AND ANOTHER THING…

Succeeding

IT HAS BEEN A TOUGH couple of weeks for most people, racing folk not excepted: too many brown envelopes and not enough of the other kind. To compound any hardship for those of us in racing, the weather has wreaked havoc with the fixture list. Even allowing for the dearth in turf racing, the all-weather – so often a source of winter fortune – has been mostly dire. This is not an excuse for a moan. The end of December and the early part of January is traditionally a lean time for punters. It is a good idea to let the Kempton Boxing Day fixture take place and then book a winter break. We say the same every year, but somehow fail to get round to it at the right time. My blast of winter sun is set to start this Saturday [January 17th], meaning I will miss a couple of Dubai fixtures and some better class all-weather racing. Timing holidays in this business is difficult. We have to accept that if we want to get away we will probably miss something (not as much as we suspect when we return and see the results); it is the nature of the beast and returning fresh from a holiday is to our advantage.

But there is a chink of light in the distance. Whatever I miss or do not miss, it occurs to me that those of us making a living from racing are largely untouched by the current recession. As we are self-employed, we are at no greater risk of losing our jobs, or living than at any time. Racing continues and the challenges remain the same. The onus is on us to find and back winners, the odds of which are unchanged. I suppose for those of us that have a small earner from another racing-based activity (something I recommend for any professional backer: although it will fail to match losses, a regular income on which you can rely is priceless) there is always the chance that may be affected. However, in a way we are fortunate. Whilst trainers may be chasing owners for fees, bookmakers owed sums that debtors cannot pay; we punters run no such risks. Back the right horses and we collect. It seems to me little has changed. What this credit crunch has made me do though is to examine my expenses. Where possible I am throttling back. Once you question outgoings, it is surprising how much is paid without much thought. Savings can be made in newspapers, unnecessary phone calls (particularly on a mobile), and most of all on those bets that fail to fall within a proper remit. You know, the horse that is overpriced but is not going to win. The horse that can win in the unlikely event it recovers form from two years ago. At a time when opportunities are limited, it is tempting to fall for bets that we would not strike if we could choose from a proper menu. It is no good frittering away money just to keep your eye in, or because you are bored or think you could use a few bob.

If you bet every day, you are playing the bookmakers’ game; that is what he wishes you to do. Getting punters on the treadmill of picking horses out every day is the equivalent of a direct debit, which are easy to set up but difficult to terminate. The object is to relieve you of money, which trickles from your bank account without you keeping track.

Some direct debits make consummate sense: the mortgage, council tax and so on, but not every day expenses like the telephone or gas bills. As I said, they are remarkably easy to initiate but darned tricky to discontinue if you wish to change supplier or your payment method. I found this to my cost recently when switching to a free-call deal with AOL, only to find I am still paying B.T. and for the life of me cannot stop my direct debit with them. However, that is another story and something I must sort out when I have time.

Bookmakers rely on punters acquiring a betting habit. Get up, wash, shave, have breakfast, sort out a bet. It is not enough to say, this is the best I can come up with on a poor day; therefore, it is my bet. You need to make cold, calculated decisions. Operate the following criterion: if there were better racing elsewhere, is this a horse I would wish to back? If the answer is no, then it is not a bet just because it has been identified as the only possible opportunity on a bad day. Selectivity is vital if you are looking for serious and potentially profitable bets. You are not in a casino, taking a chance on this or that, playing hunches, betting on the twinkle of the Budweiser girl’s smile. She is dispensing free beer to distract you and because she has legs that reach the ceiling. That smile is reserved for everyone; the real smile – the secret one – for someone other than you.

To be successful in a pursuit as volatile as betting, it is essential you keep emotions in check. You need to expend all your energy on the business before you without becoming sidetracked. Focus on what you are doing, as ultimately you are a trader playing with your own money. You have no financial parachute when the day is done. When you lose, you have lost your own money. Presumably, you do not have the equivalent of Fort Knox staking you. Bad decisions or losing bets mean a reduction in your assets – in this case cash. Your personal bank, which you draw upon to finance bets, does not have never-ending reserves so at times reverses are hard to take. However, they are a fact of life for any betting professional.

If you are a trader rather than a backer you will be taking the scattergun approach, making a plethora of decisions, some good, some bad; all that matters in this case is how you end up at the close of business.

A cool, detached approach is doubly important for the reasons listed earlier. It is a funny thing but, try too hard in anything and chances are you will fail. Think back to all the good decisions you have made in life and chances are, you made them calmly and without feeling pressurized. It is therefore important not to put yourself under pressure to unearth winners. If they are not there, they are not there. Accept it and wait until the situation alters. Similarly, do not be afraid to back a horse at a decent price that others seem to have disregarded. There is no automatic safety net built in to backing short-priced horses. Many 2/1 favourites are no more likely to win than well-thought out 6/1 chances. Once you start to try too hard, although you may not notice it, your methods will alter, which will be detrimental as, assuming you are still standing in this business, you have proved yourself. Take a quick look at actors, sportsmen, performers in the arts, and they all have the same quality in common: that is they make the difficult appear easy. There are stories of various singers or actors vomiting before taking to the stage, but once they are out there, they switch into another mode, blanking out everything except their performances. To a degree, as a professional punter the same attribute is required. You may feel I am advocating that, for example, students should not study in earnest for exams. That is not what I am saying at all. Study and work experience are two separate issues, as graduates very quickly learn once they have left the cosy world of university. Once you have transcended the study stage, you are playing for real. Business is not an exam; marks count for nothing when money is haemorrhaging from your bank account.

If you follow the right course, you will succeed – that is providing you protect your stock – in this case your stake money. To this end, I refer to an earlier article focusing on deciding a bank. This is particularly important, as you need some form of financial independence to ride out a losing or dry run, something we all experience from time to time. Although it can be difficult, it is fatal to allow losing runs to influence decisions. Providing you have the necessary stock of money behind you and have staked within your bank, you have to ease your way out of a bad patch hesitantly as if negotiating a dark tunnel. If you try to blast your way out of trouble, your difficulties are likely to increase.

So, despite a slow start, I am entering 2009 with a degree of optimism. We have had one notable success this month and I see no reason why plenty of others should not follow. Of course, there will be dark days, eclipsed by the successes so long as we keep our heads. Many people are losing theirs at present, relying on credit to buy their way out of trouble. Throwing money at a problem never solved anything. Despite long faces in all industries associated with finances, ironically, considering we are in one of the most speculative businesses of all, I feel we, in this particular branch of the racing sector, will be okay.

This may be one of my last articles for a couple of weeks for reasons stated. I fly out on Saturday. I am bound for somewhere that is somewhat isolated and internet connection will not be possible, so I shall not know what is happening back home until my return. For me, that is a holiday. I want to switch off, forget about all aspects of gambling and return like a bull pawing the ground before being let loose into the ring. Only in my case, once that gate opens, I trust the outcome will be somewhat different to the fate of the unfortunate bull.

And Another Thing

MAKING IT UNSCATHED THROUGH 2009

This is the time of year when if we are not careful we make ourselves dejected by examining all that is wrong with us and trying, unsuccessfully, to make corrections. The temptation to think we can make a fresh start, write that novel, win the Tote Scoop Six, buy a second home in Miami, lingers in the ghostly background. To save such anguish, herewith an alternative and hopefully more realistic guide to surviving the next twelve months without the necessity to do anything other than tinker with the disarray we call our lives.

Resolutions first: Frankly, they can be a pain as most are destined to be broken. The most common New Year resolution is the desire and apparent need to stop smoking. If this applies to you, as an ex-smoker, you have my sympathy. If you wish to give up, it may help to be aware of how non-smokers perceive you. Smokers don clothes that smell as if they have been stored in an opium den in some Asian dock for a number of years. Their breath smells so stale it appears they have not cleaned their teeth for three months. Filmed over with nicotine, smokers’ dwelling places are like third-class carriages on an African train. Smoking shortens lives. Spare us the argument about Uncle Tommy who smoked fifty unfiltered Capstan Full Strength a day and lived until he was a hundred. He is the exception not the rule. Ask a million blind men to cross Oxford Street unaided continuously. One will survive; that does not mean it is a sensible pursuit for blind men to follow. If you want to give up smoking there are three things you can do.

Firstly, book a holiday to Australia. With a stop at Singapore, the journey takes over twenty-four hours. That means an enforced day without a cigarette, which gives you a head start. It also means you have blown your tobacco money for the year on a holiday. Smoking twenty a day sets you back £2,000 annually. When considered, that’s pricey to smell like an ashtray.

Secondly, stop buying cigarettes on the basis that every time you do, you are contributing to the Government’s exchequer and merely giving them more money to squander.

Thirdly, give up immediately – right now. Keep a full packet in the house and each time you get the craving, tell yourself you can have a cigarette in an hour’s time if you still feel desperate to light up. That way, psychologically, you have not really given up as such; you have postponed the moment. Once you start to feel better for not having smoked (it does not take long) you will see it as a contest between you and Benson & Hedges and one you can actually win.

If all else fails and you just cannot give up: stop reading about the effects of smoking.

Next, drinking. Unless you have a habit of waking up in a gutter with no recollection of how you got there with blood on your face and an empty wallet, give up drinking at your peril. Drinking makes you feel better and less stressed. Statistics show you are more likely to die of stress than alcoholism. If you drink wine or better still champagne, it gives you an interest, makes you appreciate the finer things in life, and instantly puts your worries into perspective. For advanced drunks there seems to be only one choice: to drink or not to drink. For those who can control it (not easy as alcohol is sly and only needs one shot to remove willpower), it can be a pleasant way of spending time with friends. I have heard it said you should never trust a person who does not drink. My other half does not drink – therefore cutting the supermarket budget in half – but I am beginning to watch her closely. That well-known drunk, philanderer, abuser of all he encountered including himself, and brilliant writer, Ernest Hemingway, once said: Always do sober what you said you would do when drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

Exercise: Don’t join a health club or a gym, it’s a waste of time and money. Save the time it takes to get there by working out at home. Save the membership money by finding a gym that is a mile-and-a-half away from where you live. Run there, round its car park and then back home everyday.

Dieting: Take my advice – forget it. You will put yourself through a regime you cannot possibly maintain in order to lose six pounds at best. When you have a rich meal and a bottle of wine, that weight will return. In order to punish your body you collaborate with its desire to become podgy, ending up heavier than when you started. Avoid all package and junk food. Other than that eat what you like within reason, eat slowly and work the contents off. Either the thought of having to run three miles the following day will prevent you from stuffing your face, or the exercise will keep you trim.

Be aware that (for men) there are three components of the body that have to be kept in check and if possible outwitted. The brain is the cleverest. It will lie to you, delude you in all things in order to keep the rest of the body functioning. It is like a twenty-year-old blonde sweet-talking a forty-year-old man – it lies. In its own way, the beard is equally clever. Just when you think you have found the perfect razor that leaves your face as smooth as a pebble, the beard will adapt and grow in a different direction, rendering the wonder razor as ineffectual as the others you have in your bathroom. That is why makers of razors are constantly bringing out new ‘improved models.’  Given the chance, the penis will rule the entire body. It cannot be trusted as it has its own independent agenda. A number of devices increase sexual arousal in women. The penis does not figure at the top of the list. German manufacturers, Mercedes Benz, BMW and Audi mostly occupy that place.

Gambling. Never strike a bet that, because of its sheer stupidity, keeps you awake at night after it has lost. Most bets will lose but there is nothing worse than the bet that was poorly thought out, placed in the heat of the moment, or after a drink, that you knew when you made it was about as wise as a chicken walking into a fox’s lair. Do not bet on anything that you only think you understand. Do not play hunches, dabble in the stock market, or buy a restaurant unless you know more than the person doing the selling.

In the present economic climate, most of us will have to make sacrifices. It is probably prudent to wait for that new kitchen or bathroom and not to succumb to the ‘Have now, pay next year’ offers that have an amazing habit of making that year arrive at least four months early.

We are all idiots in our own way. Over the coming 365 days you will make mistakes, play the fool, let yourself down and make some diabolical decisions: You and everybody else!