betting and racing books

Must admit I still like to read them; don't buy them for achieving profit as you will be disappointed but interesting views and offer insight of what others think about the abilities and prospects of specific horses

I like racing books , as long as they are not written by brough scott in a scandalous manner !

mark howards book is pretty decent value considering the amount of opinion he gathers , I think trainers like him so tend to give him one or two , always an interesting read aswell

For 2 yo , Taplains is invaluable , not with all trainers tho but the likes of hannon usually get it spot on with the better ones

Martin Julian is a decent writer and knows his horses  , digs a few gems out aswell , main sequence last year for example

Also I would recommend trainers stats , very handy well layed out reference

They wont make you rich but used with all the other tools they will help

not really a great reader of auto/biogs but i had been considering the sir henry one until i read his comments on it -seems really hurt.have read the extract on rp website,all about cauthen and slip anchor.that is good,probably enough material in hrac's horses and races without the other stuff

Well that's what I would have thought aswell

I was really looking forward to hearing stories about the great horses , and some of the one that got him started , behind the scenes training methods , how he dealt with the quirky ones , his favs and the hardest to win with , all the really important things concerning the training

By all accounts its a pretty drab and humourless read , little wonder he added the more sworded stuff

Ive never liked him as a writer , one off those types who try to get the majesty and wonder from a cowpat if it belongs to a famous cow


ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ SCOTT

Well he would be boring if he wrote the sort of hagiography St Henry was apparently expecting.

Need to disagree with you there salmon , given BSs status in racing circles I think a decent level of integrity was expected and seemingly promised

I am no great lover of Scott,but the fact that Cecil thought nothing bad should be said about him,given that we know his history is a little chequred ,does tend to reveal more about him than Scott imo.
To turn to the original subject I still think the Timeform Annuals are the only worthwhile read I have come across. They are expensive but not quite to the extent they were 20 years or so ago.
I have a run of both codes stretching back over 30 years plus a few odd earlier ones. Unfortunately they won't keep me in my old age as once seemed likely.

i bought a few of them in the 80's,enjoyed them but found i could never find the time to do them justice re. winner finding etc.that's why i tend to go for the htf type of publication-there seemed to be more of a gravitas/authoritativeness about timeform then or perhaps it's just me getting older

Howard & Taplin are good, though Taplin for the last few years has been printed by Raceform on alarmingy cheap paper.

Mark Howard, too, rather than put the price up, has opted to save money on production this year. I'd rather pay a couple of quid more for a return to good quality paper and margins wide enough that you can hold the book open without needing to move your thumbs to read the words underneath.

Jon Gibby's new book which is also just a list of horses to follow also looks interesting though I've only glanced at it since it arrived yesterday.

Marten Julian no longer does it for me. He may be a great analyst but his nudge-nudge writing style became irritating.

geordie1956 is right. It is not really, despite the blurb on the covers, about following the horses but the discussion of them that puts you in the mood for the season.

Ideally, each of these books would have a list of horses you could download so you could add them to one of the "nag me" services to be alerted when one of the horses is running, so you could look up the horse in the book at that point.

On Cecil and Scott, well, I'm not really a great fan of biographies in the first place as, for me, they really miss the point. As hello:-) says above, what is interesting about Cecil is the horses: how they compare; how he plans their campaigns; and so on. Not the divorces or boozing or illness. What defines Einstein is his physics, not the sacrifices of his wife; for Wayne Rooney it is his football, not the ageing prostitutes that matter. I'm interested in Cecil the horseman, not Cecil the human being.

Julian i found dire and boring never a fan of hi8s.Would advise all to stay well clear.But only my thoughts.

The top books as voted by SmarterSig -

Betting on Flat Handicaps    Jon Gibby    16   


Against the Crowd    Alan Potts    7   


Precision: Statistical and Mathematical Methods in Horse Racing    CX Wong    7   


Sprint Handicapping Explained    Jim Adams    5   


Bioenergetics & racehorse ratings    Bob Wilkins    5   


The Compleat Horseplayer    David Edelman Ph.D    4   


Fooled by Randomness    N N Taleb    4   


peter braddock's Complete Guide to Horse Race Selection and Betting    peter braddock    4   


Forecasting Methods for Horseracing    Peter May    4   


Odds On Your Side - The Logic of Racetrack Investing    Mark Cramer    2   


Beat The Dealer    E O Thorp    2   


Efficiency of racetrack betting markets    Hausch,Lo,Ziemba    2   


Thoroughbred Handicapping    William L Quirin    2   


Fixed Odds Sports Betting: Statistical Forecasting and Risk Management    Joe Buchdahl    2   


The Three Mistakes    Dark Horse    1   


Automatic Exchange Betting    Colin Magee    1   


The Science of Winning    Burton P. Fabricand    1   


The Best of Thoroughbred Handicapping    James Quinn    1   


Watching Racehorses    Geoffrey Hutson    1   


Beyer on Speed : New Strategies for Racetrack Betting    Andrew Beyer    1

^ Have 5 of the above titles. One missing from the list which I believe is one of the best books written on horse betting is :- Always Back Winners by Stewart Simpson( published 1981)

The best book is Come Fly with the Butterfly by John Mort Green

Racing Systems With The Pocket Calculator by John White, first published in 1992.

Love Braddock's Book, also would suggest the Tail End System and Mark Veitch's book

agree re Marten Julian used to be fantastic in the Times 'Warm Up' Days when he produced a 'Dark Horses' annual, last season's NH Guide was disappointing.

One Hundred Hints by Mark Coton is very good, ok it is almost 20 years old and runs through a lot of basics but sometimes if you are in a bad run then it's good to go back to basics.

What has happened to the Timeform 50? I have found the last couple of seasons disappointing.

having just had a look through marten julian's latest offering i'm inclined to agree with ramruna and san quentin.little substance,just a list of guesses-he certainly seems to have lost it,compared to what he was in the 80's.i remember his bulletin books from then and his present day attempts look like tired drivel.maybe the results will prove otherwise-hope so - but can't see him keeping too many customers with this effort

the timeform 50 fared much better when it was mainly the 50,now a lot more besides-still a good early season read though

OliasOfSunhillow's SmarterSig list includes a lot of maths-laden books which makes me wonder if that is not due to the SmarterSig number-crunchers voting for books that are beneath them but that they think other punters *ought* to read.

Steamship


Agree with you re: 100 Hints - good sometimes to remind yourself of basic disciplines

A bit mixed regarding julians publication , will keep a close eye and see how it performs

All in all , I doubt there is better value for your pound than Ahead on the flat , lot of gems in it and interesting read and as you say he tries to do what he can to keep price down

I thought the 100 hints book would only be useful if you have never had any experience of horse racing whatsoever. Could have trimmed it down to about top 5 hints and you wouldn't have missed anything useful.

Ramruna, that's because successful betting is all about Maths.

Obviously its each to his own but there are books mentioned on here that I would strongly recommend as a waste of time

Facts
13 Apr 13 11:14
Joined:
05 May 03
| Topic/replies: 11,366 | Blogger: Facts's blog
^ Have 5 of the above titles. One missing from the list which I believe is one of the best books written on horse betting is :- Always Back Winners by Stewart Simpson( published 1981)

most insightful racing guide to come out of the UK - Always Back Winners

^ yep. Changed my approach to betting. And still forms the basis of my selection/staking methods today.

Always Bck Winners was basically system of backing horses that having shown a turn of foot when winning initial race,were followed for rest of season.Also part of system was backing top-weights in hcaps on turning or easy tracks ie Chester,he also favoured Brighton,Musselburgh and I think Sandown from memory.Surely most of system out of date as written prob before all weather was even thought off,never mind travelling to all parts of country every day,as no satellite t.v even in betting shops.

What has AW weather got to do with anything ? The 'system' wouldn't have included this form of racing.

Always Bck Winners was basically system of backing horses that having shown a turn of foot when winning initial race,were followed for rest of season.Also part of system was backing top-weights in hcaps on turning or easy tracks ie Chester,he also favoured Brighton,Musselburgh and I think Sandown from memory.Surely most of system out of date as written prob before all weather was even thought off,never mind travelling to all parts of country every day,as no satellite t.v even in betting shops.

Good points there as it was based on the 1979 season!

It was also a 'fantasy' book written by someone unknown at a long-since defunct publishing house. The supposed pro-gambler Stewart Simpson never existed, therefore the events described presumably never happened.

On its 3rd reprint in 2000. The foundation ;rules' highlighted in this publication, are a relevant today as they were in 1979. I can attest to this.

*as

All of those books I have read in the dim and distant and are out of date.I have not read a decent Gambling Book in a couple of years so if anyone could recommend one I would buy it....

What makes them out of date ? Have Courses changed, is there different Going nowadays, are races run over different Distances, has the handicapping of horses with weight, changed? Have horses grown an extra leg ?
Basic fundamental principles/key indicators still apply.

That would be yes...

I just wish that the Ladies had not changed in the same period...

Keep getting the knock-back from 20 year olds and it is getting even harder pulling their mums...

(or their dads as Clive33 could testify)....

It is noticeable that no-one has mentioned probably the two most influential books of the last 20-odd years: Mark Coton's Value Betting and Nick Mordin's Betting For A Living.

Mordin in particular, despite since having retracted most of the particulars in his book, enthused any number of new approaches, new punters and new writers like Pyman or Willoughby.

OliasOfSunhillow may be right that betting is about maths but I still get the impression that the SmarterSig list is of books, most of which sit on my shelves, which the mathematically-inclined think other people ought to read, rather than books which they themselves find useful.

Betting For A Living?

Well from memory, he 'bet for a living' for one jumps season, finishing with some Computer Straight Forecast win at The Grand National which shot him into profit and 'proved' he could bet for a living.

I really admire the effect Mordin has had on the punting world, but his Weekender column is more thought provoking and relevant as would his book 'Winning Without Thinking' had it been properly proof read (several spelling errors and one whole chunk repeated).

Mordin's betting for a living highlighted a clueless punter who got out of jail with one jammy bet over the length of an entire punting career that lasted 6 months!

Coton's book was written from the gravitas earned by being the lucky holder of the first Pricewise tipping gig.

As everyone knows, having 1st pick of an underround book to whatever you want on, as Pricewise did, is a dream that real punters have never been able to live.

Coton left the Post, tried pro gambling, went skint and had to find God for his salvation.

if i remember mordin was over £6000 up over the 6 months and the csf in the national won just over £2000,so more than one jammy bet

In which case, then, can we have a detailed record of his bets?

@loper -- there was a detailed list of bets in Mordin's book. Of course, you can always dismiss any wins as jammy.

Mordin was up £6k in six months which, if we are to believe Dave Nevison's book, is similar to a lot of pro punters.

I think I will go and read it again.....not read it for years but enjoyed it.
If I remember correctly he found he had an upper betting limit after which he sh*t himself in the nicest possible way and backed off.

Ramruma     15 Apr 13 11:30 


Mordin was up £6k in six months which, if we are to believe Dave Nevison's book, is similar to a lot of pro punters.




Surely this depends on what stakes are being used ?

His normal stake was £60 iirc.

Phuuck me, that's a pro punter's living wage???

Would have to be on benefits as well to survive!

No loperv they just need TV work.

One of the first paragraphs in Nordins book says to win at Horse racing you have to back more losers. Well I've tried that and it does not work.

Dont know why Ive called you a perv loper

Thank God I don't have to gamble for a living.

One of the first paragraphs in Nordins book says to win at Horse racing you have to back more losers. Well I've tried that and it does not work.   

Mordin's reported profits at the end of each month he was betting were:

November 91:     £435
December 91:     £405
January 92:    £1799
February 92:    £2395
March 92:       -£360
April 92    £1957

Total: £6631