Hello and welcome to The Horse Racing Scholar.

This site details my journey into the world of UK & Irish Horse Racing and it is where I record any hints & tips that I pick up along the way.

Please feel free to have a good look around; some parts of the site are for members only but membership is free so why not Sign Up now?

Closing Down

It is with deep regret that I have to let you know that I am closing down Horse Racing Scholar.

There are only so many hours in the day and I have decided to concentrate on a different approach to providing UK & Irish horse racing information in order to help you “Beat the Bookies!”

It is, I think, better to do one thing well rather than trying to spread myself too thin.

I’d like to thank you for visiting and hope that you find what you were looking for.

I’ll leave the site up for the moment but I won’t be updating it any more – any new posts will be posted at my new site/passion/interest/obsession – Focus Ratings – only £10 a month!

In the meantime…

You might like to pop over and take a quick look at Focus Ratings – only £10 a month!

Focus Ratings

My new project is a comprehensive and accurate ratings service.

Focus Ratings is a ratings service designed to aid you and help you narrow the field so that you can concentrate on the real contenders.

Focus Ratings was launched in early March and has received incredible feedback.

However, the analysis engine that creates the ratings has been in use (and under constant development) since May of 2012.

Our completely computerised analysis system selects the top three rated horses from each race and sends out a list of all selected horses every day at 10:00 a.m.

Ease of use…

The whole system is set up for ease of use.

Although you will receive a daily email with a link to the Ratings as a PDF file (see example here) you can also view the ratings online.

Our results are updated every day and available for anyone to view.

Once you have signed up you will be able to access today’s ratings

You can take a look at it over at… Focus Ratings – only £10 a month!

Or, you can sign up straight away (remember, Clickbank offer a 60 day money back guarantee!) by clicking on one of the links below…

Monthly Subscription to Focus Ratings – only £10!

Quarterly Subscription to Focus Ratings – only £25!

I’d like to thank all my members (past and present) for their support – you’ve become good friends and I’ll miss you all.

My kindest regards

Mechanic…

A man’s car stalls on a country road.

When he gets out to fix it, a horse in the nearby field comes up along side the fence and leans over by him.

“Your trouble is probably in the carburettor,”…

Says the horse.

Startled, the man jumps back and runs down the road until he meets a farmer.

He tells the farmer his story.

“Was it a large white horse with a black mark over the right eye?”…

Asks the farmer.

“Yes, Yes,” the man replies.

“Oh, I wouldn’t listen to her,” says the farmer…

“She doesn’t know anything about cars.”

Ascot…

1). I’d studied the form at Ascot and confidently walked up to the bookmaker with my money in my hand.

“Forty pounds on Fame and Glory in the Gold Cup,” I said.

“This is your first time at Ladies’ Day isn’t it?” he asked.

“Er…yeah. Why?”

“Because it’s usually just the women who wear a fancy dress and big hat.”

2).
After a winning day at Ascot racecourse….

Martin Pipe, Ginger McCain, Jonjo O’neill and Henry Cecil queued up for ages outside Stringfellows to be told…

“Sorry lads, we don’t allow trainers.”

Cricket…

A horse was looking over a fence watching a game of cricket.

“Any chance of a game?” he asked the captain.

At first the captain was taken aback by the talking horse, but when it insisted it was keen to play the skipper thought it might be a bit of a laugh if he sent the horse out as opening bat.

The horse shaped up to the first ball and slammed it over the boundary for six.

He did the same with the second and third, indeed every ball he hit for six until the over ended.

He had been partnered by the captain, and when the bowler ran in from the other end and the captain managed his first hit for a meagre single he called for the horse to run.

But the horse just stood there.

Frantic calls by the captain to run were ignored and in the confusion the skipper was stumped out.

“Why didn’t you run?” roared the captain.

“Listen mate,” said the horse, “if I could run I would be at the racetrack today, not messing around with this f*cking stupid cricket game!”

Polo…

The trainer was giving last minute instructions to the jockey…

And appeared to slip something into the horse’s mouth just as a steward walked by.

“What was that?” inquired the steward.

“Oh nothing” said the trainer…

“Just a polo.”

He offered one to the steward and had one himself.

After the suspicious steward had left the scene the trainer continued with his instructions….

“Just keep on the rail.

The only thing that could possibly pass you down the home straight is either the steward or me!”

After what seems months and months of work, I have come up with a new way of rating horses specific to the race that they are competing in.

www.Focusratings.com is the result and already I’m starting to get rather excited about the results.

Yesterday, for example, www.Focusratings.com achieved a win strike rate of 38.24% for the top rated horse…

And a place strike rate for the top rated horse of 70.59%

You can see the results in details at…. http://focusratings.com/ratings/daily-results?date=2013-03-01

I have put up today’s ratings here at http://focusratings.com/data/focusratings-2013-03-02.pdf

Together with a userguide at http://focusratings.com/data/userguide.pdf

Please feel free to download the ratings and take a good look at them.

If there is enough response I’ll put up next Saturday’s ratings (and the Early Bird Preview – available on Friday afternoon) as another taster.

My kindest regards

Chop those goolies off…

The young male race horse came from a long line of winners, and did wonderfully in bumpers.

However, in actual races he proved a little too romantic, and could never quite bring himself to pass a mare.

So one day the trainer went to him and told him he’d have to be castrated.

The young horse, knowing that it was either this or the glue factory, took it philosophically.

After all, having the operation was almost a certain guarantee of a long and illustrious racing career.

After a short recovery period, the horse was again run in trials, and found to do as well as ever.

But the first time he actually ran in a race, he only went about ten paces, before getting a dejected look on his face, turning around, and ambling back to the starting gates.

“What’s the matter?” asked the trainer, “you were doing great!”

“Yeah, well how would you feel” replied the horse, “if five thousand people took one look at you and shouted ‘they’re off!’?”

Psychiatrist…

A woman went to a psychiatrist and said she was in great distress over her husband.

“He thinks he’s a horse.

He even insists on being fed oats in a bag.”…

Said the woman.

“It’s terrible!”

“How long has then be going on?” as the doctor.

“Six, maybe eight months.” she replied.

“You have let things go too far,” said the doctor.

“Your husband will require a great deal of treatment and it will be very expensive.”

“I don’t care about the expense,” said the wife.

“I will pay you anything — anything at all to make my husband stop thinking he’s a horse.”

“But it will cost many thousands of pounds, can you afford this amount of money?” asked the doctor.

“Why of course we can,” said the woman.

“He’s already won three races this season at Cheltenham!”

Lester…

Lester Piggot is in the parade ring discussing race tactics with the horses trainer.

The trainer tells Lester that this is the worst horse he has in training, it has had 23 races and finished last in all of them, if it doesn’t win today the milkman will be using it for deliveries in the morning.

Lester mounts up and takes the horse down to the start.

The race begins and Lester is 30 lengths last after half a furlong….

He gives the horse an almighty backhander on the behind…

Nothing!

He then gives him a series of sharp slaps down the shoulder…

Nothing!

He then gives him two wallops right on the bollocks, the horse comes to a sudden stop, turns round to Lester and says “for christ sake will you turn it in with that whip I have to be up at half four in the morning to deliver the milk!”

Hampered…

Riding the favourite at Cheltenham, the jockey is well ahead of the field.

Suddenly he’s hit on the head by a turkey and a string of sausages.

He manages to keep control of his mount and pulls back into the lead….

Only to be struck by a box of Christmas crackers and a dozen mince pies as he goes over the last fence.

With great skill he manages to steer the horse to the front of the field once more when, on the run in, he’s struck on the head by a bottle of sherry and a Christmas pudding.

Thus distracted, he succeeds in coming only second.

He immediately goes to the stewards to complain that he has been seriously hampered.

Champion…

A wealthy racehorse owner gets very attached to his champion horse.

It has a very successful racing career and is then retired to stud duties…

Where it is again very successful.

Earning a fortune in stud duties.

Sadly one daythe champion dies and the owner decides to give it a proper burial.

He approaches the local Anglican minister who tells him that he is only interested in saving human souls.

He then approaches the Catholic priest who tells him the same thing.

As a last resort he asks a Rabbi who gives him the same sermon.

As he is about to leave he says that he was going to donate £100,000 to the Synagogue.

Hold on, says the Rabbi, you never told me it was a Jewish horse!

Knickers!

1). Just before the Grand National begins….

I’m going to pull my wife’s knickers down.

So I can amuse myself when I hear…

“And they’re off!”

Mind you, I probably shouldn’t be wearing her knickers in the first place.

2). I’ve an ambition to buy three race horses and call them “First” “Second” and “Third” and then enter them all in the same race.

They may not win but the commentary would be brilliant.

Talking Dogs!!!

Three race horses stood in their stalls.

One said to other others….

“I ran 20 races and I won 15 of them!” he bragged.

The next said with a snort….

“Well, I ran 30 races and won 25 of them!”

Then the third horse spoke up proudly….

“Yeah, I ran 41 races and won 39 of them!”

This seemed to settle the topic when the horses noticed a Greyhound outside their stalls.

The Greyhound said….

“I ran 100 races and I won 99 of them.”

The horses looked at each other in amazement and finally one gasped…

“Wow! A talking greyhound!”

A Jockey Gets Married…

A young jockey and his stable lass girlfriend make the decision to get married.

Everything is planned and the couple intend to honeymoon in Italy for a week.

The marriage goes without a hitch and the couple set off on their honeymoon.

While checking in the lady behind the desk asks ‘We have two suites available for you, would you like the bridal?’

‘No thanks’

Says the jockey….

‘I’ll just hold her ears till she gets the hang of it!’

The Dead Horse

Young Derek in Devon bought a horse from a farmer for £100.

The farmer agreed to deliver the horse the next day.

The next day the farmer drove up and said, “Sorry son, but I have some bad news… the horse died.”

Derek replied, “Well, then just give me my money back.”

The farmer said, “Can’t do that. I went and spent it.”

Derek said, “Ok, then, just bring me the dead horse.”

The farmer asked, “What are you going to do with him?”

Derek said, “I’m going to raffle him off.”

The farmer said, “You can’t raffle off a dead horse!”

Derek said, “Sure I can, Watch me. I just won’t tell anybody he’s dead.”

A month later, the farmer met up with Derek and asked, “What happened with that dead horse?”

Derek said, “I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at £2 a piece and made a profit of £998.”

The farmer said, “Didn’t anyone complain?”

Derek said, “Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two pounds back.”

Derek grew up and now works for the government.

He’s the one who figured out how this “fiscal bail-out” is going to work.

Paddy…

Paddy and his two friends are talking at work.

His first friend says….

“I think my wife is having an affair with the electrician.

The other day I came home and found wire cutters under our bed and they weren’t mine.”

His second friend says…

“I think my wife is having an affair with the plummer.

The other day I found a wrench under the bed and it wasn’t mine.”

Paddy says…

“I think my wife is having an affair with a horse.”

Both his friends look at him with utter disbelief.

“No I’m serious.” he says…

“The other day I came home and found a jockey under our bed.”

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Obsessive Gambling

My wife has left me tonight taking my fours kids with her.

She’s fucked off to her moms citing my….

“Obsessive gambling” as her reason.

Obsessive gambling!

What the fuck does she know!

10/1 – She’s back tomorrow

5/1 – She talks to me before I talk to her

2/1 – Her mom calls me up tomorrow night telling me I need to treat her better

Evens – She ends up telling me to either piss off or fuck off after I tell her where to go

Just over a month ago I published an article about whether we are Gambling or Investing? in which I drew some comparisons between “real” investors/traders who generally have a massive backup staff and are able to survive day to day difficulties, as a result.

And, in that article, I suggested that many people might have the wrong idea about what corporate investors do for a living (believe me, I’ve been there – it’s not all screaming “Buy, buy, buy” or “Sell, sell sell” – it’s about a million billion times more complex than that!)

So, in this article I want to propose some things that we can do to level the playing field and offer the same level of professionalism as the big boys are able to.

This is important whether we are striving to earn a portion of our income from betting on horses or whether we are offering our own analysis and tips to others (either on a free or paid basis.)

It might even propose some of the questions that we should be asking of people who we are paying for their advisories or other services.