The Life and Times of a Two Fisted Gambling Man.

Chapter One.

The title should really be "The Life & Times of a Betting Man" for I take as much of the gamble out of a race as I can. But I had to learn to do that the hard way. The purpose of this essay is to speed up that process for you, save you a few bob and hopefully make you laugh along the way. Some of the points I cover may be pretty basic to experienced punters but bear with me.

My earliest betting memory is being taken in the mid 1950s by an uncle into an illegal bookies office and it’s probably due to him that I owe thanks for a lifetime of punting. As a family we used to go to all the Bank Holiday meetings, mostly at Redcar and Stockton (Teeside Park)…with my sister and cousin we used to collect the betting tickets that punters threw away and I had a good set of them. I couldn’t understand why so many people discarded these exciting pieces of brightly coloured card.Tipsters were tolerated on the course in those days, you’ve possibly seen Prince Monalulu in old clips…huge black guy who dressed like a Turkish pasha and used to cry “I gotta Horse”…he used to be on the newsreels every Derby Day.

We didn’t have anyone as colourful but I do remember one old boy “Riley of Middleham”…used to lay a sheet out on the grass and do a routine with a set of horseshoes. He’d hold them up one by one and tell us about the famous horse to which that shoe had belonged, (so he claimed), and then toss them in turn onto the blanket…the punters where expected to throw half crowns, (12.5p…about the price of one and a half pints of beer at the time), onto the blanket to keep him going and to get his tip at the end. He’d then show a set of heavy horseshoes and a set of the new fangled aluminium ones. He claimed, and it seemed reasonable enough at the time that the horses wearing the old shoes were carrying an extra 2lb on their feet.

They were running in boots against horses that were running in plimsolls, (This was 30 years before Nike and we didn’t have trainers in them days). He claimed to know which horses were wearing which. He made a good living from this and I believe died in the 1970s from cancer. Oddly enough a variation of his routine recently resurfaced. There are some new feather weight polymer shoes that are bonded onto horses feet. Expensive to do but long lasting.I have used a variant of Riley’s theory to good effect.

It costs a few quid to shoe a horse for racing. Some stables, especially the smaller ones, when the horse doesn’t have much of a chance, will save a few bob, (even if they are charging the owner), by only putting two shoes on a horse. So when you’re watching them in the parade ring…or better still go and have a look at them in the pre-parade ring when there aren’t so many people around wondering what you’re up to, crouch down as they go past and see who’s wearing a full set of shoes.

Another character was an 'ex-jockey' “Tiny Carr”…he’d sell you a tip on a slip of paper for half a crown….Some people swore by him…some swore at him. He used to be turned out in jodhpurs, riding boots and hacking jacket and looked the part even though he had never sat on a horse never mind ridden a race.

He worked for my father for a time and used to get the women who worked there to write out his slips for him…he’d pick a race with 8 or 10 runners and would tip everyone of them….Thus one eighth of his customers got the winner, and another two eighths, (yes I know that’s a quarter), got the second and third and thought they’d been unlucky.

Telephone tipsters still use this method more than forty years later.Still the likes of Tiny and Riley all added to the day out. I remember going with a pal to the St Leger in 1967 or 68. As we walked across the car park a tipster approached us and offered us a slip with a tip on it…I bought one for five bob, (25p), and like an idiot my mate Steve gave him five bob for another slip with the same name on.

Like a bigger idiot I let him. I can’t remember the name of the horse, but it opened up at long odds on in a four-runner race, sweated up like a pig in the paddock and finished third.

I think it was 1961-62 when betting shops were legalised…it might have been sooner and it took until then to reach Darlington, I don’t know for definite. Most of those that opened were pretty dire. Some were no more than the front room of a house with a counter and a blower, (an intercom through which you got the prices and commentaries).

Some didn’t even have a blower and they had to phone head office five minutes after every race to find out what the results were. One or two didn’t even have a phone and you had to wait until the next day to collect any winnings you had to come. You didn’t even get a betting slip, you or more often the staff wrote the bet on a scrap of paper, time stamped it and that was that.

You had to have a user name to claim your bet and mine was DBD, which stood for Dondelayo Bowtie Danny, which was the pedigree name of a whippet my dad had at the time. Why I used it I don’t know…seemed a good idea at the time.

I remember a young lad who worked at the iron foundry near one shop dashing in one lunchtime to put a bet on a tip he’d been told couldn’t lose. He had half a crown each way, which to him I suppose was a lot of money on the nag. Its name was Arkle and the bookie very generously gave him odds of 1/25.

The same bookie wouldn’t let you put £5 or more on a horse if there was less than 15 minutes to the off. Even then you had to wait whilst he phoned and laid the bet off before they accepted it. (Kids today! Don’t know they’ve been born!)

A flook bet I remember in the 60s was placed by my Aunt Betty. She was a red head, (no hair just a red head…looked like a Swan Vesta), seriously..she had red hair and backed Red Alligator, Red Rum, (who I think was racing on the flat…if I remember rightly Lester Piggott rode it once as a two year old), and I think the other was Red God. She did them in a Round Robin…they all came up and she won more than a week’s wages.

I can think of only one other occasion, although there are probably more, when this sort of bet has come up.One thing I’ve noticed over the years, if you have one or two meetings in a day then it is very rare for two races to be won by horses whose name begins with the same letter. With the exception of the letter ‘s’. It used to be, and I don’t know why, that about 15% of the horses in training were listed under ‘s’. It may be different now with the arab influence on the flat and so with many ex-french jumpers coming over here now. (Why is that…have the frogs gone off horsemeat or something?).

On the occasions when I have sorted my bets out and found that I have ended up with two, three or even four with the same first letter I cross them all out and don’t back in those races. Firstly, the bets not going to come up, secondly if I looked at the races again and changed my bet then you could guarantee I’d knock out the winner and leave in the one that gets beaten by a neck. ( A pro-gambler I know yesterday had his twelfth consecutive second…he’s really suffering…I have found that the best, in fact only way to cure a run of seconditis, is to back ‘em each way…that way they come fourth!)

CHAPTER TWO
Speaking of mug bets, in the late sixties there was a small trainer had left his horse declared for the first and last race at a meeting. Rather than pay a fine for declaring and not running he decided to run it in both races. The bookies thinking that they would just trot it round in the first race to save something for the second and that in the second race it would be too knackered let I go off at 20’s and 33s…. I did an each way double on the same horse….came third in both races and I picked up a nice sum.

Another daft bet I had was on a horse I knew couldn’t win. It was miles ahead on anyone’s ratings but had a string of seconds to its name. Reading back through the form book, no matter what the stable tried it just would not pass the horse in the lead, (they had probably used it on the gallops with a stable star and didn’t want to disappoint their darling by having another horse pass it so this nag got used to laying in behind), anyway….although it should win this particular race easily I reasoned it would come second and backed it accordingly in straight forecasts with the rest of the field. I had 21 forecasts on and my selection duly came second at 12/1 with a 20/1 shot winning. An absolute mugs bet that came off and I’ve never tried it since.

One of the first systems I tried was to back 2yos on their second run when they had come 4th or 5th first time out…My dad used to put me a tanner on them and I had a nice run of results until my mother suggested that this was not what anyone should be teaching a fourteen year old. I had to resort to using our school bookies…a couple of bigger lads who used to put our bets on for us…in truth they bunked off to a park to smoke the ciggies they had bought with our money…the chances of us winning was pretty remote…until I came along with my system…they soon stopped taking my bets.

Nowadays, although I pick my selections systematically, (more on that in later chapters), I don’t use a system as such. Virtually any system will throw up winners but seldom will they produce a worthwhile profit. You only have to miss a couple of selections and it can knock a hole in your returns and turn a winning season into a losing one. Some systems are just too complicated and others too rigid and the minute you deviate from them is when they come good. Systems are also easy prey for the equine flu…coughing to you and me…this can strike at anytime and blow any system out of the water.

One system that was passed onto my dad was just too complicated and time consuming. Every female horse has a cycle just like women when it comes into season…the cycle varies between horses but is either 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 or 21 days. The idea being that you check back through an animals good runs and if the gaps in between are divisible by one of the 16-21 numbers then you have found it's peak time….so when the animal next runs you see if the days since its last run are divisible by its ‘season’ number and if so you have a bet.

I tried it for a short while with reasonable results but as I said it was just too much work and you were reliant on the trainer knowing when a horse was at its peak and then the stable had to want to win that day. But then again it might explain why some trainers are better with fillies than others…because they understand them better.

Another system passed onto my father…when he was in hospital…I don’t think it was a mental hospital although you’d have to be mad to use it….was based on the alphabet. Non-handicap races only…if the first horses name began with the letter A then that was the bet, if not then if the second horses name began with the letter B then that was the bet, if not then if the third horses name began with the letter C…etc etc through the list of runners. If you reached the end of the runners then you returned to the top and carried on with the alphabet. Likewise when you reached the end of the alphabet and you were still working through the list then you returned to A and continued until you had the selection…oddly enough this system does produce winners….but not enough to make a profit.

As I said most systems are too rigid and by sticking to them you miss winners you would otherwise have picked.Two commercial systems I bought were the Dawson System…around 1967 and Fineform…around 1981. The first is a variation on doubling up, It used Newsboys (Daily Mirror), selections…at the time Bob Butchers was Newsboy and for a couple of seasons he had a 40%+ strike rate….Trouble was, in a bad run, you would run out of money before you hit the winner. Fineform, meanwhile, has I think gone through several revisions….but the principal is the same and its fairly good…I use it as the basis of my selections and it helps me to concentrate on those that are in form.

The only other worthwhile system I’ve come across is the one proposed by the ‘Flying Dutchman’…van Der Weil…in the letters pages of the old Handicap Book and that took a couple of years for us to wheedle it out of him bit by bit. Its still being used today and I think Gummy Racing has a section devoted to it.

As I said earlier I use a systematic approach not a system. I use several factors to draw up a short list….then read up the form on the candidates to identify the one that ‘is least likely to lose’. I reckon unless we train and ride a horse ourselves…so that we are totally in control then identifying the least likely loser is as near as we can get. More about my methods later.

CHAPTER THREE
In the late sixties my father became friends with a lot of the Northern Circuit jockeys. It wasn’t unusual to come down to breakfast to find half the pilots of the first race at Catterick laid around the house. My dad used to get regular information from a couple of the lesser-known jockeys.

However, I will say that although he was a good friend of Willie Carson, for more than fifteen years up to his death, he never once got a tip from Willie. That’s how the wee man got to the top…he kept his mouth shut.

There are plenty of riders around who have talent but there’s no quicker way of ensuring the rides dry up than letting your pals get their money on before the owners. Oh, and if anyone ever says Willie bought them a drink they’re lying…I had many a night out with him and I never once saw him part company with money.

Anyway, when Willie made the big time and had won the championship for the first time he invited my parents to stay with him for a long weekend in Newmarket. They had a tour of Bernard Van Cutsoms stables, were introduced to Lord North and other owners a day at the races. The only thing that spoilt the weekend was that Willie rode four winners and never put my dad onto one of them.

I think my dads best coup was on a horse that won, either the Caesarawich or Cambridgeshire…It was called Fresh Scotch or something like that. It won at 100-8 and he’d been backing it for months…a bit here and there so it wasn’t noticed…he bought a house out of the winnings.

Dad’s day off was a Tuesday and normally he took my mum racing, I went with them during the holidays and my job was to stand near the weighing room and as the Jocks came out our man would whisper a number as he passed me.

Basically, not every race mind you, some horses would be running for appearance money, others would be just short of peak fitness, running to get weight off their back or a favourite who’s connections could make more money by backing another horse in the race…..as an owner you don’t have to back your own horse to win, (that’s why I wont bet in a race where Barney Curley has a runner….he just has too many interests in other horses).

I remember one Northern Trainer had the first three favourites in five horse race….he really talked up the chances of one of them. Those wise enough to know how tricky he was backed the two that werent his instead. Oddly enough his came 3rd, 4th & 5th. The other two returned at decent prices…hadn’t especially been gambled on…but the forecast Divi was quite low!

The punters cursed the trainer for being useless at his job but he went home with a wedge in his pocket.Returning to our jockey…basically the boys in the changing room would discuss the merits of their mounts and it would normally boil down to two or three who had a chance and were on the job.

They could normally make an educated ‘guess’ at which one was most likely to win. Dad probably had an 80%-90% hit rate with these (sometimes one of the rags not knowing the script would spoil things by winning)…but he was sensible with it…he’d spread his bets quietly and not be silly about it. By not drawing attention they kept things going for a couple of years.

Unfortunately, our man got in with a crowd of footballers…flash and mouthy and too high a profile. He stopped getting rides went to Scandinavia for a while…I think he made Champion Jockey out there one year with 40+ winners, but ended up as a work rider in Newmarket for a top stable.

He still passed on news sometimes but the stable had such a high profile that most of their ‘certs’ were well advertised.I think the best one he gave us was a horse called Bounty. We were told it would run on the Wednesday and what the tactics were, then it would be back out on the Saturday, would be laying in third on the final bend and then go for it. For a change everything went to plan and it romped in. I had got 12-1 and had my wages on it.

Unless you know the source of information and how reliable it is then if you get a word you should still check the form of every runner in the race. If the source is an owner I would only accept it if they were an experienced owner…and still check the form out. For a start the owner only has the word of the trainer that the horse is fit and trying. How many others in the race are on the job as well and another stable might have their animals more forward.

You often hear the dogs barking about one that has been chasing the pigeons on the gallops…best in the stable…only to find out that the trainer’s horses are two weeks behind everyone else. How many times do you hear a jockey comment that it’s the best he’s ever sat on?

Just keeping the owners sweet.Trainers have two jobs. Training horses and keeping owners happy, which encourages them to buy another or get their friends to buy. This works especially well with ‘novice’ owners…they might tell you that they have been told the horse will win, (or more likely your source is the friend of the owner or somebody who’s wife’s cousin works in the factory of the bloke who owns it and they’ve all been told to have a bet), what this means is the trainer thinks he’s found the right trip and he must be fit enough because it passed his hack on the gallops, the stable apprentice has got a strop on because he got a rollicking after his last ride and we’ve had to pay a proper jockey so we might as well give it a go anyway.

The info might be that it’s a cert for a place, this means there's a vets bill due so we’d better give the impression that its about to win soon, anyway we’ve got to give the apprentice a couple of legs up to get him out of his sulk. It also means the horse will finish fourth at best. Then there’s “if its’ in with a chance we’ll let in run into a place". In other words if this doesn’t work we’ll have to drop it into a seller to get rid of it and the apprentice is in a state because his girlfriend is pregnant.

We are then reduced to, "its’ not trying today as it needs to come down a few pounds in the handicap and then we're going for a touch". This translates into we haven’t got a clue what to try next…its run on everything from firm to heavy, sprints to marathons, eats like a pig and runs like one. Anyway the apprentice needs exercise as he’s eating like a pig himself worrying about the girlfriend’s father and five brothers. This is the time the thing pings in.After it fails to attract a bid in claimers and sellers comes the…needs a palette operation or, we’ve found a bit of heat in one of the legs. When all the excuses are used up they tell the owner what they should have said when they bought it…the animals useless, get rid of it and buy another.This might sound far fetched but it is not unknown for a trainer to be making entries for a horse and encouraging the owners when all the time the animal is laid up in its’ box lame. But then he’s drawing full training fees rather than its’ farmed out to a livery stable to recover.

CHAPTER FOUR
Back to the late sixties. I started reading the Racing Handicap Book, tried all the systems in their letters pages had a bet now and then during the week and most Saturdays. Used to go racing three or four times a year with my mate Stevie.

I remember we won a day out to Newcastle from our local paper. Lunch and a free bet included. We went suited and booted, crombie coats, trilby hats, binoculars…cigars even, like a couple of young toffs. Popped into a posh pub outside the track for a bevie..even went into the saloon bar. Stood ordering our drinks when a racous voice from the public bar bellowed out “Davy what are you doing here you b#####, what are you done up like a f##### pox doctor?”…it was Ken a dosser who used to hang around our place when we worked nights…did odd jobs for ciggies and sandwiches he was at the races doing a days work for the Sporting Chronicle rep. Everyone in the pub turned around to look at Ken and then look back at me. Spoiled the effect somewhat and I don’t think I’ve pretended to be something I wasn’t since.

Anyway, with our free bet we did Young Ashleaf …came nowhere and came out the next time to win the Scottish National at 14-1!!

I think the worst day I had at the races was when I went to Stockton with another pal. He was skint so he devised a foolproof system whereby we took turns to pick a horse and we bet with my money. In the fourth race it was his choice and he went with our last couple of quid to put the bet on. When he came back he’d backed a different horse, he’d noticed that this one had twelve duck eggs to its name, reasoned that it was bound to win soon and some bookie with more money than sense had given him 33-1!

Needless to say it finished the day with a bakers dozen to its name and I don’t think I ever went racing with my mate again. We left after the 4th race and to make matters worse found that the car was boxed in so we still had to wait until everyone else came out.

Had a good trip out one night with a guy I worked with called Buster Fowler, Buster had been apprenticed to Jack Ormston at Richmond at the time that they had Le Garcon D’or…grand old horse won its last race at age 16. We went to meet a couple of his pals who were still working for Jumbo Wilkinson…had a great night on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales and just before we left they told us to watch for Yellow Bird and back it until it lost. Won five on the trot and I think the worst price was 7-2.

Oh for a few more like that.

Paid for our holiday that year and we went camping around Boulogne and Ostend. I won’t tell you about the storm that flattened the ccamp site in the middle of the night, walking into a knocking shop by mistake or one of the two blokes from Manchester we met up with smacking a copper in the face. But there is one story worth telling. We were in a café in Le Touquet, pair of small stakes each, big basket of chips and a couple of beers for a fiver between us, and if I remember right they gave us too much change.

All around the walls were pictures of race horses, dozens of them. When the Patron came to collect our plates Buster, keen to meet a kindred spirit asked, in broken English, if the Patron has been a jockey. “Non! Messieur.” He replied…perhaps a trainer then asked Buster, “Non! Messieur.” Was the reply again, an owner then? Non again. “Then why do you have pictures of all these horses?” he puzzled. The Patron looked down his nose at us with that look of incredulous disgust that only the French can manage when faced with stupidity, “Why else,” he replied, “We are a horse meat restaurant!”.

Poor Buster was ill for days!

Around this time I had some success using ratings that were published inside the front page of The Sporting Life…the guy was pretty good. But I expect mostly I lost. I think I thought that was the way it was meant to be. This stage of my punting career came to an abrupt end when I went straight into the bookies one pay day to back a couple I really fancied , they both lost, I then did the sensible thing and put the other half of my wages on a short priced favourite in the last. There I was pay day…skint, no board money to give my mum, all of a sudden this game wasn’t fun any more.

I don’t think I had a proper bet for six or seven years after that. The occasional flutter on the grand National or Derby, maybe a couple of quid on the Saturday Tv races but betting had lost the allure.

Before I move on I must tell the story of a punter came into the betting shop one day gave in his slip, the guy behind the counter said what’s this? Three pebble doubles and a pebble treble came the reply and the punter put four small stones down on the counter.

The bookies clerk asked his boss what he should do? He looked round the door of his office and seeing who was betting said don’t worry, he’s from the hospital up the road. Take the bet, keep him quiet. Well, believe it or not all three came up and matey boy wanted paying out. What shall I do the settler asked. Give him a handful of gravel out of the fire bucket he’ll be alright. This went on for five days, three pebble doubles and a pebble treble. On the Saturday the shop door crashed open and the guys’ trying to struggle in with this blooming big boulder. Sod off! Shouted the bookie….you’re getting information!

So ended the first stage of my apprenticeship…that of being a mug punter. The betting shops are still full of them …using the Mirror, Sun or Star in the hope of picking a winner from their ‘brilliant’ form analysis. In the days when pubs shut after lunch they used to pour straight out of the pub or club into the bookies…The big five would kill to get a licence next to a boozer. They’re in there until chucking out time…most of them can’t find the door never mind pick a winner.

We’ll continue the story from the late 1970’s next time and later look at the Pro way of betting, tipsters and how I bet now.

CHAPTER FIVE

I started betting again in the late seventies. I don’t know why, probably had too much money. Remembering how my dad had once subscribed to The Raceform Notebook I took out a subscription. I also came across a great book called The Trainers Record which was printed twice yearly in time for the start of each season. I subscribed for a couple of years then the guy who produced it died.

Worth its weight in gold…had an article on and interview with every trainer. It also gave an analysis on where their horses ran, distances, types of race, jockeys used, time of year etc. etc. with wins to runs ratios for each category. Some of the stats were very telling…if for example Jonjo had a 3 out of 3 for a trainer and the horse was running were the stable had an 80% strike rate etc etc… you had a good bet on your hands.

I used to enjoy reading the essays in the Timeform and Chaseform annuals and although I got the Timeform black book now and then I preferred the Raceform publications.I also subscribed to Pacemaker Magazine and studied the breeding side of things, (that’s were the information in the chart in chapter five was gleaned from).

Breeding is something few of us take into account, especially with early two-year-old races. Some stallions throw speedy types that win the early 5f & 6f races. Others don’t show anything until getting 7f or 8f to run over. In short I was studying for 4 or 5 hours every night…going through the horses form, the trainers form, the breeding. I did as much research to take the gamble out of my betting.

This was my best period and I would have been much more successful if I hadn’t tried to find the winner in every race, (see the Chapter to follow on betting the pro way for where I went wrong). I could have turned Pro – in effect work was interfering with my studies…oddly enough apart from Saturdays I watched very little racing … the pleasure wasn’t gained through the buzz of watching a race… it was enjoying solving the puzzle, in being proved right.

But although I was doubling my wages every week, with a young family to support, I couldn’t take the risk. I made the right choice, as I’d probably have been skint within months. There’s a difference between having a punt with you spare cash and having to win.

The trouble was I had to reduce my study time and thought I had found the answer when nice gentlemen with the right connections started telephoning me offering to pass on information. How nice of them!

One guy wanted sixty quid putting on, £20 a piece for him the travelling head lad and the jockey…my reply was if he didn’t tell them I wouldn’t…he didn’t go for it.

I was getting two or three phone calls a week…and a letter every other day…Some one had obviously flogged a list from adverts I’d answered…one trick I used when replying to adverts was to use a different middle initial then you could track who had sold your name.I only found one tipster who was any good…A guy called Ed George who operated out of Brighton, I think, he only ever gave two tips a week, every Wednesday and Saturday.

You had to stake him to a reasonable £2 and if he hadn’t received payment by the next tip day you didn’t get the tip. He didn’t claim to have info he was just a wizard with the form book…no premium line…no waffle ..You phoned him, he asked a security question, checked that you had paid and gave you the horse.

He had around a 70% strike rate so I don’t think he was giving a different horse to everyone who called…I got too many winners from him for it to be coincidence. I became disenchanted with these tipsters when I ended up down about six weeks wages.

The final call I got was from a guy who when I asked him to tell me the horses name before I agreed to stake him was foolish enough to agree. He told me Alten Glazed was a cert.

I told him that not fifteen minutes earlier my newsagent, who owned a quarter of the horse, had told me not to back it. End of conversation, end of my experiment with tipsters. I have used Derek Thompson a couple of times .. as good as any but not worth the cost…I went back to my own studying. I was earning about £120 a week after tax and was staking £50 a day to make about another £120 a week.

A forty percent return on total stakes. Nowadays by getting smart I can usually make a 40% strike rate for better returns…more on that later.

One of my best days was a Saturday when I backed 12 horses in singles, doubles and permed them in four Heinz bets. I put my bet on and went to the club for a lunchtime session. As I said earlier I have a golden rule never to go into a betting shop when I’ve had a drink but this day I made an exception. I got to the bookies in time for my fourth runner…the first three had come up and a later horse was a non-runner.

I roughly calculated my winnings so far and whacked that amount on the fourth, which romped in. As the afternoon continued I kept backing my selections, singles, trebles across the card and down the card. I ended up with eleven winners, (one of them in a dead heat), and a non-runner.

My luck was in to such an extent that I collected £43 off one bet, (a pint of beer cost less than 50p at the time), and stuck it on the first horse that the blower mentioned. Didn’t look at the form, the jockey, trainer or anything, the stupid things you do when you are drunk. That came in at 100/30!

The shop manager came around to the corner I was sat in and I thought I was going to get thrown out. Instead, rather embarrassed, he asked if the shop could borrow back £600 as I had cleared them out. I had to call back on the Monday to get repaid and pick up the rest of my innings. I have never gone into a bookies drunk since.

The sad thing about this day was I had given the strongest four bets to a mate who did them in a fifty pence yankee and won just short of £200. To celebrate he took the Monday off work and went on the bevy, (the pubs in Darlington around the Market Place had a dispensation to open all day Monday for the cattle market), He got the sack because of it and didn’t work again for over two years.

So, I was doing very well, still backing too many losers because I was betting in every race… in effect I was still a mug. So what changed and why did I stop betting again? All will be revealed in the next chapter.CHAPTER SIXBefore moving on, a final word about ‘tipsters’. There was one old boy whose service I subscribed to and it was an absolute joy to receive his newsletters.

He had made a study of the mares in the Queens stud and their progeny. He knew them inside out, followed their progress and although the tips weren’t very frequent they invariably won. A novel twist this, following progeny rather than stables or jockeys. Unfortunately he died and the service ended.

So we’re back to around 1980. I was going racing every other week; I liked Sedgefield, Ripon, Thirsk. Newcastle’s a good hunting ground for me and I liked Wetherby then although’ it’s a bit spartan now.

I used to take the family and we’d get there about ten or eleven o’clock to watch the horses arrive and be unloaded from their boxes. I had the kids trained to chat to the Head lads…”Coo that’s a nice horse Mister, what’s its name? Will he win?” etc. Picked up quite a few valuable pointers seeing which ones were stiff, or travel sick …some of them don’t travel very well and one ploy used is to stick a bad traveller in the back of the box so he got bounced around a bit if you weren’t on the job that day.

I remember at Newcastle one time seeing the favourite in the first race unloaded and it couldn’t put one of its back feet on the floor. They still declared it to run, went off at near to evens and I was on the second favourite which duly romped in.

Another time they were rubbing grass and mud into a horse’s coat to take the sheen off and make it look scruffy. I thought it was odd. Wasn’t going to win the best turned out prize for definite. The kids got the horse’s name, outsider of four against a hot favourite and a very good second favourite. I suspected something was off and had a fiver at 20’s. Won by eight lengths.

This stage of my ‘career’ culminated in the Cheltenham festival of 1981. The thing I like about Cheltenham and royal Ascot is that the races have a form of their own. You can see from the trends what type of horse it takes to win and the stats are a good guide. So after I had put my bet on for the Saturdays racing I got the form books out and armed with the trends guide published in Pacemaker Magazine I started work, it took all day Sunday and Monday night.

Put my bet on, singles and a heinz57 and borrowed an extra quid off the wife to do a fifty pence e/w accy.

In the first race the trends pointed to an Irish winner but warned to avoid the favourite as the second or third best backed Irish horse was a more likely candidate although all of Ireland would claim to have backed the winner afterwards, I got the winner. In the second race I had gone for one of Peter Easterby's. It was due to be ridden by his son Tim, who was one of the tallest jockeys ever. He’d had an injury so the stable second jockey, Jonjo O’Neil was the first, a guy called Alan Brown I think, rode it. Good job it did. It clattered one obstacle and Brown just managed to hang on to its neck, Tim would have shot over the top, and dotted up.

Then came the Champion Hurdle. There had been a row that year because the finishing post had been moved shortening the track by 50-60 yards. This favoured Sea Pigeon, a marvellous horse – my favourite of all time, who was a short finisher up the Cheltenham hill and this played straight into his hands. He duly obliged.

For the fourth race I had noticed that a small trainer, I think it was Caroline Mason, had an excellent record. She brought her horses along slowly, didn’t race them until they were seven, but they had a firm grounding in show jumping and although she only had a handful of them in three years she had never sent a horse to the festival that finished outside the first three. That year she had Waggoner’s Walk, Roman Walk and I think Trojan Walk.

I can’t remember which one was in this race. Anyway, the wheels came off my bet good and proper as an Irish flyer was a good 30 lengths in front as they started down the hill on the second circuit. I was ready to tear my ticket up when they came to the fence half way down…many a good horse has come to grief here and so did Paddy ….left Caroline’s horse to come home well clear.

I benefited from them always running an honest race…some of the more fancied horses were being given an easy time because the Irishman was so far in front and were caught flat footed when he exited.I can’t remember what I’d backed or why in the fourth race, but it won without fuss.Luckily because of work I didn’t get to see the races live, but I’d videoed the first four and picked up the last two results on teletext…I say luckily because I don’t think my heart would have stood the excitement of the last race.

I had got my selections down to two. One of Fred Winter’s and one of I think Fred Rimmel’s, (two of the all time great trainers). I couldn’t split them at all. Absolutely identical chances. I had decided by tossing a coin. Can’t remember if it came up heads or tails or which horse I was on …I think it was Winter's. They say fortune favours the brave and the stupid.

The horse obliged and the accumulator alone, I had taken the early prices, came it at more than 16,000-1.Although the money was great it meant very little compared to the thrill of doing it. I had put in hours of study and concentration and been proved right.

But although I had a logical reason for backing each horse it had taken a large dollop of luck to secure the prize. I couldn’t concentrate that night for the next day but tried the same process on the Thursday, even borrowed a quid off the wife again. To no effect.

The big danger with a win like that is that you can think you’ve got it cracked and lose it all back. I decided, as I was finally well in front again, to stop betting. I had two ante post bets on the guineas standing, they both won, I think Greville Starkey rode them both. Remembering my old dads maxim. If you spend it you can’t lose it, I knocked a bit off the mortgage, refurnished the house, gave the wife a few bob and took twelve of the family to Tenerife for two weeks.That was the end of the period when I nearly became a pro.

CHAPTER SEVEN
We moved to Slough in 1983, (be a nice place when its finished), and sometime in the late eighties I started having small bets on the Saturday television races. I was working in London selling garment labels to the rag trade and commuting two hours in and two hours out left me wiped out on a weekend, Just used to flop out with a couple of beers on a Saturday and it gave me an interest in the TV races.

One day a customer took me to be introduced to one of the top four Greek Cypriot garment manufacturers. When we concluded our business my introducer, who liked a bet, asked Mike, (not his real name), if he had any tips. Mike opened a drawer and pulled out a betting slip. Well! My biggest bets have been £300, twice…both of which lost and I once had £1,400 running on the last leg of an ITV 7, (a fore runner of the Scoop Six), - came third!

Mike had had four grand each way on a horse! We said our goodbyes and I got back to the office as quick as I could. We had a whip round and managed to scrape together £25 each way. Cushty we thought. The animal came fifth!

On reflection…that fifty quid we put on was worth more to us than the eight grand Mike had staked. Everything is relative.Just a brief aside to tell another story about Mike.

The leading Cypriots used to get together on a Friday night to play poker. Strictly no prisoners and their business rivalries continued into the cards. The main rule was that you played with the cash you had with you. No owes, no cheques, no borrowing. When your money was gone you dropped out the game.

This particular Friday Mike ended up in a show down with another player, lets call him Nick, the pot grew and grew as each one raised the stakes, neither of them willing to give. Mike made a final raise of all the cash he had expecting Nick to do the honourable thing and ‘see him’. Nick wasn’t having any and raised the stakes again. Mike had no choice but to smile and walk away from the table.

heir games continued for about six or seven weeks until the night when Mike and Nick were head to head for a big pot again. Same story, both of them raising neither giving way. Mike put in a big raise and Nick counted up what Mike had left on the table and raised the pot by the same amount plus one pound. Nobody else could believe Mikes stupidity in letting Nick catch him again. Mike smiled, stood up and went over to his coat and returned with a small brief case he always carried with him. Sitting back down at the table he opened the brief case and dropped another fifteen thousand into the kitty. “This time I f****** raise you!” he smiled.

1992 was a good year for freebies. I won two tickets to Cheltenham with the daily Mail and took the father of the guy I was working for. We had a good day out and backed a couple of winners. He reciprocated by getting a couple of tickets for a casino’s box at Royal Ascot. Had an excellent day and a few more winners.

Then our carriers TNT who had a marquee there invited us to Glorious Goodwood.We got smashed into the Pimms and bucks fizz straight away, (well it was an extremely hot day), and by the time lunch was served I was on top form. As the others at our table hadn’t been racing before I marked their cards for them. Out of the first six races I had five winners and a third, (and that I had recommended place only) and got the placepot up, £380. They had been serving my favourite tipple all day – if its free its my favourite, so by the time of the seventh race I was well goosed. Luckily Andreas was still relatively sober…I’d had enough but he was pestering me to have a bet in the last race as the horse, Daru, had been the first one we had picked out.

In the end I gave him a fifty quid to put on for me to shut him up. I was a bit concerned when he came back with my ticket, the price was 15-1 and he had done it win only. But what did it matter? I was well up on the day.

As they rounded the final turn Daru was lying third or fourth…plodding away like a big grey shire horse. They straightened for home and he seized the bit for all he was worth and set sail for the line. Won by a length and a half. He wasn’t the best horse I’ve backed, it wasn’t the most money I’ve ever won but it certainly capped off the most enjoyable days racing I’ve ever had.I backed Daru a couple of times after that, I don’t think he ever won again. He became a bit mulish and they tried him over hurdles to try and revitalise him but he refused to race three times and they retired him.

A change of jobs, I got sick of commuting two hours each way in and out of London, and a change of lifestyle, meant I had little time to study or bet seriously. Mainly just having mixed doubles on the Saturday TV races and going racing two or three times a year.Then January 2001 I ended up on gardening leave having resigned from my job to join a competitor who, eight days after I joined them made us all redundant!

I got another job sorted quickly enough but it meant another few weeks wait whilst my registration was transferred. To fill the time, I was surfing the web and came across a horse racing forum…can’t remember which one, which led to another and another…eventually in November last year I came across the best site there is, bookiescanbebeaten and here I am.

Along the way my interest in betting had been rekindled and I finally learned not to try and bet in every race. I now bet less frequently and have a better hit rate. Though I am still learning, I’m no smarter than you at picking winners just more experienced.Reading back through this Punters tale it appears that I’ve done very well out of betting.

That’s not quite so. I’ve probably done better than most, if I am in front then it won’t be by much, (Its surprising how time shrinks the size of losing bets), then again all hobbies cost money. I’m probably still a mug punter and the purpose of these jottings has been to try and help you avoid some of the pitfalls.In the next chapter or two we will look at the professional way of betting and my own methods.

CHAPTER EIGHT BET SMART.

THE thing to keep in mind at all times. Of all the betting shops I’ve ever been in, from the early dives to the places of today, there have been up to eight windows to put your bets on. I have never come across a bookie with more than one payout window. The moral being more people lose than win.

Point two:- only bet for fun when you find a bookie who will take Monopoly money, (or pebbles), I don’t know what continent the country of monopoly is on but their currency looks crap!

Point three:- How many times have you said, “I was betting with the bookies money?” I haven’t used this expression since 1980 when an old timer rollicked me for saying it. As he pointed out. If you have drawn winnings and put the money in your pocket it is YOUR money. Don’t give it straight back.

Point four:- At one time I was an accredited trade advisor to a small African nation, (to cut a long story very short it ended when I left the country hidden in a hearse. The finance minister…it was a military government...had invited me to take tea with him and placing his revolver on the table, and suggested we pay him $10,000 dollars a month. Leaving the country seemed a better option)…One of the projects we were working on with the Tourism Ministry was the development of Casinos…make it the Las Vegas of Africa.

Though a friend we were invited to lunch by a major UK casino group to discuss the venture. The doors opened as we were finishing our meal and the undead started drifting in. These people never saw daylight…in the Casino all afternoon and evening. Like a posh bingo hall only the punters had better Jewellery and more of their own teeth.

The comment during our discussions that stuck in my mind was that the House take averaged 18% a night. No matter how much cash was changed into chips, no matter how many people were playing or how many big hitters were in town at the end of the night when winning chips were changed back to cash the casino were left with 18%.

So constant is this factor that each casino would have a figure between 17.5% and 18.5%. If the return was out by more than 0.1% for more than one night then the bosses new that either a customer or croupier was on the fiddle.

The odds are stacked against you; it’s the same with the bookies. Although they often bet over round by more than 20% they aim to take out 10% in each race. So if you are losing less than 10% of your stakes you are doing well. If you are making 10% that’s excellent, if you are doing better than that then you will soon struggle to get your bets on.

I once checked back through three years formbooks, if you had backed all odds on shots, all even money horses, all 2-1s, all 10-1s the result was about the same…you would lose 10%.The one weapon we have against the bookies is that they have to bet every race…we don’t.

We can choose when to take them on.The way to approach this is to lay your racing paper out in front of you. Starting with the main meeting and working your way through the other cards, cross out the two year old races, (at least until the Derby meeting by which time you start to get a build up of form – even then if the bigger stables, who have late maturing types, have three or four debutants in the race do not bet).

Don’t waste time trying to find the winner of these races…its like trying to solve a crossword without any clues. Ignore any reports of ‘this ones chasing the pigeons at home’ or ‘burning up the gallops’. Wait until they’ve got proven form on the track.

Next cross out races for amateur riders, apprentices, conditionals, ladies or any novelty races. Next to go are Class F & G sellers and claimers, (except on the all weather where different rules apply), the quality of horses in these races is so low that even if they have form they can not be relied upon to run to form again.

That’s another point, don’t apply all weather form to the turf and vice-versa, unless the horse is proven on both and even then tred cautiously.Hopefully you will still have two or three races on a card to go at so, cross out any race with fewer than six runners. It is unlikely that you will get a true run race…it will end up a tactical affair and who knows what tactics will apply?

Also cross out any race with more than fourteen runners. Even if the draw doesn’t have any effect in a big field you risk your selection having traffic problems.If there are any races left cross out all the horses except for the first five in the betting in non-handicaps and the first six in handicaps. A huge percentage of winners come from this area.

Then concentrate on the form of those five or six. If you cant find the winner from them then cross out that race as well.Some professionals will only bet in non-handicaps as horses are more likely to give a true running as there is no incentive to run down the field to get a few pounds off.If there is an extreme of going, i.e. hard – firm – heavy then only back horses with a proven record under the conditions.

If you cant find a few solid bets then don’t bet. If you want to bet for ‘fun’ or an ‘interest’ then be your own bookie…write your bet out, this is important because its easy after a race to kid ourselves that we fancied a certain horse or we would have backed it…probably thought that about half the field…commit yourself, write a bet out. Check afterwards whether you would have won or lost.

After a while, if you don’t start betting smart, I think you might get my point.There is no such thing as the law of averages. If you toss a coin 100 times and it comes down heads the chances of tails the next time are not 1-100, they are evens. At the end of a time frame heads and tails will come up an equal number of times. But that time frame can be a thousand tosses, 10,000, 100,000, 100,000,000. So don’t chase losses thinking that the law of averages says you will have a winner sooner or later.

A pro-betting acquaintance of mine has had fourteen seconds in a row. He just broke the sequence..his fifteenth bet came third. If you have used the same criteria for all your selections one day and the first three horses haven’t been placed then walk away. There is a flaw in your selection process; you weren’t in the right frame of mind or whatever. But if your process has produced three losers it is likely the others will lose. Give up for the day.

Don’t follow horses out of sentiment. How many have you followed all season just because you backed them last time? They may eventually win, but you can guarantee that you won’t be on when they do. So you might as well not follow them in the first place. Treat every race on its own merits.Remember that horses are flesh and blood, they are not machines. Don’t expect them to run the same every time the race and remember that there are other horses involved and anything can happen in racing.

I remember a horse of Ron Hodges, (who liked a gamble), I had been watching it for a while and it looked like it was being plotted up. It was entered in a race at Royal Ascot and I checked the form, had won over course and distance, had come down a few pounds, and had an apprentice on who had won on it before taking off a few more pounds. Was given a plum draw two places off the rails, going was right, opened up at 12s or 10s, started drifting in nicely and I got on bigtime at 6s. The stalls opened and they jumped out, the horse next-door ran into it, another two strides and the horse bumped it again. The other horses had gone a furlong and disappeared over the horizon with my dosh!!

CHAPTER NINE
This might sound silly but the secret to successful punting is to stop backing losers. I can find winners easily enough, most days, but it’s the losers that drag down my profit. So how can you reduce the losers? It’s not easy. One way is to get yourself a notebook or ledger.

BEFORE you place your bet write it down in the ledger and alongside write why you are backing that horse. If you can’t think of a reason to write down then you need to ask yourself why you are prepared to part with good money backing it. At the end of the day write the prices of any winners.On a regular basis go back through the ledger.

See if there’s a pattern to the winners and losers. Is one of your selection criteria costing you money?Better still use your ledger to keep account of your betting…as you would any business. Did you show a profit for the last month or were your losses more than you realise.

If you lost, then how much? How many hours did you have to work to earn that money? This is a difficult exercise for anyone to do. It’s very painful to face what our hobby costs us. Ask anyone in the betting shop how they do and 99% will tell you they do all right, on average they break even. They are kidding nobody but themselves.

All you have to do is look at the bookie’s profits. So far this year I’m just over £800 up. I know because it’s in my ledger.I was a few quid down in January, made a lot in February, got off to a good start in March and then got walloped by Cheltenham. Cut my stakes for the rest of March and clawed a bit back. I keep separate accounts for when I go racing. I had an excellent two days racing in January…well up…one winning day and a losing day in February and lost £400 at Cheltenham.

I’m still £460 up on paper but as I give half my winnings from racing days to an orphanage in India, and don’t deduct any losing days, so I’m a bit out of pocket but I’ve managed to feed 2000 kids for a few days.

Try keeping a ledger for four weeks. Start immediately. Don’t put it off to the end of the month or you’ll forget and kid yourself that you’ll start it the month after. Then you’ll never get around to it. Most of you who do start won’t make it to the end of the month. As I said it’s a painful exercise.

Unless your journal shows you are making a profit you wont carry the journal through to the second four-week period. In which case you will go on being a mug punter. I’m giving the advice put I still make mug bets. How often do you ask yourself after a losing race ‘why did I back that?’ or I knew the one that beat mine would do that.’

The secret is to ask your self these questions before you part with cash. Why am I backing this one?The purpose of this series of articles has been to help you to reduce the gambles you take so that you start betting for profit. It takes a lot of discipline to achieve this but it can be done. I can’t keep to it all the time.

I’m getting better but I still have too many bets for the sake of it. Especially when there’s racing on the telly. I have to have a bet ‘for interest’.I hope these snippets have been useful but to make it worth my while do try and put the main ideas into practice.

To summarise the main points: -1
1-More punters lose than win.
2-Don’t bet for fun, but have fun betting.
3-Don’t bet with ‘the bookies money’. Once it is in your pocket it’s YOUR money.
4-The bookies have to bet in every race. You don’t. Pick and choose which races to take them on.
5-Bet only in races with between 6 and 14 runners
6-Concentrate on the first 5 or 6 in the betting.
7-If you can’t find a solid bet then don’t bet on a half chance.
8-Always bet level stakes…if you’ve had a couple of winners don’t double your stakes because ‘your lucks in’. There is no quicker way to give it all back.
9-Never chase losses.
10-Be disciplined.
11-Keep a ledger.
12-Refine your selection process.

And on no account pay for tips or information. If you follow my advice and work diligently at it then you’ll find more winners than any tipster could sell you.A few short cuts to help if you don’t have time to read form properly.Newspaper Tipsters. By and large they have a poor strike rate and following them is a quick way to the poor house. But: - using Newsboy and Bouverie in the Daily Mirror…if they select the same horse and it is also Spotform's choice then it is a selection. If Top Speed or Top Form or Northern Correspondent picks it as well then it is a banker. The prices aren’t brilliant but it has a good strike rate.

Likewise the two tipsters in the Daily Mail and their rating guy and it also works with Post Data, Topspeed and Postmark in the racing post. If it is also the Spotlights selection then it is a banker.

Won Last Time Out a quick scan through the form in the Racing Post concentrating on horses that won last time out. If the race report says “Quickened away from the last” (jumps) or “quickened entering the final furlong,” (flat) the that indicates to me that the horse had a bit more left in the tank. Providing the horse under consideration isn’t taking a big step up in class or distance then it is a good bet.

Second Last Time Out scan though the form pages again, this time concentrating on those that came second last time out. If a horse got beat by less than a length on the flat and the first two finished more than five lengths clear of the rest then it is a selection, (over the sticks if it came second by less than three lengths and they finished fifteen or more lengths clear). But it is only a bet if the second horse came from behind. If it led and was headed then no bet. Again there has to be no material difference between the race it came second in and the one you are considering backing it in.

In The First Three Last Time Out scan through the form pages again looking at horses that won or finished a close up second or third and if the race report says it was hindered or had to be switched, (a manoeuvre that can take a bit out of a horse), then again it is an indication that it had a bit more to spare

Listen To The Bookies when you go to the races. First find the true Bookmakers…they’re in the front rank and at most meetings you’ll only find two or three of them. Barry Denis is always worth watching. They are the real guys who make the book… the others follow their prices. Mind you it’s easier to balance a book now that they’ve all got computers…In the old days, (about two years ago), the good bookies could do it in their head. Top mathematicians although most of them wouldn’t know what you were talking about. Mathematics…Nar I’m just a bookmaker. Anyway listen to them…are they shouting 5/4 the favourite or 3/1 the field? Are they trying to tempt shekels onto the favourite or the rest? In effect they are telling you whether they think a favourites going to win. If they’re calling the favourite and holding the price…rubbing it off and writing the same price back up do you think they expect it to win?

They’re not always right but if you’re thinking of backing a favourite that you think is a cert shouldn’t you be a bit concerned that the experts are happy to take your bet?Ignore it if you see someone running down the line of bookies putting £200 or so on with all of them. That’s somebody working for one of the big bookies laying off liabilities to shorten a price. Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to win.

When you’re in the bookies look at the pattern of the betting on a race. If the favourites, say, 7/4 and two or three others are shortening and the Jolly is still ‘coming in’, that would suggest there’s still smart money for it. Likewise when nothing else is moving in and the favourites slipping out a touch the bookies are inviting money for it. Best of all is when everything moves out a bit except one horse…holds rock steady. Means there’s smart money going on it quietly.

Wait until near the off, in case it does move, then nip on.There’s a lot more to it than that and only hundreds of hours of hanging around joints. If you don’t have time to watch the pattern don’t worry. But if you’re spending an afternoon in there pay attention to the betting pattern between races and make a little note of what happened and how the horses ran.

These are just a few short cuts to help in the short term but you absolutely have to learn to not just read form but also read between the lines. Unfortunately there’s no quick way of learning.

I’ve used many methods and systems over the years…none of them give a good return on a consistent basis. Most of them are too rigid and the day you miss is the day it pays off…sods law. You daren’t leave a selection out, no matter how unlikely a winner the horse looks. Even systems that half work can have their profits decimated by the old Equinine Virus…’the cough’. I reckon it was invented by bookies to introduce a random effect and ruin systems. Prolonged periods of bad weather don’t help either and half a dozen missed winners can ruin a systems performance.

Having said that I don’t use a system I do employ a systematic approach to making my selections. More of a routine I suppose.

Find yourself a ratings compiler you are comfortable with, Raceform, Timeform, whoever. Stick with them, don’t chop and change, that way you get used to their nuances. I don’t keep lists of horses to back in future I take each race on its merits at the time.

When I used the Raceform ratings I used to read through the book on the day it arrived and copy favourable comments about horses into a card index. Trouble was it used to take me over an hour a night to go through the index. You always end up missing the winners or back horses out of sentiment that are never going to win.

I use the online Racing Post. I look at Postmarks ratings and write down the top six or seven rated…up to about those ranked 10lbs below the top rated. Ten pounds is about the most you would expect a horse to improve.

Then look at the Spotlight comments. The main criteria are will the horse act on the going? Is the distance suitable? How will it run on this type of Track? If a handicap then how does its weight today compare with what its carried in the past? If it’s a flat race then what effect will the draw have?

Is the jockey competent, or has an experienced rider replaced a claimer? But most of all I’m looking for a comment that says the horse “will improve”, “should improve”, “can improve”, “ought to improve” or is progressive, in that order of priority. If the top rated horse shows up as an improver then it is a banker…. obviously if you are using reliable ratings, which Postmark are, and the horse is clear top and improving then it has to be a good bet and more so if the going/trip/track criteria are met.

I rely on Postmark to give an accurate figure for what the horse HAS achieved. I’m looking through the form of its last two or three runs to see what extra it MIGHT achieve.This is the basics of how I make selections.

The refinement comes from forty years of racing and listening to the advice of other punters.

Having the form on line certainly helps. I normally save the Spotlights to my racing file and print them off later, (Gives me time to at least sit with the family whilst I’m studying, even if I’m busy writing notes at least I’m in the room with them).[A tip for printing…open the file….click on view..click on type size…click on smallest…{remember to change it back when you’ve finished or you get miniscule print when you go back on line}..then click on file and click on print.

What you are looking for here are positive comments was it a good quality race, was it a poor race, what is the value of the form, was it run at a false pace and the form is unreliable? Then seek out comments such as “will win again”, “will be better for this run”, “can defy a penalty”, “on a winning mark”, and conversely negative remarks along the same lines. This helps to build a picture.

The ‘analysis’ comments are only recorded for the horses that run well, (or favourites that ran exceptionally badly), by and large if there’s not comment shown for your horse then its not running into form yet.

You will also see on this page, on the left above the results, a title “comments in running”…clicking on this opens up a box with ‘comments in running’ for all the runners in the race, [sometimes there is a problem with this page and it opens up the front page of the Racing Post instead…. If this happens just close the box and move on], handy if yours doesn’t have a mention in the analysis…a quick look at the race comments will at least tell you why. In this section look for comments like “quickened away from the last / quickened away entering the final furlong” etc.

It normally takes me about ten minutes a race….less sometimes. I never look at the price of the horses until I have completed my selection process. If something is looks outstandingly clear I double check to make sure I haven’t missed something obvious.

So by the time I’ve gone through this exercise I should have notes on the main protagonists in a race showing what they have achieved, what they might achieve, the likelihood of their achieving it on the track/trip/going/handicap mark and have the views of three experts…Spotlight, Race Analysis, Comments in Running.

All this is for free! I would say Spotlights and Postmark give you at least 90% of what you would pay Raceform or Timeform for.In retrospect having written the above I don’t think I go into the comments enough and need to tighten up my own procedures. We can all learn.If you don’t have enough time to cover all the days cards then start with the main one, where you can expect better horses and more reliable form, and work through as far as you can.

Remember you are not looking for the winner of every race. You are trying to cut down on the losers.Finally, when you go through your ledger look at the reasons why you backed a horse. Then going into the Racing post printouts page again…change the date to the day your horses ran…lets say 2.30 Ascot 13th April….on the row for Results…click on that race time and the analysis page will open up…you can then compare, win or lose, why you thought a horse would win and what actually happened. If this doesn’t stop you backing losers and help find more winners nothing else will.

Well I think that’s the end of my epistle. I would remind you I’m no less of a mug punter than you are…I’m just more experienced at losing.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading as much as I have writing.