The Economist Horse

Australian horse racing form study usually stops at picking the horse: you do the form, then walk up and take whatever price is showing on the board. In Practical Punting in October 2000, Richard H...

Australian horse racing form study often ends the same way: an hour on the form guide, and a bet on the one whose name you liked. Writing in Practical Punting in September 2000, Richard Hartley Jnr...

Track conditions and weight are the two Australian horse racing form factors most punters skim over — "the in-a-hurry punters of modern day racing", as Richard Hartley Jnr put it in Practical Punti...

Australian horse racing form study often ends the same way: an hour on the form guide, half the field circled, and still no idea which one to back. Writing in Practical Punting Magazine, Richard Ha...

Most of a Saturday card is not worth studying — which is why Australian horse racing form study starts with picking the race, not the horse. Writing in Practical Punting in June 2000, Richard Ha...

Before you rate a single horse, Australian horse racing form study starts with a question about the race itself: is it even worth analysing? Writing in Practical Punting in May 2000, Richard Hartle...

Thousands of British racing fans will converge on Paris this weekend for the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, and any who take a copy of The Economist to read on the Eurostar may arrive at the Gare du No...

The term 'overlay' betting has been used a great deal in recent times. What it really means is 'value' securing a better price about a horse than its true chance reflects. It attempts to take the...

The term 'overlay' betting has been used a great deal in recent times. What it really means is 'value' securing a better price about a horse than its true chance reflects. It attempts to take the...

A rich businessman once gave me some advice. "Always remember," he said, "that 80 per cent of everything is usually controlled by 20 per cent. In my business, I always know that 80 per cent of my ...

Are you a clever punter? Or perhaps you're a mug punter? Or perhaps something in between? Melbourne form analyst Paul Segar has advice for all punters in his excellent new book "Horse Racing Theor...

One of the grumbles I hear from punters is that they don't understand the "money side" of gambling. They're okay at just about everything else but why, they ask, can they rarely make a killing? M...