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In general, there are two types of punter, (that is apart from the nutters who are blind to all sense and reason, and bet on a horse merely because it's a colour they like or because it shares its name with someone from the office).

The thinking punter, as I like to call him, always has a carefully-designed racing betting system. It may be one he created for himself, it may be one he borrowed from a friend or purchased somewhere, or it may be a system that he has developed from someone else's and which he now regards entirely as his own creation.

However they are created, these horse racing systems usually break down into one of two types:- statistics-based and form-based.

The statistical horse racing systems develop because of the availability of vast amounts of historical data from other earlier races, and in these days of powerful computers and giant memory banks, the available database is expanding at a monumental rate. Pro-statisticians, and keen amateurs like myself, pore over these figures, forever trying to perceive new patterns, and to mould the results into a new and even better winning horse racing system

Sometimes they lose the plot completely, like the statistician who loudly and proudly announced, after hours and hours of costly computer time, that favourites only win about 1 in three races.

Gosh! I didn't know that!

But still, I think the research is valid and worthwhile, and useful data does often emerge, and real winning horse racing systems are born as a result.

The form punters have an equally valid point of view. They believe that careful study of every characteristic of every horse, on every track, in every weather condition, with every available rider etc etc etc. Yes, the list goes on ad infinitum and we will all need even bigger computers to consider all these variables and come up with a conclusion. Before the horse retires to stud anyway.

No, really good betting systems (and there are many really profitable systems out there) contain elements of both camps, They also contain an element that many fanatical gamblers could not live with - prudence. The very best systems give their users an edge, a statistical probability that they will win more often than they will lose, and that if the punter just keep steadily plugging away, winning very little but very often, they will ultimately build a large and growing bank.

For the hopeless gambler this is just not acceptable. He seeks the big win, that 50-1 winner which is forever just around the corner. And should he lose a hundred times to accomplish it, and his 50-1 winnings don't even come near to covering his losses - well, that's gambling! He must have another bet, and he'll never change.

The systems I develop and expand, are for the punters with a business brain - the traders. Many of them, like me, never visit horse races, nor even watch them on the tv. It's just a business, and for a few it can be a very profitable business indeed.