If you're like many of my friends, you love betting on doubles and trifectas. In other words, when it comes to exotic betting you're an easy touch.
Trouble is, most of my pals fail to approach their exotic betting in an orderly fashion. The inevitable result is that they lose out in the long run.
One complained to me the other day that he was always amazed at how I managed to win so consistently.
'It's as if you are glued to the payout window,' he said. I smiled indulgently and told him that if he, like me, was prepared to put work and time into betting then he, too, could swing the pendulum of good fortune his way.
Now I like playing doubles, and I enjoy doing research into them. Searching out winning patterns from the history of racing can be fun.
I've always found doubles play to be rewarding but I have approached it in more or less a systematic way and have never ignored the potential of multiple betting. Let's face it, trying to pick a double in one stab is pretty hard going. You might manage it every now and then; in the longer term you will miss out many more times than you score.
The attraction of daily doubles is that they offer the chance of a punter receiving a lot for a little. They appeal, then, to hungry punters who often are prepared to lay out larger sums of money than they normally would to strike a payout.
The method you are now about to read of is one that I devised some time ago. It has performed well for me. I have chosen one particular day as a prime example of its top potential.
I don't suggest for one moment that this is what happens all the time with the system. I wish it did. But it is the type of winning day that I hit from time to time. Usually, the profits are much smaller. Yet they are consistent and this is the beauty of the plan.
It leads you to multiple doubles that really give you a fighting chance of finishing on top.
A lot of study went into the research before I was confident enough to try it myself with actual cold, hard cash. I wasn't disappointed and I'm sure you won't be once you have given the plan a fair chance.
Read the following rules and you will realise how easy it is to grasp the essentials of what makes it tick.
THE DOUBLES RULES- Include in both legs of your selected double all horses that are last-start winners.
- Include in both legs all those horses whose last two runs resulted in the same race finish placing, excluding any that finished further back than 9th. For example, you would be looking for horses with form figures ending like this, 22, 33, 44, 55,66, 77, 88, or 99.
- Link up all the final selections from these 2 rules and wheel them from leg to leg. If you have a total of 4 selections in the first leg and 3 in the second then you will have 12 doubles at, say, 50 cents each, for a total outlay of $6.
The two selection rules are simple, aren't they? But they are based on key factors of racing selection in that they pay attention to form, fitness, and consistency.
Why do we stick with horses that won at their most previous start? That's simple. These horses we can reasonably assume to be fit and in form.
Secondly, we look at horses who have run the same placing at their last two starts because this indicates consistency. It really is remarkable how often a horse with this type of form gets up at big odds.
The workout of results that accompanies my article is for the doubles betting using this method on Saturday, April 6. It was an excellent day and I have to admit that since then I haven't had a better one, although some have done particularly well.
In Sydney, the Extra Double called for an outlay of 3 into 1, which cost $1.50. The Daily Double had 4 horses into another 4 for an outlay of $8 on 16 doubles.
The Melbourne Extra Double was 3 horses into 4, a total of 12 doubles for $6. The Daily Double gave me 5 horses going into another 5 for 25 doubles costing $12.50.
Brisbane proved a bit more expensive. The Extra Double there called for 4 horses into 7, an outlay on 28 doubles of $14. The Daily Double was 2 into 4 for 8 doubles costing $4.
So I had a total outlay for the day's racing in three States of $46, made up of $9.50 in Sydney, $18.50 in Melbourne and $18 in Brisbane.
The method landed three of the six doubles - and the returns were extraordinary. The Extra Double in Sydney paid a whopping $517.25, the Extra in Brisbane returned $302.55 and the Daily Double there paid $8.20.
My total return for the day was $828 for that outlay of $46. This is a staggering 1700 per cent profit.
I might point out here that in the losing doubles there were 2 winners at 40-1 and 20-1.
You can see from this example that the potential is there to reap a goldmine with this method.
If we assume that a normal Saturday's outlay will be in the $50 area for 3 meetings, that one day's win would have been able to 'carry' you through 16 weeks' successive losses - something that just doesn't happen, I can assure you.
As with all the methods presented in PPM, there is room for improvement for those readers keen enough to make their own investigations. You may well be able to pinpoint a way to streamline my method and add a rule or two that enhances your winning prospects.
If that's the case, then good luck to you.
By Mick Collins
PRACTICAL PUNTING - DECEMBER 1985