Date Withthe Devil Horse

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, ...

In Australian horse racing, backing three horses in a race dramatically shortens the odds you are really betting — the board price is not your price. Philip Roy answered a reader who wanted to d...

There’s something of an art to making money from trifecta betting on greyhound racing. This is because the combinations available are limited by the size of the fields (eight runners maximum). Un...

NZ stayer Titch tops the compressed weights for next month's Grp 2 Adelaide Cup (3200m) at Morphettville. Titch, winner of the Grp 1 Auckland Cup (3200m) in 2011, has since been tackling flat and j...

There are a few things, only a few, in this life that can be reasonably counted on. I know that's not a new perspective, and the ones we usually hear about are death and taxes. But racing also h...

On April 25 I celebrated my 40th “official” year as a punter, which I calculate via the fact that the first formguide I kept for research purposes was from an Anzac Day meeting of 1967. Since the...

In this latest article in our Form Forum series, PPM editor Brian Blackwell and The Optimist discuss key aspects of staking and money management. BB: You can pick lots of winners in this game, an...

There is less than a minute to go before the jump. What to do? Win bet? Exacta? Trifecta? How much on each? What's right? While the questions posed seem simple, they are problems that mathematic...