"When you first start betting, you should have an adequate bank or readily available source of cash to tide you over the inevitable losing run. As I have suggested in an earlier chapter, this bank should be 20 times the size of your objective. In other words, if you are betting to take out $100, you need a bank of $2,000. This bank will give you confidence if nothing else. Even if you have a bad losing day, you can start afresh the next meeting, knowing you have plenty of money left and every chance of finishing a winner.
However, a huge bank is no guarantee of success. The biggest gambler on racehorses in Victorian England was the Fourth - and last - Marquis of Hastings. When he
turned twenty-one, Hastings inherited a family fortune of at least ten million dollars by today’s values. This was his punting bank. Despite his sound knowledge of racing form, Hastings made the inexcusable error of constantly accepting prices that were under the odds. In the quest for winners he forgot about value. He wanted every horse he backed to start favourite. In less than five years he lost his bank, his family estates - and more. In one last desperate plunge he backed his champion filly Lady Elizabeth into favouritism for the 1868 English Derby. He wagered a hundred thousand pounds when a penny an hour was the ruling wage for unskilled workers. Lady Elizabeth, however, had trained off after months of hard racing. She was never sighted. Hastings was ruined absolutely. He died at the age of 26 - of a broken heart.
The history of the turf is littered with the corpses of men of great wealth and substance who thought a huge bank was all you needed for success at racing. In Australia big punters like Filipe Ishmael the “Filipino Fireball” and Peter Huxley with the Rural Bank millions behind him, have come and gone. They took under the odds and the bookmakers took their money. In contrast, when I began my betting business in 1955, I started with a modest bank of a thousand pounds and backed horses to take out fifty. Betting on 4 or 5 races a meeting, 3 meetings a week, I found myself investing a weekly average of 500 pounds. This was my turnover on which I made 10 percent profit or 50 pounds a week, a handsome income in those days. In 12 months, by saving at 20 pounds a week, I had built my bank to 2,000 pounds and was betting to take out a hundred. By 1960 I had built the bank to 20,000 pounds and was betting to take out a thousand. During those five years I had plenty of disastrous runs sometimes losing half my bank. But because my figures were right and I had a mathematical edge on the bookmakers, I always finished well in front.
Some theorists suggest that you should always bet one tenth of your bank, raising or lowering your bets each race as you win or lose. If your bank is $1,000 you bet $100 on the first race. If the horse wins and your bank increases to $1,000 your next bet is $110. If the horse loses and your bank is down to $900, your next bet is $90. Using this system, so the theory goes, you can never actually go broke. Unfortunately, if your bank was reduced to just one dollar, your next bet would be 10 cents - and not many bookmakers these days like 10 cent wagers. You would do better to spend your dollar on a meat pie, a beer - or the fare home.
I prefer betting to take out a fixed amount like $100 and to maintain this level of betting for some months. If you double or treble your bank, you can afford to increase to a new level like $150 or $200. By keeping to these uniform levels you avoid the problem of those reckless gamblers who bet in thousands one week to get out on the last - lose - and are forced to bet in “peanuts” next week when they back the programme. Nothing is more unnerving and frustrating than to have too little on a winner or too much on a loser. Using my method, you have exactly the right amount on every horse according to your opinion of its chances. This is the only reasonable way to start betting if you want to finish with a profit.
To achieve this profit, you will need to carry out a few routine duties before you can consider yourself an expert on race analysis. One of these duties is to find out what happened during a race - from start to finish. If you go to the track you should watch each race through a pair of wide vision binoculars and then watch the replay. If you stay at home you should listen to an accurate race caller like Des Hoysted or Geoff Mahoney or Bill Collins and look at the race films on T.V. next day. Study the newspaper pictures of a race. In particular, read the stewards’ reports. The stewards are professional race watchers. They do not miss much.
This start to finish study is important because you have to give bonuses to horses which for various reasons should have won more easily, should have beaten the winner or should have finished closer. These bonuses will increase a horse’s rating and should be based on solid fact, not on wild guesses.
What are some of the things that can happen to a horse during a race?
1. It misses the start - by a length or 4 lengths or whatever. A bad getaway is a disadvantage but not an insuperable one because the horse has a reasonable chance of making up the ground lost especially if the pace is slow or muddling. I allow a horse about one quarter of the actual lengths lost in compensation. In the famous Epsom in which Shannon was left 20 lengths at the start and was beaten in a photo finish, it cannot be argued that with an even start Shannon would have won by 20 lengths. In my opinion he would have won by about five.
2. It gets a check. It runs into the back of another horse, is bumped or squeezed. A horse can usually recover from a check early in a race, but the closer to the finish the more important the check. This is how many “certainties” are beaten. In the last 200 or 300 metres I allow a horse the full amount of actual lengths lost.
3. It is blocked for a run. When a horse is full of running, it may have to be eased because the jockey cannot secure a clear passage. Sometimes these blocks look worse than they really are - when the horse finally gets out of trouble, it merely plods.
4. It races wide. Although horses cover extra ground by racing wide, wide running is not as bad as it looks, especially if a horse is travelling well. It is not uncommon for a horse to race 3 or 4 wide all the way and still win. Out wide a horse cannot be pocketed or held up for a run and is free to stride out strongly. I make only slight allowances for wide running even on the final turn - 3-4 wide 1/2 kg, 4-5 wide 1 kg, 5-6 wide 11/2 kg and so on. I never allow a horse the full amount of ground actually lost.
5. It is badly ridden. Sometimes a jockey rides with poor judgement. He rushes his mount to the front too early or comes home with a wet sail too late. On such occasions racegoers get upset and like to boo and shout. Add an extra 1-11/2 kg to the horse’s rating according to your discretion.
6. It is hampered by faulty gear. Despite the precautions taken by stewards, trainers and jockeys, saddles always seem to be slipping, reins or surcingles or stirrup irons always seem to be breaking, and racing plates always seem to be shooting from galloping hoofs. In these cases, it is difficult to know how much to allow a horse. Some horses lose all chance. On average, an allowance of 1-3 kg is reasonable.
7. It is eased down. A horse may be given an easy time near the finish when the jockey sees he has no hope of winning. Stewards frown on this practice. It is now less prevalent. On the other hand, a horse may b
e given an easy time when the jockey sees he is winning too easily. This may lead to disaster as in the 1978 Moonee Valley Cup when Hyperno and Roy Higgins were beaten and Higgins was suspended for a grave error of judgement. Horses sometimes do win with a good deal in hand, but do not be deceived by statements like “he had 6 lengths up his sleeve”, or “he’d have won by the length of the straight if I’d let him go”. At the most, allow a horse 2 lengths or 3 kg.
8. It races greenly. Horses that race greenly or erratically usually keep on doing it. Make no allowance. Wait until the horse shows he is more tractable.
There are a million and one other things that can happen to a horse and cause it to get beaten. It can lose its rider at the start, get caught up in the starting stalls as they open, refuse to gallop or begin bucking. It can jump crossings, rear and leap at shadows, fall down, suffer bleeding attacks, drop dead or just disappear as Imagele seemed to do when odds on favourite in the 1973 Golden Slipper. The jockey can be blinded by flying clods of turf, hit by flailing whips, lose his reins or his saddle, and forget where the winning post is. Occasionally, of course, a horse can be restrained and deliberately prevented from running on its merits. The racegoer’s vocabulary is full of phrases like “hot as mustard”, “the hottest case I’ve ever seen”, “they ought to get life”, “it was on fire from start to finish”, “dead as a maggot”, and others more colourful but unprintable As we now know, horses can also be doped.
These incidents, which happen with great frequency, constitute some of the hazards of racecourse betting. They are counter balanced by those occasions when the horse you back receives a perfect run along the rails, misses all interference and wins by a whisker. And many accidents happen to horses you do not back, thus eliminating them from contention. The bad luck will not all be yours. Good luck will come as well. It is wise, however, to prepare for the worst."