Royal Ascot / Jack Houghton / 17 June 2010 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet View Market

After last week's excursion to South Africa, the Betting Challenge returns to more familiar ground at Royal Ascot. Also, our man speaks out on the flat-earthists who are obsessed with laying...

There is a truth professional gamblers hold to be self-evident: to be profitable, you must specialise. Losers gorge themselves of all that the great buffet of betting has to offer; winners only ever eat the cheese and pineapple sticks. Who knows what might be lurking in that couscous salad? Therein lies uncertainty, and winners have no truck with uncertainty.

Jack Houghton was a long-time follower of the specialisation theory. Many learned academics credit him with its invention. But now he's turned his back. August 2009. Armed with a £1,000 bank and oodles of likely misplaced confidence, he sets out to prove that, in a year, betting on everything Betfair has to offer, he can turn a profit.

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If you don't ask; you don't get. Ask not what your Betting Challenge can do for you; ask what you can do for your Betting Challenge. If the cap asks; wear it. You guessed it: I'm backing Ask in Thursday's Askot Gold Cup.

On the ratings - both handicap and speed - Ask has a bit in hand of most of the field. The exception to that is Manifest, whose Yorkshire Cup win, whilst not setting the clock alight, nonetheless looked a sharp handicap performance. But Manifest is a [4.8] shot and, at a bigger price, with a more consistent run of superior times to his name, Ask looks by far the better value of the two. The Betting Challenge is having £30 to win at [6.0].

Friday's Coronation Cup looks more difficult to interpret. Anna Salai did best of three of the main protagonists here, when finishing third in the Irish 1,000 Guineas. Lightly raced, it seems reasonable to expect her to improve on her second start for connections. However, in what was a blanket finish at the Curragh, there's no guarantee she will be able to confirm form with Lillie Langtry and Music Show.

Lillie Langtry was having her first run of the season that day and, whilst I don't agree with Timeform's reading of the race - which views her to have had an unlucky passage - it nonetheless seems reasonable to assume that she too will improve for that outing. Music Show can certainly have no complaints from the race: she ran well but wasn't quite able to get her head in front when it mattered.

It's no surprise then that, given the tightness of that Curragh finish, all three horses are close in the market at around [5.5]. It is Music Show though that I'll be looking to support. Her Nell Gwyn victory represents the best clock performance of any in this field and it's certain she would have got closer in the 1,000 Guineas if she'd raced with the near-side group. She "won" the far-side race that day, but was still beaten by three-quarters-of-a-length by Distinctive, who she had previously given a drubbing to in the Nell Gwyn. On balance, Music Show looks the best value in the race and the Betting Challenge is having £20 to win and place at Betfair SP.

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Whilst we're on the subject of racing, it seems remiss of me not to comment on the BHA's decision to ban Harry Findlay for six months for laying his own horse, Gullible Gordon, on two occasions.

As the case looks likely to go to appeal, I'll steer clear of the its specifics, instead focusing on the rules set down in this area: which are clearly not fit for purpose.

Ever the pedant, just take a look at the wording, which states that an owner must not: "lay any horse he owns with a betting organisation to lose a race." As painful as it is to gloss over the use of the masculine pronoun (do female owners have carte blanche to do what they want?); and to ignore the appalling ambiguity that makes it sound like the rule only applies to horses in which bookmakers are joint owners; the pertinent point is that to "lay" a horse "to lose a race", you would, by definition, be backing it. Now I'm not a lawyer - the wigs did nothing for me - but couldn't a beak feast him- or her-self on such polysemy? You'd certainly think so.

Semantic pedantry aside for a moment though, even if we charitably ignore the wording, and instead take the spirit of the rule, it still falls short of being useful. The BHA's obsession with laying - viewing it as somehow intrinsically different to backing - leads to a situation where, under this rule, if I were to own a novice chaser running in a three-runner race, it would be fine for me to back the other two horses in the race, tell the jockey to hop-off somewhere down the back straight, and profit from whichever of the other two won.

Despite a number of representations designed to educate those in charge of racing to stop basing their entire outlook on a mathematical falsehood, these flat-earthists persist. When the Findlay case is resolved, it would be hoped that someone who understands modern betting is asked to review things.

This week's bets:

£30 Back Ask at [6.4] in Ascot Gold Cup.
£20 Back Music Show win and place at Betfair SP in Coronation Cup.

Already recommended:

£20 Lay France at [2.2] to win Group A - 18/04/10.
£20 Back Mexico at [4.7] to win Group A- 18/04/10.
£20 Back of South Korea at [3.8] to qualify from Group B- 18/04/10.
£20 Back of Honduras at [6.0] to qualify from Group H - 18/04/10.
£20 Back Netherlands at [10.0] to win World Cup - 10/06/10.
£20 Back Germany at [15.5] to win World Cup - 10/06/10.

Tags: Ascot Gold Cup, Ask, horseracing betting, Jack Houhgton's Betting Challenge, Royal Ascot Betting