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 The Sure Thing: The Greatest Coup
in Horse Racing History
by Nick Townsend
Barnel Curley is an extraordinary character: part
spoiled priest, part obsessive, part philanthropist but all-conquering enemy of
the bookies. This is a fascinating story of the logistics of a multi-million
betting coup but it is a triumphantly compelling portrait of Curley
At
times, the book reads more like a biography, perhaps because the same author
was involved in writing that book, but don't be concerned about any possible
duplication. Away from the main topic, we learn quite a lot about Barney's life
and his other contributions to the world of horse racing, including his role in
helping Frankie Dettori to become successful and his spat with John McCririck
that can be found on Youtube.
This is the full story of how the
legendary gambler does it is, unveiled in great detail. It helps if you know
your way around racing, but if you don’t this book will make you want to
get clued-up fast
Paperback -
432 pages (23 Apr 2015) 
£6.29
 $6.63
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 The Definitive Guide to Betting on Horses
by Nick Pulford
This is a
fully updated edition of the ground-breaking look at horserace betting, first
published in 2004. "The Definitive Guide to Betting on Horses" is crammed with
the expert views of many of "The Racing Post" journalists. Among the gems
included are: The winning approach to betting on the Classics and the big
festivals by Pricewise (Tom Segal); the types of races and horses that are best
for betting by "The Racing Post" handicappers, consistently the most successful
tipping team; how to spot a potential winner by senior "Racing Post"
race-reader Graham Dench; a complete guide betting exchanges and how to make
them pay by top "Racing Post" betting editor Paul Kealy; the importance of
speed figures by expert Nick Mordin; plus a full breakdown of the effect of the
draw, how to find value, a guide to spread betting, bets to avoid, betting
systems and how they work, and much more.
This is a great book that is
genuinely useful. It covers subjects that arent really covered in other books
like for example horses prefer right or left tracks and how to judge a
tipster.
This collection of articles provides a multitude of insights
into the complex and mysterious world of horse-racing. While no-one should
expect to find the key to successful betting here, you can expect to learn a
great deal that will help you make wiser, more informed decisions - bearing in
mind that every horse race is an opportunity to lose money. Great value for
money!
Hardcover - 272 pages
(16 Sep 2011)
£11.04
$20.65
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 Precision: Statistical and
Mathematical Methods in Horse Racing
by C X Wong
This book thoroughly discusses the mathematical and
statistical methods in handicapping and betting techniques. Differentiations,
combinatorics, normal distribution, kernel smoothing and other mathematical and
statistical tools are introduced. The jargons and equations are kept to a
minimum so that it is easy to understand for most readers. More than 20
professional programs are freely available to download, which can allow readers
to easily apply the methodology introduced in the book.
This book can
be divided into three main parts: horse handicapping (Chapters 2-6), wagering
(Chapters 7-9) and theories in practices (Chapters 10-11). He uses plenty of
examples to describe how you go about choosing your performance factors based
on hard measured figures, then how to estimate the probability and find
overlays. Importantly he shows how to identify which factors matter and those
that don't. If you want to follow the maths, it can be heavy going, but the
excel programs do the heavy lifting for you. There's enough layman explanations
to keep you up to speed so you know what he is trying to show. There's also
some interesting war stories about what it's like on the inside of a betting
syndicate.
I think this will help anyone trying to get to grips with the
maths of gambling, its examples are from Hong Kong racing but the practical
application of underlying principles can be applied to all sorts of
markets.
This book was originally written in Chinese and it is clear
that the translator's first language is not English, because the grammar is
incorrect in places but it is still easily understood.
Hardcover - 282 pages (28 Mar 2011)
£29.95
$39.95
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 The Masters of Manton
by Paul Mathieu
This book
tells the stories of the four racehorse trainers who built the famous Manton
yard in Wiltshire, and some of their owners and of course, great horses. Plenty
of research has gone into this account and betting plays a large role. Indeed,
it started with a gamble, Teddington's victory in the 1851 Derby, the first of
many plots where the whiff of skulduggery hangs in the air.
The first
of the trainers, Alec Taylor, trained 12 Classic winners before handing the
reins over to his son 'Young' Alec, who himself was no slouch, notching up 21
Classic successes between 1905 and 1927 and winning seven consecutive trainers'
titles. Young Alec trained the legendary Sceptre at four, while Bayardo and Gay
Crusader were two other superstars of that era. These were the halcyon days,
but even during this glory period there was scandal. The death of a Taylor
stable lad, James Luddon, highlighted the cruel living standards his employees
had to endure. However, the trainer was exonerated of any wrongdoing.
You do need to be interested in racing to buy The Masters of Manton. It
contains some interesting social history, but basically it's about everyone who
ever dreamed of having a big race winner... . It's easy to read and highly
recommended.
Hardcover - 303
pages (April 2010)
£21.80
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 Freud on Course: The Racing Lives
of Clement Freud
by Clement Freud
Anyone unamused by this book should consider therapy themselves.
It is what it is: the weekly musings of a man who adored the rackety world of
racing, given an afterlife as much because of who he was as for his gentle,
funny, self-deprecating, occasionally dyspeptic descriptions of the sport of
kings and quasi-criminals. This is a marvellous testament to his acerbic wit,
appetite for the absurd and oblique take on the world.
That we shall not
see his like again there can be no doubt. The charm of this book lies in the
reminders of times gone by and an older man trying to accept changing times
without compromising the standards he believed in. Above all, those who love
horse racing, and a gamble, belong to an association. One where the members all
recognise one another yet share a resignation that all suffer from an
irredeemable weakness: but one that allows a very special pleasure on those
rare occasions when relieving the old enemy, the bookmaker, of a large bundle
of notes.
Hardcover - 272
pages (5 Jun 2009)
£11.11
Paperback - 272 pages (4 Jun
2010)
£8.09
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 Against the Odds: A
Comprehensive Guide to Betting on Horseracing
by David-Lee
Priest
This book represents the
culmination of an ambitious project aimed at researching the potential for
profitable betting in British horse racing. Recent developments in computer
technology have enabled the author to analyse the performances of over 1
million runners in 100,000 races. The findings are distilled in a meaningful
and accessible way that is anchored by an understanding of betting and
horseracing.
The author's scientific background is tempered with his
experience of betting professionally. Readers are afforded an applied
understanding of how to improve their chances of winning money. More than all
this, readers will find that "Against the Odds" offers fresh and original
writing in a domain where approaches to betting have become predictable and
formulaic.This book presents; the philosophy of gambling; ability ratings;
course suitability; past performance figures; race grade; draw; and, the
betting market.
Editor's Opinion
The writer analyses
profitable systems from handicaps, speed ratings, weight, sex(!), headgear,
finishing positions, fitness, time of year, class, draw etc etc and presents a
number of easily workable 'rules' for each type of race to enable you to make
profitable selections and trim down the field significantly for each type of
race. Essential reading and highly recommend for the serious horse racing
player wanting to make a profit betting on horses.
Paperback - 288 pages 3rd Revised edition (3 Oct
2008)
£9.09
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 Enemy Number One: The Secrets of
the UK's Most Feared Professional Punter
by Patrick Veitch
Enemy Number One offers an often
controversial but utterly fascinating insight into Veitch's life of punting.
For anyone who likes the occasional bet or who takes gambling seriously and has
both the 'brain surgeon' and 'mad axeman' capabilities to do it there is more
to be gleaned from this book than probably any other betting book.
Veitch is no ordinary punter. Enemy Number One documents an eight-year
period of profits in excess of £10 million. It also chronicles the
tactical headaches of placing bets with the bookmakers using Veitch's vast
network of agents and sub-agents.
Veitch has had no comfortable ride,
though. Just a short while after becoming a full-time punter he was the victim
of an extortion attempt by a dangerous criminal who was subsequently tried
twice for murder and later convicted of attempted murder. Veitch was forced to
flee and go into hiding, returning to Cambridge to testify in a bulletproof
jacket with police protection.
Editor's Opinion
Now I have to
say that this is indeed better than the average racing or gambling book.
However, before you get too far into the book there are signs that not all is
well, some things just don't add-up. Take for instance his Ferrari, a
depreciating asset that he uses as collateral to obtain a loan. What? A shrewd
mind like his! And then later in his story his major coup d'état was
basically insider dealing, which is still illegal as far as I can
remember.
The conclusion is that you won't have gone far wrong at the
price of this book but an editor and a ghost writer would have been worth their
salt.
Hardcover - 304 pages
(16 April 2009)
£10.04
$22.58
Paperback - 304 pages (19 April 2010)
£8.09
$
??
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 Eclipse
by Nicholas Clee
Racing, of all sports, is the most fuelled
by gossip and innuendo. This makes the Sport of Kings attractive to people from
every walk of life, a point emphasised in Nicholas Clee's biography of Eclipse,
perhaps the most famous racing horse of all time. Though Eclipse could not have
been more aristocratic, he was owned by a jailbird chancer and a brothel owner
- Dennis O'Kelly and Charlotte Hayes, the madam's madam in what was "a golden
age" for prostitution. The pair were a perfect partnership, gambling and
philandering being kindred interests and in the mid-18th century people would
bet on anything:
The horse, in contrast to his owners, was so good that
he made the sport boring. In one race, he left the rest of the field 240 yards
behind: in another, he started at 1-100, testament to the bookies' despair. He
frequently won by a walk over, for no one dared take him on.
Yet
despite his magnificence on the course, he was more valuable off it and it was
O'Kelly's genius to realise that stud fees could dwarf prize money. The
entwined fortunes of horse and owners make for a ripping yarn expertly told:
part Flashman at the Races; part Seabiscuit without the schmaltz.
Will
Buckley of The Observer
Hardcover - 352 pages (12 Mar 2009)
£15.00
$30.07
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 Betting on Two Year Olds: The Inside Track
by Nick Attenborough
The first
comprehensive guide to UK two year old racing.
This book has wealth of
knowledge for the expert and the amateur alike. All the different phases of the
two year old season in terms of race fixtures and horse development are
explained in an easy to read fashion.
Whether or not the pointers in the
book will actually help you in terms of successful betting is in debate.
Certainly they will afford the avid student many more ways 'into' a race, by
which is meant that you can assess a race by your own personal set of values
that this book will have highlighted.
All in all this is a welcome
addition to the literature on horse betting. Its one to have on your shelf if
you are intent to tackle the two year old flat season.
Hardcover
- 198 pages (1 April 2009)
£14.99
$??
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 A Bloody Good Winner: Life as a Professional
Gambler by Dave Nevison
Dave Nevison is doing, every day, what thousands of punters dream
of doing - living the dream of life as a professional gambler. Since taking the
plunge in 1993, Nevison has made his living, a very good living, from backing
racehorses.
One of the best aspects of the book is Dave's brutal
honesty (which I think is essential when it comes to this genre of reading,
there's just no realism to people who just constantly win all the time) when it
comes to how he's done over the years. Although as he became more successful,
he found it harder and harder to get his bets down. Therefore he uses a number
of associates to put his bets on.
There has been a bit of criticism
within racing circles of Dave's harsh treatment of certain jockeys and
trainers, although I think it comes across, not as bitterness, but as rounded
and well argued. As punters, there's nothing worse than feeling that a certain
jockey could have ridden a ride more aggressively. Although he really does
stick the knife into certain towns and cities he has the misfortune to stay
in.
One compliment to pay to this book is that you will start buying the
Racing and Football Outlook every week just to read Dave's column. He's just as
honest there.
Hardcover - 256
pages (19 Oct 2007)
£9.59
$31.42
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 Racing Post's 500 Strangest Racing Stories by Graham Sharpe
This is a book about the
unexpected, the off-beat, the quirky - five hundred of the strangest stories in
horseracing's history. If you go racing or watch racing for any length of time,
you soon realise that it is suffused with an aura on unreality and other
worldliness. Odd moments abound, the surreal is almost commonplace.
In
"500 Strangest Racing Stories", read about how a jockey lost a race when he
insisted on riding in a top hat, what happened when a trainer fitted his
short-sighted runner with spectacles, and why a racehorse was sent to
jail.
Hardcover - 272 pages
(14 Sep 2007)
£9.09
$25.83
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 Winning Without Thinking: A Guide to Horse Race
Betting Systems by Nick Mordin
The author will, I’m sure, be the first to admit that the
title is a misnomer, because thinking is very much what he advises. But it is a
clever title none-the-less. Yes you have to think like mad, but having thought,
then must put aside all the usual ‘conventional’ reasoning for
picking a selection and just believe the elements you have isolated even if
from a normal point of view it may look dubious..
The Racing
Post, Mordin is unique - there is no-one else writing anything quite
like this for the British market … thoroughly recommended.
Paperback - 426 pages new
edition (15 Oct 2006)
UK Amazon £8.54 or
U$17.73 from Amazon USA
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 Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
This story has got it all, excitement,
drama,disappointment, suspense, tragedy, determination and even comedy.This is
a true story written like a novel. Read this marvelous book to see what
Seabiscuit, his owner, trainer, and jockeys accomplished when the rugged,
little stallion turned seven---well past the retirement age for most
Thoroughbreds.
Times, 20th May 2001 'a rip-roaring
narrative...Hillenbrand tells the story with flair and skill, relishing the
larger than life characters who inhabited this forgotten demi-monde.'
Paperback - 437 pages new
edition (2 April, 2002)
expected price £6.39
Buy
This Book or
U$9.00 from US Amazon
-----------------
 Crossing the Line by Charlie Brooks
(New edition)
In January
1999, Charlie Brooks, former leading race horse trainer, was arrested in
connection with a police investigation into race fixing. He crossed the line
from insider to outsider, and this is his informed and honest view of the weird
and wonderful world of British horse racing. Gripping insight into the racing
world.
Paperback - 317 pages
(2 November, 2000) expected price £6.39
Buy
This Book
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 An Arm and Four Legs
by Stan Hey
Anybody who
has considered owning a racehorse should be made to read this as a matter of
course, but equally if it has never occurred to you, it will also make
interesting if somewhat salutary reading. In any case, this is one of the first
books I've read about horse racing which does not presuppose knowledge of the
subject. If anyone wants to know why the sport was once dubbed the Sport Of
Kings and is still dominated by royalty (latterly from Dubai rather than
Europe), this book will explain.
Paperback - 230 pages new edition (28 September,
2000) expected price £6.40
Buy
This Book
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 The Inside Track
by Alan Potts
Considering
how many people like to have a bet, there are relatively few good books about
the gambling. True, there do exist slim volumes of esoteric
mathematically-based rhetoric of the sort that make the outpourings of Einstein
and Russell seem like pulp fiction, but accessible, interesting books about
punting are few and far between. This makes Alan Potts's book all the more
refreshing. There are sections covering flat racing and jumping, and also
detailed discussion of all-weather racing and the world of spread betting.
Hardcover - 255 pages (1
June, 1998) expected price £18.00
Buy
This Book
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 Betting for a Living by Nick Mordin
From an author who devises and tests his own systems,
this book describes how, during the winter of 1991/2, he applied his ideas at
the racetrack and took over £1000 per month from bookmakers. It details
the exact methods he used and explains the precise reasons behind every bet
made.
Hardcover - 320 pages
(16 November, 1992) expected price
£18.00 Buy
This Book
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 The Boss by John Budden
The sudden death of Gordon W Richards in October 1998 brought a
premature end to a legendary training career which had seen him rise from
obscurity to national fame as a master of his profession. Consigned to racing's
scrap-heap with a broken back at the age of 29, he scraped a living as a livery
stable proprietor and horse-dealer in a remote part of Northumberland until,
five years later, he "discovered" Playlord and a new dawn broke.
Rugged,
demanding, often outspoken, sometimes ruthless but never lacking in humour,
Gordon made relentless progress through the training ranks. "The Boss", as he
was widely known. liked to run his stable his own way. Horses, not humans,
headed the pecking order, as many famous riders and owners discovered to their
cost. Few escaped unscathed, but in over 30 years at Greystoke he employed only
six stable jockeys, and two of theses, Ron Barry and Jonjo O'Neill, gained
Championship honours.
The Boss charts the successes of the man who twice
saddled more than 100 winners in a single season and who scooped the pool in
the Aintree Grand National on two occasions. This enthralling biography,
written with the full co-operation of Richards himself, provides a compelling
insight into the forces that drove him to become one of the most respected
trainers in the world.
Paperback
- 240 pages (15 March, 2001) expected price
£6.39 Buy
This Book
-----------------
 Jenny Pitman by Jenny Pitman
Jenny Pitman OBE faced a double whammy when she applied for her
trainer's licence. First, she was an outsider to the world of racing; second,
and more importantly, she was a woman in what was still very much a man's
world. As she tells us in her frank and entertaining autobiography, simply
titled Jenny Pitman, she overcame the first problem much easier than beating
the second. This is a personal story for those who love racing.
Paperback - 425 pages ( 4 November,
1999) expected price
£5.59 Buy
This Book
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 A Licence
To Print Money by Jamie Reid
An
exploration of the world of horseracing and gambling
Forget the tired
biographies of worthy jockeys and trainers, this book cuts to the real soul of
the sport - gambling. The core of the book concerns a series of essays on the
history, culture and technicalities of betting on racing. These are well
researched, well written and unearth a host of 20th century characters which
many punters will enjoy reading about. These essays are interlaced with details
of the author's own gambling forays, which make for compelling reading. The
final chapter's account of a small sting at Redcar is outstanding, one is so
involved with the story that it feels like taking part. The adrenaline flow
produced by reading it is akin to that produced by having an over-big wager of
one's own.
Paperback - 288 pages
(October 1995) expected price
£7.19 Buy
This Book
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Main Menu
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Monsieur X: The incredible story of the most
audacious gambler in history 
Addicted To Horseracing: Anatomy
of a Small Time Gambler 
Just one more smile - Fred and Helen Archer's love story
Field of
Thirteen by Dick Francis
Twelve Grand
by Jonathan Rendall
10lb Penalty
by Dick Francis