
 

Aintree 5.15
Final Nudge
Bet365   50/1

Limerick 2.00
Tell Me Annie
William Hill   1/2

Market Rasen 2.00
Mont des Avaloirs
Bet365   1/4

I don't have any statistical evidence to hand but isn't there an argument that bad ground plays in to the hands of older horses - 11 to 13 years old - at the expense of the younger ones as they are physically stronger and more able to cope with testing conditions, and maybe not as fast as the young horses whose speed is blunted in the ground ?

Wolverhampton 8.15
Count Octave
Bet365   1/3

Wolverhampton 7.45
Beshaayir
SkyBet   2/5

I appreciate you will have done a fair bit of research for this, and others will have their views, but the rate of profitability with a profit of 232 from stakes of 180 for a rate of profit of just under 130% looks unsustainably high and suggests that this might just be a case of backfitting past results to produce a desired result.
You might like to look at my post regarding rates of return on betting.
Anyway good luck if you are pursuing this.

Where you need to start is by asking yourself what particular attributes is the race in question likely to require.
The Derby will usually be won by a horse that truly stays a mile and a half and with the speed to hold a good position with 3 to 4 furlongs to go ( last year's winner was an exception). The challenge with the Derby before the race is that it is highly unlikely that any of the runners will have competed previously in a strongly run 12 furlong race with a big field.So to discern whether a horse fits the bill requires a mixture of a more thoughtful analysis of its racecourse perfomances - it will usually have a good win percentage, have won at least at Listed race level, - and an analysis of its running style/pedigree. In truth it's not a race for the novice punter.
On a more general point trying to establish whether a particular kind of horse wins a particular  race will usually be most profitable for races that provide a test that horses only rarely meet : eg
On Derby Day on the charge down the hill for the quickest race of the year the 5 furlong "Dash" handicap particularly suits horses with good form either over course and distance or at the sharp 5 furlongs at Goodwood.
The final race at Royal Ascot - the Queen Alexandra stakes - the longest race of the year over 22 furlongs almost always goes to a horse that has already won over either the flat or jumps at a distance of 17 furlongs and has an Official Rating of at least 95
 
 

What do people feel is a realistic rate of return betting on the horses ? By this I mean initially profit on stakes(more on this below). Just rereading Patrick Veitch's book I see he claims a rate of 16.7% on turnover and I recall reading an interview with Jim McGrath where he says he reckons to have made a 10% margin. Veitch's is the highest I can remember claimed from someone for whom there is no doubt that on balance they have made a profit - I think Alex Bird reckoned to only make 2 to 3% . It's an interesting point because I think it demonstrates that anyone looking forward who believes that they have an approach that will lead to a return significantly better than 10% is deluding themselves.
Of course return on stakes is a crude yardstick. A business would more likely be assessed on its return on capital employed. This leads on to an interesting point regarding betting styles in that a punter should really be assessing their returns by reference to capital not turnover. Take 2 punters each with a 100 point bank and who each have 300 bets . Punter A has 30 winners from bets at an average price of 10/1 ; Punter B has 80 winners at an average price of 3/1. If stakes for each bet are 1 point  then Punter A has a profit of 30 points and a profit on stakes of 10% and Punter B has a profit of 20 points and a profit on stakes of 6.67%. But I would argue that it is Punter B who would make the more money because with such a higher strike rate of winners their losing runs are much shorter and therefore they can make much more use of their capital by having significantly higher stakes than Punter A - to the point where the higher stakes more than compensate for the lower percentage rate of profit on stakes.
Although punters must always follow the approach to betting that suits their temperament this does show that those who only look to biggish prices for their bets are probably not pursuing the most efficient approach.

What do people feel is a realistic rate of return betting on the horses ? By this I mean initially profit on stakes(more on this below). Just rereading Patrick Veitch's book I see he claims a rate of 16.7% on turnover and I recall reading an interview with Jim McGrath where he says he reckons to have made a 10% margin. Veitch's is the highest I can remember claimed from someone for whom there is no doubt that on balance they have made a profit - I think Alex Bird reckoned to only make 2 to 3% . It's an interesting point because I think it demonstrates that anyone looking forward who believes that they have an approach that will lead to a return significantly better than 10% is deluding themselves.
Of course return on stakes is a crude yardstick. A business would more likely be assessed on its return on capital employed. This leads on to an interesting point regarding betting styles in that a punter should really be assessing their returns by reference to capital not turnover. Take 2 punters each with a 100 point bank and who each have 300 bets . Punter A has 30 winners from bets at an average price of 10/1 ; Punter B has 80 winners at an average price of 3/1. If stakes for each bet are 1 point  then Punter A has a profit of 30 points and a profit on stakes of 10% and Punter B has a profit of 20 points and a profit on stakes of 6.67%. But I would argue that it is Punter B who would make the more money because with such a higher strike rate of winners their losing runs are much shorter and therefore they can make much more use of their capital by having significantly higher stakes than Punter A - to the point where the higher stakes more than compensate for the lower percentage rate of profit on stakes.
Although punters must always follow the approach to betting that suits their temperament this does show that those who only look to biggish prices for their bets are probably not pursuing the most efficient approach.

Where you need to start is by asking yourself what particular attributes is the race in question likely to require.
The Derby will usually be won by a horse that truly stays a mile and a half and with the speed to hold a good position with 3 to 4 furlongs to go ( last year's winner was an exception). The challenge with the Derby before the race is that it is highly unlikely that any of the runners will have competed previously in a strongly run 12 furlong race with a big field.So to discern whether a horse fits the bill requires a mixture of a more thoughtful analysis of its racecourse perfomances - it will usually have a good win percentage, have won at least at Listed race level, - and an analysis of its running style/pedigree. In truth it's not a race for the novice punter.
On a more general point trying to establish whether a particular kind of horse wins a particular  race will usually be most profitable for races that provide a test that horses only rarely meet : eg
On Derby Day on the charge down the hill for the quickest race of the year the 5 furlong "Dash" handicap particularly suits horses with good form either over course and distance or at the sharp 5 furlongs at Goodwood.
The final race at Royal Ascot - the Queen Alexandra stakes - the longest race of the year over 22 furlongs almost always goes to a horse that has already won over either the flat or jumps at a distance of 17 furlongs and has an Official Rating of at least 95
 
 

Plumpton 1.55
Sussex Ranger
Bet365   1/33

Good effort - I didn't have a bet at this meeting - Lingfield is just about the toughest track because luck in running counts so much and now things have been made even harder with the way that the French horses have got to grips with the All weather from the track at Chantilly. With a bad winter they may have had an advantage being trained in warmer weather.
Corinthian was the obvious one and duly obliged - difficult to believe that the owners won't be tempted to take/sell the horse to the US.

Downpatrick 5.05
Timewaitsfornoone
Bet365   4/6

Bit late to this but as noted above 5 and 6 furlong races are classified as sprints.
You may be interested to know that a book "Sprint Handicaps Explained" by Jim Adams was published some years ago and can be found on Amazon/Ebay. Well worth reading because although one or two things have changed I think it is fair to say that betting on sprint handicaps is an area of horse racing that has changed rather less than most .
Sprint handicappers run are a fair bit more than most horses and usually show their form in bursts over a few weeks - good recent form is a very significant factor.

Dundalk 7.00
Zibha
Corals  1/2

So I now hold the record for the shortest priced winner and loser ? 
Fame at last !!

The turf flat season begins on Saturday as usual at Doncaster with the Lincoln taking centre stage.
What are you especially looking forward to ? In particular, do you have any new ideas regarding betting on the flat ? For me, something I have taken notice of in the last few years is the way that the quality of form from countries outside the UK, Ireland and France is underestimated by punters in this country. We have seen horses with form from the US, Germany, Italy, even Norway, win at decent prices - Tepin, Con Te Partiro, Artistica, Dylan Mouth, Easy Road- and this is something that I will continue to give particular attention to again in 2018.

As a Flat racing man I am just happy to have done reasonably well and was still in it going to the last race of the meeting.