Each year we punters set out on a fresh odyssey. It's our search for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Most punters never find it.

Much the same odyssey is undertaken each year, by people who invest, (or bet!), their money on the stock market. The biggest losers in the world are people who have bet on stocks and shares, and the biggest winners are those people who have done the same and come out ahead of the game.

Basically, there isn't a great deal of difference between punters who back racehorses and punters who risk their money at the stock exchange.

All study formlines, all look for blue chip bets, all seek the occasional longshot, all use some sort of money management program. I guess the only difference is that betting on stocks and shares has an air of respectability about it.

Tell people you bet on racehorses for a living and they'll be shocked, and probably disapproving. Tell them you earn a living from stocks and shares and they'll look at you in admiration and mark you down as a bright, intelligent human being.

Horse-racing punters, though, can learn from the approaches made by stocks investors. Recently, a UK investment house bulletin came up with a list of some 50 'common traits' of winning traders. Many of them can be applied to horse-racing betting.

Take this one: KEEP A POSITIVE ATTITUDE, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU LOSE. I think we'd all agree that attitude is a key factor in maintaining a profitable situation when betting on horses (or dogs). Lose your attitude and you can fall into a negative spin out of control. It's easy to do.

Another trait is listed as: CONTINUALLY STRIVE FOR PATIENCE, PERSEVERANCE, DETERMINATION and RATIONAL ACTION. Yes, yes, yes. Again we're talking about the vital aspect of betting, one's attitude. If you're impatient, lack dedication and determination, and bet irrationally, then it's odds-on that your betting adventure for 2001 is going to follow the well-worn losing trail you've trodden in previous years.

Here's another: LIMIT YOUR LOSSES ... USE STOPS. I guess you can't get much better advice than this. Don't allow yourself to lose too much. Institute a process whereby your betting cuts out if your losses reach a certain point. It all makes enormous sense.

I've met far too many punters who just couldn't stop themselves from flailing onwards even in the face of impending financial doom. (Witness poker machine players!)

Another piece of advice common to stock market players and equally attributable to racing punters is this one: NEVER GET INTO THE MARKET BECAUSE YOU ARE ANXIOUS ABOUT WAITING. What does this mean? It means, in racing parlance, don't bet just for the sake of it.  Every punter will admit to this 'sin' and most never manage to give it up.

If you look on betting as entertainment, fun, then a lot of this will mean nothing to you, and that's fair enough. When we play golf for fun and relaxation it doesn't matter that we don't play like Tiger Woods; the game is the main thing.

The same goes for entertainment only punters. They will spend their money quite happily in blissful ignorance of the formlines, or any staking plan. The sheer fun of having a bet, win or lose, is what it's all about.

However, for those of us with more serious pretensions to being successful punters, the advice is meaningful and possibly vital to long-term survival. Any piece of advice we can get that knocks off our rough edges is welcomed.

LOSSES MAKE THE TRADER STUDIOUS . . . NOT PROFITS. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EVERY LOSS TO IMPROVE YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF MARKET ACTION. How correct this is for racing punters! When we lose, we should start to think about why we lost. We need to be 'studious' in our post-mortems and in all our future analysis. By losing we can benefit by discovering 'why' and improving our knowledge.

An hour or two spent looking at video replays, or re-visiting the formguide, can mean big dollars in our pockets in the future.

THE MOST DIFFICULT TASK IN SPECULATION is NOT PREDICTION BUT SELFCONTROL. Again, we have another observation from the stocks and shares world that can be applied in equal strength to racing punters. To win we need to control what we do; to lose control is to lose our way. Value your money, don't splash it around.

SPLIT YOUR PROFITS RIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE AND NEVER RISK MORE THAN 50 PER CENT OF THEM AGAIN IN THE MARKET. Now this is a sensible way to go. Why throw all your profits into the bin again? If you make $5000 in a year, (well done), then set aside half of that for yourself. Put back into your betting the remaining half.

Traders know that they have a stress point. Punters on racing are the same. There is a level at which any player, short of a billionaire, will baulk. It may be as low as $10 or as high as $10,000, or even more, but the stress point upper limit is definitely there. Make sure you are well aware of your own ‘limit’ both financially and psychologically and don't go beyond it into scared money territory.

DREAM BIG DREAMS AND THINK TALL. VERY FEW PEOPLE SET GOALS TOO HIGH. A MAN BECOMES WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT ALL DAY LONG. So, yes, set yourself targets. The long-term target may be a high one; the ones that lead to that point need to be smaller, attainable ones. Plan to win $10,000 a year, sure, but build LIP to it; don't expect it to arrive in one hit or without a lot of groundwork planning.

HAVE YOU TAKEN A LOSS? FORGET IT QUICKLY. HAVE YOU TAKEN A PROFIT? FORGET IT EVEN QUICKER! Don't let ego and greed inhibit clear thinking and hard work. I know only too well the dangers of letting wild greed take over. Some years back, in fact in the late 1960s, a friend of mine won several thousand dollars at the races. Unfortunately for him, he won the money on the second race of the day.

Instead of taking it easy and conserving the bulk of the money, he suddenly saw himself as the greatest punter in the land. His betting reflected Ins big head. By the last race, his profit was down to a couple of hundred dollars. He'd learned a hard lesson.

ONE CANNOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT YESTERDAY. WHEN ONE DOOR CLOSES, ANOTHER OPENS. THE GREATER OPPORTUNITY ALWAYS LIES THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR. How true! Once a day's racing is over, you cannot change the results.

All you can do is try to learn from your defeats, and then look for the next open door. By thinking positively, you can gain from losing.

In the same way, stocks traders say they expect losses and they accept them gracefully. Those who brood over losses, they say, will always miss the next opportunity. Punters should take note. Bitterness over bad rides, or stewards' decisions, or just bad luck, won't get you anywhere. A shrug of the shoulders is the answer, and a promise to yourself to do better the next day.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WINNERS AND LOSERS ISN'T SO MUCH NATIVE ABILITY AS IT IS THE DISCIPLINE EXERCISED IN AVOIDING MISTAKES. All stocks traders I've ever spoken to hive pointed out to me how much time they spend choosing which stocks to buy or sell.

The racing punter has to follow the same procedure. Sometimes, in fact many times, it becomes a heartbreaking task in avoiding mistakes! In my own life as a tipster, I've found that I commit many mistakes, more than once.

I try not to ... but racing selecting is a funny game. It can lure you in time and again into the quicksand of bad judgement. How often have you dropped off a winning horse, and yet stayed aboard a losing one time and again?

I recently scored a big win on Tickle My, yet I dumped the filly later on and missed out on her 12/1 win in the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown! Why didn't I stay with her through thick and thin? Why would I dump her and yet lose several times on another horse who has won me nothing but lost me plenty?

These are the sorts of problems we punters have to cope with every day. It's an intellectual battle of mammoth proportions and only the strong manage to survive long term.

What about the following piece of advice banded out to stocks traders? IN THE WORLD OF MONEY, WHICH IS A WORLD SHAPED BY HUMAN BEHAVIOUR, NOBODY HAS THE FOGGIEST NOTION OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE FUTURE.

Mark that word, nobody, say the stocks expert, adding:

THE SUCCESSFUL TRADER DOES NOT BASE MOVES ON WHAR SUPPOSEDLY WILL HAPPEN BUT REACTS TO WHAT  DOES HAPPEN.

This is all too true. So far as racing is concerned, it means we react to the formbook and what it tells us. We cannot just predict the future with any accuracy without looking at what has happened in the past.

The statistics in the formguide are the lifeblood of what we're all about. We ignore the lessons of the past at our peril.

ASSIMILATE INTO YOUR BONES A SET OF TRADING RULES THAT WORK FOR YOU.

More good advice! A punter has to have a set of values, a way of going about things that work for him. A friend of mine has his own way of approaching the daily task of studying form:

(A) Eliminate all poor races.
(B) Select 2 races on which to bet, at the most.
(C) Firstly, eliminate no-hopers.
(D) Study the form; choose 2 final selections in a race. If more than 2, forget it.
(E) If prices permit, back both at level stakes, never using more than 1 per cent of the
total bank available.
(F) Never operate on races below Welter level.
(G) Bet for the win only.

Finally, the crisis advice from the stocks traders:

WHEN THE SHIP STARTS TO SINK DON'T PRAY ... JUMP!

So fir as racing betting goes, this can apply to many aspects of day-to-day operations. If your selection approach is consistently failing, drop it, and think again.

If you are losing and losing, stop betting. Get off that sinking ship. Reflect on your approach, think twice, rejig your thinking, check everything about your selection and staking process. It's obviously time for a change.

Your 2001 betting odyssey can be a winning one. Take advantage of the advice contained in this article, advice from men and women who trade in the massive global stocks market, and you will give yourself a better chance of coping with the inevitable losing runs.

You will also be better able to handle winning streaks. Both will come. The losing will be harder to manage than the winning, but both need to be handled carefully.

By Brian Blackwell

PRACTICAL PUNTING - JANUARY 2001