Bona Fide Star Horse

Don Scott's first book turned the racing world upside down, and it did it with ratings: for the first time an Australian horse racing punter could put a figure on the race, then a figure on every r...

The 6-Point Divisor Plan is an Australian horse racing staking plan from 1989, and the thing that keeps it survivable is not the arithmetic — it is the safety brake. You run into four losers in a r...

Weight ratings or speed ratings? Philip Roy tested both on Australian horse racing form, three months at the Sydney tracks, and one of them finished a long way in front. Writing in Practical Puntin...

In Australian horse racing, 99 per cent of punters fail to make money over a 12-month period — and exotic betting is where they lose fastest. Don Scott, a professional punter who spent the sixties ...

There is no short cut in Australian horse racing, and Don Scott is the proof: he worked 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, at form study. Practical Punting's Brian Blackwell interviewed him i...

In Australian horse racing, most punters bet with bookmakers all their lives without ever learning how a bookie makes his book, and it is hard to beat a man at a job you cannot describe. Statsman, ...

PUNTERS HAVE GOOD BRAINS... BUT SOMETIMES...I wonder how long you'll spend on assessing the Run to the Rose at the Rosehill track Saturday afternoon. Speaking for myself, I took somewhere between f...

Grahame Begg says he has been forced to run debutante Military Blonde out of her grade in the Silver Slipper, but also says she is a filly with enormous potential.Military Blonde was one of four ho...

Grahame Begg says he has been forced to run debutante Military Blonde out of her grade in the Silver Slipper, but also says she is a filly with enormous potential.Military Blonde was one of four ho...

My friend and colleague Denton Jardine has been unwell of late and has asked me to provide the final part of his series on systems and form defects. This is a subject which Denton and myself have...

One of America's legendary racing newsmen was 'Boots' Baker. He brought new ideas and revolutionary thinking to the US racing scene back in the '40s and '50s. The following are some of his ideas w...

In the second article in this special series, The Optimist and PPM editor Brian Blackwell discuss betting ideas. This month they talk about betting on major races. The Optimist (TO): Brian, I kno...