Write Your Own 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...

Sometimes, the simplest aspects of racing defeat the ordinary punter. I could cite money management as an example. Reduced to its basic level - flat stakes - betting is an easily operable form of ...

Okay gang, it’s quiz time again. All I want you to do is to read the question . . . Do not let your eyes go forward to the next paragraph and think about the answer to today’s quiz question before...

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...

When we talk about punting we have to, alas, talk about illogicality and irrational thinking. We must talk about cashing the small bets and losing the big ones, about catching little 'fish' and mi...

A common gripe about harness racing is that there are too many short priced favourites. Some punters complain that because the form is so exposed and the animals so reliable, there is no value to ...

More than six months have passed since PPM printed an interview with the legendary US handicapper Mark Cramer. His earlier books are a little hard to find, but his most recent work, Value Handic...