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Most horse racing staking plans tell you to bet bigger after every loser. The 10K System does the opposite — one of three betting systems Peter Travers set out for Australian punters, where the sta...
The favourite looks like the safest bet in Australian horse racing, and across 660 races counted one at a time it lost 25 per cent on turnover — even though the first favourite won 174 of them, mor...
Do lucky saddlecloth numbers win? In 2007 a Practical Punting writer counted 660 Australian horse racing results — 7,363 runners, every TAB number from one to ten — instead of arguing about it. Num...
Most punters back each-way without ever pricing it. This is horse racing betting from 1988 that still holds up: an each-way bet is not one bet with a safety net, it is two bets sold in a single tra...
Most punters pick the right horse and still take the wrong odds. This is horse racing betting from 1988 that still holds up: the same selection, a better price, and the four seconds that pay for it.
Most punters read a form guide without ever deciding which parts of it matter. This is horse racing form study from 1992 that still holds up: what a formline tells you, and what it quietly hides.
There is no royal road to profits in horse racing — you have to do at least some work. Ratings are that work: measuring what a racehorse can actually do and writing it down as a number you can comp...
Most horses coming back from a spell lose. That is not pessimism, it is an iron-clad fact, and it is why the fresh horse is the hardest puzzle in form study. But roughly one time in ten the answer ...
Two horses won at 12/1 and 50/1 in the same Sydney spring. Neither was a fluke, and neither was a secret. The reasons were sitting in the form guide the whole time, in plain sight, for anyone who s...
When a Practical Punting reader asked which form factors matter most, he listed twelve — and The Optimist turned the answer into a two-part masterclass. In Part 1, Gordon covers the first three: da...
If you want to know how to win at horse racing through steady, sensible form study — not hype, and not luck — this episode shows you how the weights quietly decide who wins, and how to spot the hor...
Every punter has torn up a ticket blaming a wide barrier. But does the draw really decide races the way we think it does? Statsman digs into the numbers — and the answer might just change how you r...
Hi all...please see two great video links on YouTube -- courtesy of the Australian Turf Club -- which were taken from this morning’s official two year old trials at Royal Randwick. Irelan...
Most punters bet each-way on the wrong horses. This episode explains when each-way betting actually pays — short prices, small fields — using Don Scott's and Roger Dedman's thinking, plus the value...
Irish jockey Seamie Heffernan has been studying old videos of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in an attempt to plot the best path to success on So You Think at Longchamp on Sunday, reports www.atther...
Can you actually win at punting? Yes — but not the way most punters go about it. In this one, Gordon works through a classic Practical Punting piece on what it really takes: the professional's mind...
Every winning punter is really doing the same thing: reading a race for the signs that matter. In this episode of Practical Punting, Gordon breaks down the 10 key factors the professionals weigh in...
Ever backed a horse that won going away, only to watch it plod home an unplaced favourite next start? That's not bad luck — it's early pace. It's the hidden factor behind more form reversals than m...