Category Archives: Horses

Professional gamblers are often categorised under one heading. In truth, there are sub categories for each and every sport or game. I once remember hearing about a professional gambler who bet on the weather. I’m not sure if he specialised in betting on White Christmas’, Hurricanes or Tornados but he said he made a profit from his expertise. Personally, I can’t imagine he placed many bets.

To be a good gambler within skill-based sport (you can’t beat fixed odds) you need to be something of a chameleon.

What I mean by chameleon is someone who is in tune with their subject matter. A true reflection of the answer to the question. If the answer is fluorescent tangerine with green spots, guess what, the chameleon changes to match.

In fact, the chameleon can change to any colour.

The Chameleon Professional Gambler is successful because they don’t impose their thoughts, ideas or wishes on a given subject. They don’t bet because they like to bet. They bet because not only is it the right decision but they do so for all the right reasons. They also take advantage of opportunities that tip things in their favour such as a Betfred £50 free bet offer here, or a bet boost there.

A successful gambler watches, listens and learns from the results. The results of any given race are the truth of the matter. And it is your job as a professional gambler to appreciate this fact and understand how this should, and must, direct your efforts, assessment for today and future. The past also helps detail the truth and foretell the future.

The Chameleon changes.

It just turned bright blue.

Indigo.

For example, horse racing. Your opinions should be based on answers to questions. It has nothing to do with your personal preference. You answer to the question (finding winners) is based on previous results. If you try to impose your thoughts without any basis you will lose. It is a blatantly easy approach but at the same time inextricably difficult.

Why?

Because so often gamblers lose track of what is important. They fall into old habits which are destructive, their views without objectivity or sense. Ego gets in the way of seeing the truth which stands solemnly before them.

Each and every winner and loser is trying hard to teach you a valuable lesson, if only you listen.

So often gamblers fail to learn. They are steadfast in their life of hard knocks. But they are the creator of their own destiny and often demise.

Have you ever stopped for a moment and asked: ‘What is the answer to the question?’

The Chameleon Professional Gambler knows they are a reflection of the results.

It is the answer to finding winners.

Comparing steeplechasers from different generations, in an effort to determine which was the ‘greatest’ of all time, is a popular, but ultimately, futile activity. However, although he raced long before the advent of Timeform ratings or any other empirical measure that would allow comparisons to be made, Golden Miller must surely be considered, at least, one of the greatest.

 

Owned by Dorothy Paget – an extremely wealthy, but plain, hefty woman, with a reputation as fearsome as the horse himself – and trained, initially, by Basil Briscoe, Golden Miller won the Cheltenham Gold Cup five consecutive times between 1932 and 1936. Even allowing for the fact that the Cheltenham Gold Cup, at that time, was not the ‘Blue Riband’ event it later became, no other horse – not even the mighty Arkle – has won the race more than three times.

 

Of course, following his third win in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, in 1934, as a seven-year-old, Golden Miller went on to win the Grand National under top weight of 12st 2lb. Not only did he beat Delaneige by 5 lengths but, in so doing, he beat the previous course record, which had stood for 72 years, by 9.6 seconds. In fact, his winning time of 9 minutes 20.4 seconds wouldn’t be beaten for 40 years and, even then, it took the legendary Red Rum to do so. Golden Miller remains the only horse ever to have won the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National in the same season. Of course the world of sport moves on so much – we’re at the point of AI Football Tips now – and so Golden Miller and his successes were most definitely part of a different time.

 

Despite being described by one racing journalist as ‘a god on four legs’, Golden Miller fared less well on subsequent attempts in the Grand National. In fact, his refusal on the first circuit in 1935, when sent off the shortest-priced favourite in National history, caused Paget to fall out with Briscoe and transfer Golden Miller to Owen Anthony. Anthony saddled the horse to win a fifth, and final, Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1936, but Golden Miller failed to complete the National Course again in 1936 and 1937.

The Elite Hurdle is a Grade 2 hurdle run over 1 mile, 7 furlongs and 50 yards at Wincanton in early November. Currently sponsored by Unibet, the race was inaugurated, on the Old Course at Cheltenham, in 1992 and was originally run over a distance of 2 miles and 87 yards. The inaugural running featured just four runners, but the winner, Morley Street, had won the Champion Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival the previous year and the second, Granville Again, would do so the following year. No race was staged in 1993, but the Elite Hurdle was resurrected at Wincantion the following year, at which point it was shortened to its current yardage.

Reigning champion trainer Paul Nicholls has saddled eight winners of the Elite Hurdle – namely Azertyuiop (2001), Santenay (2002), Perouse (2004), Celestial Halo (2009 & 2011), Zarkandar (2012), Irving (2015) and Knappers Hill (2022) – and is the leading trainer in the history of the race. However, it is worth noting that all bar one of his winners, Knappers Hill, came during the period, between 1998 and 2017, when the Elite Hurdle was run as a limited handicap, rather than a weight-for-age conditions race. Evergreen 11-year-old Sceau Royal, trained by Alan King, has run in the last six renewals of the Elite Hurdle, winning three times, in 2016, 2020 and 2021, and is the most successful horse in the history of the race.

Other notable winners down the years include Well Chief (2003), who won the Arkle Challenge Trophy at the Cheltenham Festival in 2004 and finished second to Moscow Flyer in the Queen Mother Champion Chase the following season. As far as future winners of the Elite Hurdle are concerned, recent trends suggest that the horses to focus on are those officially rated 146 or higher, who have run at least six times over hurdles, and won at least three times, including at least once at Grade 1, Grade 2 or Grade 3 level.