The British weather is a constant inspiration for conversation, but recently the topic of the weather has been elevated to headline news status. Despite suffering draught sanctions in many areas, Britain has seen excessive levels of rain, and flood warnings have been issued. Officially we have endured the wettest April showers since records began in 1910.

Someone said last week, “It’s the wettest draught on record!”

On more than one occasion race meetings have been lost to water-logged courses. It’s May for goodness sake!

With all the talk of rain and unseasonally damp conditions, it’s hardly surprising that many people, including us punters, have been asking “whatever happened to global warming?” Where’s the sun?

I was watching a program on the Discovery Channel the other day which went some way to answering that question. And it also got me thinking how we can draw several parallels between the weather and betting on horse racing.

The chap on the telly was explaining how we should not be confusing the weather with the climate. He said it was was not surprising the wet period has raised questions over climate change – but the rainy weather should not be used as evidence against it.

”It’s no surprise that people look out of their window at the persistent rain and find it hard to rationalise what’s going on with the longer term trend.”

But he said it was wrong to focus on single events – whether they were cold snaps or heat waves – which were the product of natural variability. Instead they should look at the underlying, longer term trends for the climate which were more robust evidence of the changes which are happening.

The last decade was the warmest on record, with the last three each warmer than the previous 10 years.

The Met Office has reported that April’s wet weather was within the bounds of natural variability within a global trend of extended hours of sunshine – in which 2011 was the fifth warmest year on record. Despite record levels of rainfall in April, the country has experienced largely dry periods for the past two years, resulting in the depletion of our reservoirs.

”If you look at the temperature graph for the UK or the world, it is a series of peaks and troughs and there’s a lot of inter-annual variability within the climbing trend.”

So how does this relate to betting on horse racing?

Weather systems consist of many variables to produce a result. Air temperature, atmospheric pressure, prevailing winds and many other influences combine to dictate whether it rains over a particular area, or sends people running for the sun-cream. On the face of it, weather systems may appear to be completely random and chaotic events. On the face of it, a horse race may appear to be the same. A group of horses, each with four legs, sets off on a race.

The outcome of a horse race is also influenced by a number of variables – the fitness of each horse, the going, the distance, the jockey, the pattern of the race, luck in running, and so on. That is the challenge of racing we all relish. But we relish that challenge because ultimately we think the puzzle can be solved. And similarly, for many years meteorologists have engaged in the pursuit of predicting the weather.

What lesson can we learn from observing the weather?

The extraordinary wet weather we have experienced of late is simply a departure from the norm, but within the bounds of variability. Just because we haven’t seen blue sky for a few weeks, it doesn’t mean Britain now has a monsoon season. It is important we step back and observe the bigger picture, setting the recent wet weather in context with the rise in average sunshine hours over the last thirty years.

We should should exercise the same objectivity when we are betting. A losing day, week, or even month should not necessarily be cause to set alarm bells ringing. Equally, trialling a system for a week and seeing a profit should not be immediately followed by investing headlong with full stakes.

Knee-jerk reactions to short-term results will often lead to poor decision-making.

On this site we tend to trial a system for a month, or thirty “betting days” if the system is more selective. If the system returns a profit, we will generally recommend it worthy of further evaluation, but only further evaluation.

Personally, I would not be remotely tempted to start investing properly in any system until I was happy with the returns from at least 250 separate bets. Michael Wilding at Race Advisor suggests testing a betting system until you have 100 winners.

If you like, data from 250 bets will give you an indication of the climate of the system in question. Any amount of data much less than this will simply tell you what the weather is doing at a particular period in time.

The lesson is to test a betting system, method, or strategy for a significant period of time before coming to any conclusions.

By leaving comments below, tell me, how long do you typically test a system before using your normal stakes? Are you a cautious bettor, or will you happily jump straight in with big money?

Although I had been kidding myself to the contrary, what I did know subconsciously was in the long run the bookmakers always seemed to win. The occasional lucky winning streak aside, punters by and large would end up losing their money.

Despite thinking I might be different, and not like other punters, I was actually no different at all.

Just like everyone else, I would try to make sense of the form, read the Spotlight comments in the Racing Post, saw what the experts had to say, and subscribed to several tipster services. But at the end of the day my horse racing selections were little more than guesswork and I was greatly influenced by the opinions of others.

Fortunately a series of events transpired that changed the whole way I approached betting.

The first happened one Friday afternoon in 1998 which served as my wake up call. I blew a ridiculous amount of cash on one horse, trying to chase the losses I was suffering by following a particular tipster. That one painful bet pretty much wiped out my betting bank, but the experience fired me up and that day I made some decisions, and started to implement some changes.

I started to read more, and not just the pages of The Racing Post. These were proper works of authority on horse racing, such as Ainslie’s Complete Guide to Thoroughbred Racing by Tom Ainslie, and The Best of Thoroughbred Handicapping by James Quinn. I started keeping my eyes open for anything that would expand my knowledge, encouraged by the notion that if I knew more than the average punter, I would have the edge on the average punter, and start to make some profit.

Then one day I was browsing the book section of the Save The Children charity shop on Tring High Street when I came across a dozen or so books all about horse racing. They were not there the week before so I guess someone had donated their whole collection. I snapped them all up for less than a fiver, and when I got home I excitedly emptied my carrier bag of paperbacks onto the kitchen table. Among them was Nick Mordin’s Betting For A Living, 100 Hints For Better Betting by Mark Coton, Against The Crowd by Alan Potts, and several books on how to compile your own race ratings. It took me several weeks to go through them, but I read them all.

The one book that changed my approach to betting entirely was also sitting there among those new additions to my horse racing library. It was a book that talked about speed ratings. I read it twice from cover to cover, and started to compile my own speed figures.

Having read books before depicting mechanical systems to make money on horse racing, I was sceptical at first, and on a couple of occasions I was on the verge of giving up on speed ratings as another tried-but-failed idea. But this approach was different. It wasn’t a purely mechanical system.

Then out of the blue something truly inspirational happened. The horse that I had figured top rated on its speed performances romped home at a lovely 12/1 and well clear by 7 lengths coming away. None of the experts had mentioned it but according to my figures it was a stand out selection. The book that had started my fascination with speed ratings was Picking Winners by Andrew Beyer. It was like someone had finally switched on the lights!

Have you ever had one of those moments in your life where everything changed?

You might not have known it at the time – but the moment was defining, and it changed the course of some area of your life in a way that turned things upside down.

I had one of those course changing moments early in what you might want to call my betting “career”.

It was a moment that eventually resulted in my betting moving from being a hobby that was actually costing me a fair amount of money, to generating a consistent secondary income. It was a moment that at the time didn’t feel life changing – but it was.

The funny thing about this moment is that it wasn’t a discovery of some secret betting system, it wasn’t the day I started following a new tipster… in fact it was a moment that didn’t immediately lead to any particular change in how I betted – because it was largely something that happened in my mind – a paradigm shifting moment.

It all started with nine words from my wife Sarah.

“You’ve got twelve months to make money from betting.”

She then told me that if I didn’t start seeing profits I’d have to stop betting altogether. Our baby son (we now have three boys aged 6yrs to 11yrs old, and growing up fast) was only a few months old at the time, and I guess it was Sarah’s way of reminding me I now had important responsibilities, and we couldn’t afford to be pouring our money away on the horses.

Up until this point I’d been talking about how betting could one day provide us with a full time income. I’d been showing her the growth of the returns from my bets so far, and projecting forward to what they might be in the future if things kept going.

I’d been on about it for months and things were going OK – the graphs I kept showing her were trending up, which actually only meant I was “losing less” - but I could see the possibility of one day being a full time punter.

But I’d been talking a lot…. dreaming a lot…. creating a lot of pretty graphs…. and not really DOING a lot.

I didn’t really see it (I was too close and too caught up in my dreams) but Sarah knew it and so she set me an ultimatum – a deadline that changed my thinking and more importantly led to me changing the way I went about my betting.

In the moments after Sarah’s ultimatum I had a realization that although I dreamed that one day my betting would become a business, up to that point I’d been treating my betting like a hobby.

I knew that if I were to succeed in seeing my betting accounts move from deep in the red, to showing a profit in the next twelve months, then that attitude would have to change. I needed to start looking at my betting as a business NOW – even though right now it was just an expensive hobby.

That moment changed everything.

That was the day that I started to implement several changes….

I started putting serious time aside for analysis and research. I was back then, and I still am today a big fan of speed ratings but I would leave all my number-crunching to Sunday evening, and it would take three or four hours. Often I just couldn’t be bothered to do the analysis, and as a result my figures would become out of date and unreliable. Now I spend thirty minutes to an hour every day during the week, and I can easily keep on top of things.

I became more focused upon my core tasks of monitoring trends. Trends analysis is my passion (I know, I’m a geek, but I love playing with figures!) But I would sometimes get to hear of someone using another method of form study or statistical research, and waste time wondering if I could apply similar methods myself. Rather than concentrating on what I knew and what was already working for me.

I wasted less time on distractions. For example, I would always watch every race in which I had an interest. Not just races where I was actually having a bet, but also races where there may have been a qualifying selection in a system or method I was evaluating. It was madness! Me watching the race was not going to affect the result, and I worked out I was spending an average of 90 minutes a day watching the TV when I could have been using my time more productively.

I became more strategic in my thinking and set myself goals to work towards.

I began to look for new income streams. I gave up my salaried job and went into business with a friend of mine, selling eBooks on eBay. This provided me with an income whilst freeing up more time for me to focus on betting. My information marketing business on eBay eventually led to me creating SkyBlueKangaroo and developing it into an online business.

I started to look for a business coach who could teach me how to take what I enjoy doing, which is researching profitable betting methods and then writing about them, and turning that into a business from which I can earn a living. As the saying goes….

“If you enjoy what you do, you will never work another day in your life.”

That day began the process for me of taking my vision, and turning into the income streams I am lucky enough to enjoy today. Betting and my online business interests give me great personal satisfaction, whilst also giving me the freedom from a nine-to-five job. And it all started with my wife’s encouraging words (or “nagging” as it is otherwise known!)

While not a lot changed immediately in my betting methods that day – the impact over the last four or five years has been significant. I’ve not looked back and many of the things I changed back then have become patterns and a natural part of my daily work flow.

The #1 reason my betting developed into a profitable business was that I began to treat it as one.

Why not read this article next?

The typical professional gambler is a schizophrenic

.

A driving instructor doesn’t help you by explaining to you in minute detail precisely how the internal combustion engine works, but rather his aim is to teach you how to drive the car safely to your chosen destination.

Similarly, I’ve written this article to teach you how to get started compiling your own speed figures for horse racing.

Besides, a great deal of the analysis data in this article comes from Nick Mordin’s book Mordin On Time and I strongly recommend if you are halfway serious about compiling your own speed figures then you search out a copy for yourself.

It used to be available from publishers Aesculus Press but I think nowadays copies are hard to come by, and a search on Google may be in order.

I’ve written a guide to speed ratings for use at UK all-weather tracks called Patterns In The Sand and my main aim when writing that book was to show you what to do with the speed figures you produce, and how you can use them to have a positive effect on your betting. You’ll notice throughout this article I make several references to my book, and if I spark an interest in speed ratings today and you decide to buy it, you’ll have my eternal gratitude.

But I’m digressing! To demonstrate how to compile speed ratings I’ll take you through the working example of how I produced the figures for the meeting at Wolverhampton on Monday 1st February 2010.

Fig. 1

This is a summary of the process:

1. Compare the actual race winning time with the Standard Time
2. Is the time slower or faster than Standard Time?
3. Calculate the Going Variance
4. Calculate a speed rating for the winning horse
5. Produce figures for the other runners

Using a table as shown below (I use Microsoft Excel but any spreadsheet program is fine), the first thing to do is to enter the scheduled start time of the race into column A. In this case the first race on the card was the 2:05. We then look for the Class of the race, which we can see was Class 6. The Class figure goes in column D.

Fig. 2

The figure in column E is taken from the Class table (see below) and 6.9 represents Class 6. This table essentially shows us how many seconds per mile a horse in a given Class can be expected to perform below the Standard Time. As you might expect, the higher class horses are expected to run nearer the Standard Time.

Fig. 3

The calculations can be broken down into five steps:

STEP #1 : Compare the actual race winning time with the Standard Time

Now we look up the winning time for the race. We can see this 6f (actually 5f 216yds, which is 4yds short of six furlongs) race was won in 1m 16.69secs. Deduct the Standard Time for the course and distance. (Standard Times for the all-weather tracks, and how they are compiled, is shown in my book). For a 6f race at Wolverhampton the Standard Time is 1min 10.14secs

Winning time is 1min 16.69secs

Standard Time for a 6f race at Wolverhampton is 1min 10.14secs

The difference is 6.55secs

This is the difference for a 6f race, and as there are 8 furlongs to the mile, 6f is six-eighths of a mile, or three-quarters of a mile, or 0.75 miles. To equate the time difference to that of a mile, we must divide by 0.75 to give 8.73secs. This figure is placed into column C. The Standard Times tables in my book also show the fractions you will need to divide by, in order to equate each race to one mile. For example, a 5f race is five-eighths of a mile, and so you divide by 0.625

Fig. 4

STEP #2 : Is the time faster or slower than Standard Time?

Next check the figure in column C against that in column E. We are comparing the time taken to win this race against the standard time. If C is greater than E then we place a MINUS in column F. If C is less than E then we put a PLUS in column F.

In our example, 8.73 is more than 6.9 so we put a MINUS in column F.

The actual difference between column C and E goes in column G. We put 1.83 in column G for the first race.

The process is repeated for all the races in the meeting, and our table for Wolverhampton on February 1st looked like this:

Fig. 5

STEP #3 : Calculate the Going Variance

The next thing to do is to remove the extremely fast or slow times. So in column G put a line through the two highest, and the two lowest figures (for an eight race card) to leave the middle four times. Add together the four times, and find the average by dividing by four. This will give you the Going Variance for the track that day.

With a seven race card you will be left with three times, so instead divide the aggregated time by three to get your Going Variance. With a six race card, discount the highest and lowest times, to leave you four times to find your variance figure.

Normally you will find the figures in column G are either all positive or all negative, but sometimes there will be a combination. In our example, after weeding out the top and bottom two, we were left with the following figures…. -0.60, -1.26, -1.83, and lastly -1.91

Added together these make -5.6 which divided by four gives an average, and our Going Variance, of -1.40

STEP #4 : Calculate a speed rating for the winning horse

To arrive at the final speed rating figure for the winner of the race, deduct or add (in our case we deduct as the Going Variance is a negative figure) the Going Variance from the figure in column C, then multiply by five, and subtract the result from one hundred. This is the speed rating for the winning horse, and goes into column B.

In our example, in the first race, we deduct 1.40 from 8.73 to give 7.33. Multiplied by five this gives 36.65 and when we take this from one hundred we are left with 63 (rounded to the nearest whole number).

The final table for our meeting at Wolverhampton is shown below:

Fig. 6

You can see that comparatively speaking, the winner of the 4:50 race with a speed rating of 80 was the best performance of the day.

STEP #5 : Produce figures for the other horses

Now that you have a speed rating for each of the winning horses, you now need to allocate a figure for the remaining horses in each race. Write the speed figure next to the winning horse. Next, divide the number of lengths each horse finished behind the winner, by the distance of the race, and deduct this from the winner’s speed figure.

A simple example to start with, is a horse beaten by one length in a 1mile race. One divided by one is one, and so the horse would receive a rating one less than the winner.

Let’s say the horse in question was beaten 2 and a half lengths, in a six furlong race (remember, 6 furlongs is 0.75 miles). 2.5 divided by 0.75 equals 3.33 and rounded to the nearest whole number gives us 3. In this case we would allocate a speed rating of three less than the winning horse.

One last example, and this time our horse is beaten half a length in a 1m2f race. 0.5 divided by 1.25 equals 0.4 which we would round down to zero. The horse would be allocated the same speed rating as the winner.

If we look at the race featured at the beginning of this chapter, the 2:05 race at Wolverhampton over five furlongs, we have calculated a speed rating of 63 for the winning horse Miss Firefly. The second horse Tamino was beaten by a neck (one quarter of a length). Six furlongs is 0.75 miles, so 0.25 lengths divided by 0.75 miles is 0.33. This is nearer zero than one, so I would also give Tamino a rating of 63 for his performance. The third horse Metropolitan Chief was another neck distance back, and so beaten half a length by the winner. 0.5 lengths divided by 0.75 miles is 0.66 and so I would give the horse a rating one less than the winner, ie. a 62.

1st Miss Firefly 63! W 6f

2nd Tamino 63 W 6f

3rd Metropolitan Chief 62 W 6f

NB. I explain my speed ratings annotation in detail in my book, but the exclamation mark denotes a winning performance, the ‘W’ denotes the track Wolverhampton, and the 6f shows the race distance.

As with many new processes, and if you are anything like me, calculating your first set of horse speed ratings will take you quite some time. I was forever re-reading Andrew Beyer’s instructions, and referring back and forth with my own calculations. But I soon got the hang of it, and as you might expect, with some practice you will also see for yourself the task becomes a lot easier and very much quicker.

[box icon="none"]If you don’t think you’re going to have the time to research and maintain your own database of speed ratings, or you would simply rather let someone else do all the hard work for you, then I’ve got some good news. When you buy my guide to speed ratings Patterns In The Sand you will also get a free one month trial of my speed ratings service. Check it out here [...][/box]

So there you have it. That is how you can produce your own speed ratings for each horse in a race. I agree it’s not very exciting nor romantic, and nothing like the compelling stuff that we usually read on the sales pages of all the betting wonder system web sites. There is no ‘secret formula’ and I’m not revealing to you some missing link that I found scribbled inside a dusty old journal in my grandfather’s attic. It is just simple mathematics.

But now that you have a speed rating for each horse, what do you do with the figures? In Mordin On Time the author suggests keeping your figures in the weekly supplement to RaceForm Update or in a notebook. This is a simple way to record your figures, but the problem later arises when you want to retrieve your figures to rate a particular race. The Wolverhampton meeting we have been using as our example involved 108 horses, and during the 2008/2009 winter season more than 3,000 horses ran on the all weather alone.

In my book (see below) I explain how I solved this problem.

Patterns In The Sand: a guide to speed ratings for all-weather racing

This is my book. I’ve called it Patterns In The Sand because it specialises in the use of speed figures at the UK all-weather tracks.

This is some of what’s covered by the guide:

What are speed ratings?

How to produce the speed ratings

How to calculate Standard Times

An introduction to the all weather tracks

Winning betting strategies

[button link="http://www.allweatherspeedratings.com" bg_color="#e69900"]Buy The Book[/button]

Because of the over-round a bookmaker works into his “book”, it is hardly surprising that as many as 95% of punters will fail to come out in front when betting the horses over the long term. The powerful High Street and online bookmakers employ the very best odds compilers, and they’re experts at estimating the true chances of a horse winning a race, setting prices, and locking in a profit margin.

Nonetheless, horse racing can never be 100% statistically quantifiable, in the same sense that card games or other forms of casino gambling can be. Games such as roulette and blackjack are governed by simple rules of probability. For example, my chance of winning on number 18 on the roulette wheel is undeniably one-in-thirty seven. Whereas the true chance of Kauto Star winning the Cheltenham Gold Cup this year is debatable – because it’s based upon opinion.

And if I think I know what his chances are, what gives me the right to say my estimate is more accurate than the bookmaker’s?

The answer to this question will come only after time, with experience, and by immersing yourself in the sport and its betting markets. The good news is that bookmakers are human, and like all humans, they do make mistakes. Admittedly they don’t make them in every race, every day of the week; but nonetheless they do have errors in judgement. The trick of course, as a knowledgeable bettor, is to be able to spot these errors, and pounce upon them.

A good example, albeit in a different sport, was when William Hill offered an insane price of 200/1 about Primoz Peterka, a Slovenian ski jumper, to win the opening ski jumping World Cup competition of the 2002/03 season in Finland. This price was offered despite the fact that he’d won the qualifying competition the night before, and was clearly a jumper in form. Furthermore he’d been double world champion in previous seasons.

The true odds for him to win were more likely around the 10/1 mark, and this was how most of the rival bookmakers had him in their books. This was a glaring example of the price being far too high compared to the actual chance of winning. As an aside, Peterka won, and William Hill ceased offering odds for the ski jumping World Cup shortly thereafter. And I’m sure someone would have left the William Hill building with his P45 that day!

Of course, such glaring mistakes are very rare, and it’s the smaller pricing errors the professional punter will go in search of every day in order to earn his living. But make no mistake, the only way to profit from betting long term is to seek out and take advantage of value bets where the odds are in favour of the bettor.

[box]More articles on the subject of Value Betting….

• The Ninja Secret to massive competitive advantage and making a profit
• The magic trick that turns a loss into a profit
• Just what is value betting anyway?
• The most important piece in the whole jigsaw box
• The wit and wisdom of a race-course gambler
• Here’s how to make guaranteed profits from the ‘Clover Leaf’ betting system
• Is it as simple as Heads or Tails?
• Mastering odds and probability

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Punters adopt many different strategies to gain that crucial betting edge over the market. Some will employ a mathematical approach by using race rating systems which analyse past performance in order to predict future outcomes. Others will spend hours each week delving into form books and internet sites to avail themselves of as much information as they can about a particular race. This may include news from inside the stable or from observers on the training gallops.

Others may base their decisions on nothing more than a subjective feel for the upcoming race, relying upon their experience and perhaps a hunch about how the race will unfold. And finally there are those punters who pay others to do the calculating, form study, and thinking for them, by subscribing to tipster services.

There is no right or wrong way to seek a betting edge. At the end of the day, the best one is the one that works for you, and hopefully one that returns a profit. However, a word of caution when following a professional service…. basic economics and common sense should tell you that the more punters there are backing the same horse ‘tipped’ to win, the smaller the opportunity to secure value. Much better to have your own unique angle to selecting horses, and avoid sharing the value that might be available.

What any successful approach has in common with other methods, is a shared goal of finding ‘value’ in the odds and prices, where the actual chance of a horse winning is greater than that estimated by the bookmaker or the market on the betting exchanges. A great many punters are ignorant of the importance of value betting and they generally think that to win at betting you just need to pick more winners. A short-priced winner is better than the horse at 20/1 that loses, right? Well, yes, but as a winning punter the trick is to make your decision before the event, and make the right decision at the right price, enough times to ensure a profit.

A genuine value bettor is typically unconcerned about backing a horse other than the favourite. The favourite is more often than not the horse with the best chance of winning, yet the value in the race is often in backing horses more likely to lose. Backing horses with a price that suggests a 10% chance of winning, ie 9/1 when the true chance is 20% and 4/1 makes sense. These horses will not always win, but they will win enough times at generous prices to see you collect more money than you stake.

It may seem counter-intuitive to back a horse you do not think will win, but probability will guarantee you a profit nonetheless, if you consistently back horses at prices higher than they should be.

The genuine value bettor does not think in terms of one single race, but rather, “If the same race were run 100 times, which horse would I want to be backing over and over again at the prices offered?”

Since odds are just a way of expressing probabilities value betting provides the only way to beat the bookmaker over the long haul. Your average punter can back as many ‘winners’ as he likes, but if he ignores the prices and therefore the risk-reward ratios, then his winnings may not be enough to return a profit.

The successful bettor will be prepared for his fair share of losing bets and bad luck stories, but he will alway be encouraged by the value bettors’ motto “Find the value, and the winners will take care of themselves.”

Victoria Pendleton

They say that practice makes perfect, and a top sociologist has quantified that old adage by claiming you need to spend at least 10,000 hours improving your skills if you want to be a success at anything. Academic Malcolm Gladwell suggests you need to put in time, training and practice over the course of a decade to get to the top of your chosen field.

Mr Gladwell further underlines his theory by pointing out sports stars such as Boris Becker, Jonny Wilkinson, Tiger Woods and the Venus sisters, who have all become world-beaters because of the obsessive devotion they have demonstrated for their game, right from childhood.

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success Mr Gladwell says that if you examine the greatest athletes, scientists, musicians and business leaders you’ll notice they only came to public prominence after committing at least three hours a day for ten years practicing. ‘What’s really interesting about this 10,000-hour rule is that it applies virtually everywhere,’ Mr Gladwell told a conference held by The New Yorker magazine. ‘You can’t become a chess grand master unless you spend 10,000 hours on practice.’

‘The tennis prodigy who starts playing at six is playing in Wimbledon at 16 or 17 [like] Boris Becker. The classical musician who starts playing the violin at four is debuting at Carnegie Hall at 15 or so,’ he added.

Natural ability is just one factor in success though. A willingness to work hard, a strong support mechanism, luck, and even being born in the right year, also each play their part. Just as the Beatles rose to fame with the explosion of pop culture in the 1960s, so Bill Gates’s obsession with the minicomputer that he used at school in 1968 placed an unassuming young student on course to become one of the richest and powerfully influential men on the planet.

No one – not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires and not even geniuses – ever makes it alone,  writes Mr Gladwell in his book.

In Olympic year it’s interesting to reflect upon past glory achieved by members of Team GB. It can be argued that much of Britain’s Olympic success is down to a combination of natural ability and sheer dedication.

Maxim Vengerov

Victoria Pendleton’s emphatic gold in the women’s sprint cycling in Beijing came only after humiliating defeat in Athens four years previously. After training every day for four hours, six days a week the 27-year-old finally reaped the rewards.

Rebecca Adlington, the 19-year-old swimmer who won two gold medals at the Beijing Games, had invested an estimated 8,840 hours of training since the age of 12.

Such dedication is also apparent in musicians. Maxim Vengerov is one of the world’s greatest violinists. He was born in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and, after he was given a miniature fiddle at the age of four, he displayed outstanding aptitude. But his natural given talent was paired with an immense work ethic. He practised seven hours a day, gave his first recital at the age of five, and won his first international prize at fifteen.

My mother would get home at 8pm, cook dinner and then teach me the violin until four in the morning. As a four-year-old boy it was torture. But I became a violinist within two years.

When a journalist once ventured to suggest to golfer Gary Player that he had been lucky to win a recent tournament, he famously replied that “…the more I practice, the luckier I seem to get!”

How does this apply to successful betting?

Success with betting is unlikely to come your way overnight: Unfortunately this here betting industry that we’re all involved with, is awash with false promises of instant riches. You probably didn’t need me to tell you that. The chastening fact is that if your goal is to make money from betting on horse racing, then consistent success will not come your way overnight.

My light bulb moment came one evening in July 1998 and it took me a further three years before I saw my first profit across a whole season. A whopping £428

Make a commitment to learning: Relying solely upon purchased betting systems and subscription advisory services means putting all your income streams in the hands of others. Yes, these paid-for strategies might well form part of your portfolio, but developing your own betting skills will not only help you get the most from third party advice, but it will see you make more money on your own. Read and absorb as much as you can about all aspects of horse racing and betting. Remember, you only need to know more than the average punter to have an edge. Invest in a betting course such as Race Advisor by Michael Wilding.

Build a support system: Every champion athlete and sports-person has a coach. Successful business leaders invariably have advisors. You’ll reach your goals quicker if you get regular input from other people who have achieved already what you want to achieve. Get involved at various betting forums, and consider the opinions and advice offered by influential people who write and publish in the betting niche. I posted recently about 10 people in the betting industry that I trust and you would do worse than making contact with one, some, or all of them.

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Along with Scott Daniels I started a horse racing blog in October 2004, and we registered the SkyBlueKangaroo.com domain name the next year in August of 2005.

I reckon I spend an average of 3 hours each day studying, writing, or otherwise involved with horse racing and betting. If I do that 5 days a week, then that’s 15 hours per week. Assuming 48 ‘working weeks’ each year, at a rate of 15 hours per week, that works out at 13 years and 9 months before I will have clocked up 10,000 hours on the job.

If I need to put in 10,000 hours then having started in earnest back in October 2004, I estimate I can legitimately call myself an ‘expert’ sometime around July 2018. Better get on with it then!

Whenever I’ve asked readers before, which products and services they’d like to see reviewed here, Mathematician Betting has always been suggested by more than a few people.

Coupled with the fact I’ve been a fan since 2005, I thought I should actually get around to compiling a review.

I first came across The Mathematician in 2005 whilst he was under the spotlight as part of a tipster survey being run by the Observer Newspaper. At the time he was producing some noticeable profits for members.

So essentially Guy Ward is a horse racing tipster. But I don’t want to pigeon-hole him, and I should immediately qualify that categorisation by stressing that Guy Ward is also much, much more than a tipster. Understand this, it’s a genuine betting advisory service.

Guy sends out a daily email message, which includes any selections for that day. This is standard practice for any tipster service; but what I generally like to see, and what Mathematician Betting provides, is not only the name(s) of horses to be bet but also full analysis of his thought processes. This tells me that the service is genuine, and not simply a front for some wannabe tipster picking names out of the Racing Post every day and passing them off as ‘tips’.

I found these customer testimonials on the web site, and for me they sum up what the service is about just as well as I could, if not better.

I have subscribed to many services that promise to provide you with winners, but this is by far the best one and the best value for money service I have come across. Guy puts in so much effort to provide detailed statistical information on selected races which shows how he has come to the conclusion of his selection. His results are fantastic, as well as regular winning definite bets he provides you with information and suggestions on other races that leads you to further winners. His service is incredibly valuable and profitable, and im thrilled with it.

Whilst I’ve only been a member of your service for a couple of months, I’ve quickly come to learn that yours is the most genuine, value for money and profitable service around. The mix of education and profitability has been perfect for me and the subscriptions would have been well worth paying even if we had only maintained zero profit / loss!

For the purposes of the review, I will follow the advised selections over the course of a month, and publish the results accordingly. I’m also going to show you one or two sample messages so you have an idea of the detail Guy goes into each day.

That’s it for now, and as they say “Watch this space” for an update in a few weeks.

In the meantime, if you’ve had experience of Mathematician Betting please share your thoughts with others readers and leave a comment below.

If you’ve been reading this here blog for any length of time you’ll have heard me talk about aligning yourself with a ‘mastermind group’. This could be a personal mentor, or a select group of people. These will be people who have achieved already what you seek to achieve, and can help guide your thoughts, ideas and actions.

You will not grow as a person if you simply follow someone blindly, but it’s nearly always beneficial to have some kind of support system in place, or at least a sounding board for ideas.

Whilst putting this post together it made me remember what a unique network of smart, accomplished, “walk the talk” individuals I get to connect with. So I’d like to share with you a list of 10 people I shall be following during 2012. You may not always agree with what they have to say, and indeed they will not be right all of the time. But you can take it from me, they will always have your best interests at heart.

This is by no means a definitive list, and it comes in no particular order of merit. Please feel free to suggest other names you think readers should be aware of, and why, and leave your comments below.

Ben Aitken

From Kirkaldy, Fife, in Scotland Ben is a published author, and best known for his horse racing trends book ‘Narrowing The Field – Using The Dosage Method To Win At National Hunt Racing’. Using lesser-known angles is one way to gain an edge in the betting market, and the dosage method is an alternative approach which examines the correlation between pedigree and National Hunt racing. Get to know Ben by visiting his excellent blog at Narrowing-The-Field.co.uk or following him on Twitter

David Renham

Dave Renham is a leading UK horse racing researcher. He currently writes for the Racing and Football Outlook, where his focus is statistical horse racing research. He’s also produced website content for the At The Races website, and he worked for a time as Spotlight in the Racing Post. Quite some CV. Online Dave can be found contributing at RacingTrends.co.uk so go pay him a visit.

Graham Laurie

One of the original and best-known betting system review web sites is the CashMaster Blog set up by Graham Laurie. Today it is one of the most popular review sites around, receiving several thousand unique hits every day, and employing a team of independent volunteer reviewers. With more betting systems and services hitting the market than ever, Graham provides a valuable resource.

Guy Ward

I’ve been a big fan of Guy Ward’s Mathematician Betting web site for several years now. Unlike most wannabe tipsters, Guy has a track record of providing profitable betting advice to clients spanning ten or eleven seasons, and that’s further underlined by personal success betting for profit over several decades. In all fairness, it would be an insult to Guy to refer to him as a ‘tipster’, because the service he provides goes way beyond sending out a couple of tips every day.

Jonathan Burgess

Jonathan is probably best known for his excellent guide ‘False Favourites’ which teaches how to successfully lay horses to lose on Betfair. Indeed, that very same guide has been reviewed here on this very blog. Jonathan is a Betfair Accredited Trainer and has contributed a valuable series of betting tutorials under the Betfair Education section of the official Betfair web site. He publishes the outstanding False Favourites blog and regularly posts useful betting tutorials and articles.

Matt Bisogno

Matt Bisogno writes the superb GeeGeez horse racing and betting blog. He is a genuine punters champion, writes many truly engaging articles, as well as keeping his readers amused throughout the year. Visit his blog at GeeGeez.co.uk and sign up to receive his helpful newsltter.

Michael Wilding

Michael Wilding is the Professor Brian Cox of the horse racing and betting world. He can take what are often quite complex topics from betting theory, and explain them in a way that’s easy to digest, even for those like me who find maths daunting. Michael is the creator of the best-selling Puntology betting course and also the RaceAdvisor web site where you’ll find expert tips, betting systems, analysis and betting advice.

Paul Ruffy

Back in 2005 Paul Ruffy decided he’d had enough of working to someone else’s rules. He handed in his notice and focused solely on his web site Betting Profits Bulletin whilst continuing to hone his betting skills. Seven years on and he is still going strong, sharing the best of what he knows in his popular newsletter. If you have ambitions to generate an extra income from betting, or even to follow Paul into the realms of full-time punter, then jump on board and learn from someone who’s done it already.

Richard Van Orden

Richard Van Orden is the figurehead of what I consider to be one of the most comprehensive betting system review web sites around. However, and I know Richard won’t mind me saying this at all, but it’s fair to say BettingSystemTruths would not provide one tenth the value it does, were it not for the indefatiguable team of independent reviewers behind the scenes. Richard may be the driver, but the reviewers are the engine underneath the hood. This site will save you money, and steer you in the right direction (was that one too many automotive puns?)

Scott Daniels

I’ve known Scott Daniels for many years. We worked together at the same company, we originally started a business together on eBay, and we started SkyBlueKangaroo together. Scott is engaged in a whole host of internet marketing consultancy stuff nowadays, but he still keeps his finger on the pulse of horse racing and betting. He describes his eclectic blog Living On The Edge as a ’stream of consciousness’ but I prefer to call it a mish-mash. Whichever way you want to view it, you’ll often find insighful betting information there.

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Who else should be on this list?

And that’s it. There are several more names I could add to this list, but I’ve deliberately kept it to a round number of ten. If you could propose one more name to make this eleven, who would it be?

They haven’t bought that particular chestnut for three years!

Every year right before Christmas, I let you know that I’m taking the rest of the year off. Every year I tell you how much I’m looking forward to Kempton on Boxing Day.

And every year, without fail, I manage to slip in a “Best of SkyBlueKangaroo” post just before New Year, just in case you missed something juicy over the last 12 months.

Blimey! If only horse racing was as predictable as me, eh?

So here’s a selection of the best SkyBlueKangaroo posts from 2011, based upon your enthusiasm and my own bias for content that I think’s going to help you get what you want in 2012.

Please feel free to comment on, ‘Like’ or ‘Tweet’ or generally share the goodness on one, some or indeed all of these articles.

Betting With A Gun To Your Head

A nod again to tradition, as this post wasn’t actually made this year, and dates back to Christmas 2009. But it’s probably the most powerful video I’ve ever produced, and pretty much sums up what I stand for and what SkyBlueKangaroo is all about.

Guide to Jumps Racing: The Festivals

This was my first attempt at creating a podcast. So as well as reading the article, a guide to the National Hunt season ahead, you can listen as well. Look out for more audible content in 2012.

Ethical vs Hype – ethical wins by a distance!

There’s never many days go by when we’re not hearing about the latest ‘Wonder Betting System’ launched by another betting ‘guru’. This article puts forward my argument, that ethical promotion will always prevail over the incessant noise of the hype-marketers.

Auto Bet System X-IV

This article was intended simply as an indictment on the slick methods employed by some marketeers to promote their betting products. But little did I know how big and wriggly this particular can of worms was going to be. Probably the most debated post of the year.

Kills 99.9% of all known scams DEAD!

A betting systems Buyers Guide. Essential reading for anyone interested in buying betting systems online. Includes 7 due diligence steps you should take before parting with your money, where to look for the best betting systems, and how to perform a ‘spring clean’ on your email inbox.

How to pick more winners at Royal Ascot

I posted this introduction to trends analysis just before Royal Ascot back in June, and the feedback was amazing! This article alone resulted in the biggest influx to date of new members to the Horse Racing Trends service.

Success leaves clues

Propagating some of my father’s wisdom, this post was all about how we can replicate the success of others by not only listening to what they say, but also modelling what they do.

I’m Going Slightly Mad

Sound money management is one of the pillars of profitable betting, and this post introduced the topic with a tale of what must be the craziest bet ever.

Managing Your Betting Bankroll

Another post in the popular Money Management series. Did you know, for example, that even the very best race analyst with an enviable win strike rate can end up going stoney broke if they don’t also employ a suitable money management strategy?

Don’t throw good money after bad

This post is definitely not for the faint-hearted. It discusses the prickly subject of progressive staking, the often painful subject of losing runs, and reminds us all how even the experts get it wrong, and sometimes an awful lot!

Shergar and Swinburn, great memories by some distance

A Derby-winning jockey cum winning trainer has been plying his trade just down the road from me for seven years. This year I summoned the courage to ask for an interview with Walter Swinburn. This is the result; a great way to finish the year, and a real feather in my cap.

I’ll take this opportunity to wish you all the very best for 2012 — health, prosperity, and happiness — and let’s make it a sizeable dollop of each whilst we’re at it.

Every week, a player scores a ‘great’ goal or makes a ‘great’ catch. Very good, yes. Excellent, often. But great? Rarely.

Reproducing a word with such reckless abandon only serves to diminish its true meaning – but there are some cases in which its use is perfectly justified.

In 1981, in front of a packed Epsom crowd, a horse called Shergar took to the final bend in the Derby on the outside shoulder of the leading pair. Young jockey Walter Swinburn, just 19 years old, remained motionless in the saddle.

As the leaders began to tire, Shergar – with effortless ease – began to pick up the pace, and in the blink of an eye romped past his high-class rivals to flash by the winning post some 10 lengths ahead.

To this day the margin of victory remains the highest ever in The Derby. A great ride, by a great jockey, on a great horse.

Last week I had the priviledge to talk with Swinburn at the Church Farm stables just down the road from me in Aldbury. This followed a phone call in response to a letter I had sent a while back, requesting an opportunity for an interview. “Hello, is that Paul Whelan?” asked the voice on the other end of the line. “It’s Walter Swinburn here… I understand you’d like to interview me for your blog? Would tomorrow be too short notice?”

As it turned out, I needn’t have been the quivering nervous wreck that I was, approaching the iron gates in front of Church Farm. Walter met me with an affable smile, and introduced me to his wife Alison. An absolutely charming couple. But after all, here I was, about to interview a Derby-winning jockey!

“The memories are still crystal clear,” reflected 50-year-old Swinburn. “The thing about Shergar is, even though I didn’t realise it at the time, it soon became clear that there wasn’t going to be another one like him.

“I was only 19 and maybe at that age I was thinking another Shergar might come along at some stage, but as time went on it became clear it wouldn’t.

“I was lucky enough to go on and ride some very good horses after that but they never matched him. I won the Derby again in 1986 on Shahrastani and he was Conference League compared to Shergar.”

Shergar wins the 1981 Derby by a record 10 lengths

Following that victory, jockey Swinburn went on to win the lot – two further Derby triumphs, an Arc de Triomphe success and 1,000 and 2,000 Guineas victories to name a few – before retiring from the saddle.

But he admits that his time as a jockey became increasingly gruelling as the years went on.

“It was hard – I came into racing weighing six-and-a-half stone and there was no problem then,” he said. “But by the time I was 19 I’d filled out and I was up to just over eight stone.

“When I got into my mid-20s it was getting very hard and took me down a painful road in the end. So that’s why I stopped, because of my weight rather than anything else.”

In 2004, Swinburn took over the licence at his father-in-law Peter Harris’s yard in Aldbury, producing numerous winners. Now Swinburn has decided to take a break from training. There are a number of reasons behind his decision, but he will never be too far from the action.

“Being a trainer is totally different (from being a jockey). Riding was my gift and is what I loved doing best.

“The training side didn’t come naturally to start with – the horses were the easy bit but it was the administrative side which I had to learn.

“Over the last few years I noticed I was getting more and more comfortable and enjoying the role the further I was getting into it. And you get to go to work on a full stomach!

“We had a horse called Stotsfold who sadly died last year with a bout of colic and he was third in the Arlington Million in America a couple of years ago – he was about the best we had.

“All in all we have sent out about 300 winners from here in a short space of time and it has been really enjoyable.”

Swinburn insists that, although he is stepping away from training, he hopes to be back in action before too long.

“I’m missing out a season next year but the idea is very much to come back the following year.

“It is a step back to go forwards as much as anything.”

As for the meantime, Swinburn said: ”I own and breed horses and I’ll be attending the sales next year. There’s no question of me disappearing.”

And with a racing career as great as his, it is fair to say that the Swinburn legacy looks set to continue for years to come.