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PER SEMPRE VALETE!

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=RACING AS A BUSINESS.=

[The kind of article which one may confidently look for in the
sporting columns of a penny newspaper at this time of the year.]

From the very beginning of the season I have insisted that our
objective should be "the winter's keep." Those who have stuck to me
all along and played my system are on velvet.

During the flat-racing year I have given a hundred-and-fourteen
selections. Let me just tabulate the results; I like tabulating, for
it fills my column in no time.

Selections. Won. Second. Third. Unplaced.
114 5 8 1 100

N.B.--Non-starters neglected.

The above is a statement of which I may well be proud. I assert with
confidence that few sporting journalists can show anything like this
record.

Certain captious correspondents like "O. T." and "Disgusted" have
pointed out that my selections during this period show a loss of L104
9s. 11-1/2d. on a _flat stake_ of L1. All I can say is that people who
bet increasing stakes are increasing, while people who bet flat stakes
are---- Well, that disposes of "Disgusted" and "O. T." My readers know
that my system is to have the minimum stake on the losers and the
maximum stake on the winners. We shall never attain that abstract
perfection, but we should keep this ideal before us. I believe in
idealism; it pays.

Take yesterday's selections, for instance. Here they are, with results
tabulated:--

1.00 Breathing Time _Unplaced._
1.30 Taddenham _Unplaced._
2.00 Aminta I. _Unplaced._
2.30 Giddy Gertie _Non-starter._
3.00 Transformation _Unplaced._
3.30 Likely Case _Won--20 to 1 on._

That I consider a highly successful day's racing, provided your
stakes were proportionally placed; and here again I must insist on my
principle of maximum and minimum stakes.

Let us suppose, as naturally most of my readers did, that a backer
went to the course with a bookmaker's credit of twenty thousand pounds
and a thousand or so spare cash in his pocket. Being a shrewd man he
would place L1 on Breathing Time to win. (I daresay even "O. T." and
"Disgusted" did me the honour of following me so far.) On Taddenham,
true to my principles, our backer would raise his stake to L1 10s.
Aminta I. would carry L2, or L2 10s. if he were punting. But I cannot
too strongly discourage th