General / Jack Houghton / 08 May 2010 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet View Market

He may have been chased from the premises by pitchfork wielding trainers but Jack Houghton harbours no hard feelings towards Horses First Racing. In fact, at the start of an important weekend, our man is keen to pay tribute to their spectacular achievements.

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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It's a massive weekend for trainer Jeremy Gask and the Horses First Racing set-up. First up, they have two representatives in the Totesport Victoria Cup, and a case can be made for both of them. Indeed, the luminaries at Timeform have put up One Way Or Another as their selection for the race. The horse, incidentally, is owned by fellow betting.betfair columnist Simon Rowlands, who used to work for Timeform, and with whom I worked, briefly, in my Betfair days. And you thought European royalty was incestuous? It gets worse.

When I left Betfair, I headed off to Wiltshire to pursue a boyhood dream of working with racehorses in the flesh, and found myself at Horses First Racing, working for its MD, Eamonn Wilmott. Jeremy joined soon after, and the incredible transformation began. Within a few months, the sprawling and stunningly beautiful agriculture property that housed a jobbing dual-purpose yard metamorphosed into a glittering training centre to rival the best in Europe.

I should point out at this stage that I am claiming no part in the transformation described above. Versions of why I left, shortly after Jeremy arrived, vary dramatically. My side states that, with marriage in the offing and a young family planned, a horse training life was too demanding: I could commit to one, but not both. Ultimately, a contented family life won out.

Eamonn and Jeremy likely tell a different story. After I left a horse on the walker for four hours longer than planned, they had both had enough, and, with pitch-forks in hand, they chased me off the property.

In calmer times, I have been back. Given the yard has recently been spread all over the Racing Post and At The Races, they don't need me to join the chorus, but nonetheless, it's worth saying that what they have achieved there is spectacular. As well as their runners at Ascot on Saturday afternoon, they send Able Master over to Cologne on Sunday as the yard's first pattern-race representative. And although there are four or five others in that race with better claims on victory, it seems certain he will act as reconnaissance scout for an invading hoard of group-race contenders in years to come.

It is their other Victoria Cup representative though, Street Power, who I'm most looking forward to watching this weekend. In my brief time at the yard, he arrived as the first proper yearling of note. He would stand, contently, long into the night, tongue stuck out, listening to my diatribes on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, helping me ponder what they could teach us about sectional timing. I like to think we had a connection. Although it's hard to rid myself of the image of he, too, pursuing me across the yard, pitch-fork in hoof, on that fateful last day.

*****

With 12 weeks to go, and the Betting Challenge still faltering in a mire of unprofitability, there are no bets this week. I managed to destroy a December prediction of a hung parliament by going Lib Dem crazy in some last minute constituency betting last week and, unless Wigan can upset the Premiership applecart on Sunday, there are further losses to be suffered there.

I briefly toyed with the idea of solving the problem by smashing into Henderson's runner in the bumper at Uttoxeter on Sunday, but decided things weren't that desperate yet. Although I haven't ruled out a similar strategy for week 51.

This week's bets:
No Bets.

Already recommended:
£40 BACK Jul-Sept 2010 at [5.8] in Leader Exit Dates, Gordon Brown - 29/10/09.
£40 BACK Manchester United at [3.35] in Premier League - 06/12/09.
£40 BACK Topalov at [2.16] to win World Chess Championship - 14/04/10.
£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.
£60 LAY of Jul-Sept 2010 at [3.1] in Leader Exit Dates, Gordon Brown - 18/04/10.

Tags: Ascot races, horseracing betting, Horses First Racing, Jack Houhgton's Betting Challenge, Jeremy Gask