William Wallace Horse

Picking winners is only half the job; backing them well is the other half. Writing in Practical Punting in February 2004, US professional Barry Meadow and Practical Punting editor Brian Blackwell ...

Picking winners comes down to what has changed about a horse, and what everyone else has missed. Writing in Practical Punting in January 2004, US professional Barry Meadow and Practical Punting ed...

Because of the grading system, every greyhound in a race has a chance of winning — so the hardest job in greyhound racing form study is deciding which dogs to eliminate. Writing in Practical Punti...

Horse racing form is more than numbers — a trainer, a jockey and an owner are all telling you something, if you know where to look. Writing in Practical Punting in December 2003, US expert Barry M...

Horse racing handicapping does not reduce to a system — as US expert Barry Meadow puts it, most experienced players understand the game is far too complex for that. Writing in Practical Punting in...

What should a genuinely good horse racing form analyst actually expect to win in a year? In April 2009, in Brian Blackwell's Practical Punting series Attainable Targets, the American handicapper J...

I went back to July 1990 for this month's "back to beyond" source material. The Optimist was still writing the same patter then as he is now. Fifteen years ago, give or take a few months, he was...

I have been lucky over the years to make many good friends in racing. Some of them are involved professionally. One of my closest friends is a top Sydney racing journalist, whilst others bet often...

This is the final article in the series. It seems to me timely that it should occur during our 20th birthday celebrations. What I've done for this month's article is to plough back through a who...

June 1986. And my goodness, what a long time ago it seems now. I suppose that a fair percentage of my readers were still in school! I pulled this copy of PPM out of my archival vault and I flicked...

This is my first article in a new series. You, the readers, will hopefully write to Equestrian, and indicate some of your favourite "Optimist" articles from the past 20 years. You will determine...

This is the final article in our three-part series in which PPM. experts Statsman, Jon Hudson and The Optimist discuss their approaches to selecting and staking. Statsman: I'd like us to talk no...