Professional punter is planning a tilt at the Melbourne Cup with horse who won him �130,000 at York on Saturday
When he reached the point of having 10 horses in training, Dan Gilbert decided enough was enough and resolved to cut back on a hobby that represented "financial suicide" compared to the income from his successful punting. Now he has 19 and is not quite sure how it happened.
Judging by the way he is already looking forward to the next auction, the bank account might be about to take another hit. Fortunately, his share of the �130,000 prize for winning the Ebor last Saturday will cushion the blow.
Bought by Gilbert for �31,500 at a sale last October, Moyenne Corniche beat 19 rivals to take one of Europe's most valuable handicap prizes and may now be aimed at the Melbourne Cup.
Even after the Ebor, Moyenne Corniche may not be sufficiently highly rated to make the cut for that race. But Gilbert and his trainer, Brian Ellison, have identified another handicap at Flemington, the Lexus Stakes, in which victory would guarantee a place in the final Cup field. It is just four days before the big race itself.
"Is he the sort of horse that could take two races in four days?" Gilbert muses. "I don't know, but it'll cost us about �40,000 to get him out there, where we could be racing for A$3m [�1.9m] in prize money, so those are the odds we've got to think about."
Getting the maths right has never been a problem for Gilbert, though it took him time to become a successful punter. "I tried everything on Betfair at first," says the 32-year-old. "I tried systems, momentum trading, tipping lines, I was just desperate to make it pay.
"Then I started off punting in-running, laying horses that I thought would find nothing, trying to use my knowledge of the jumps horses, and I was winning a few quid.
"Nowadays I rarely play in-running. I very nearly went skint one or two times and I just didn't have the discipline and the patient mindset. I used to go to the exchange shop at Cardiff and another in Bristol and, if you were having a bad day and you had your headphones on, you'd just end up simmering and chasing losses. I'd rather try and get my money in before the race now and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.
"It started when I went to university and took a job in a bookmaker's, which, in those days, was my dream job, as it meant I got to sit and watch racing all day. After I dropped out, I became a relief manager and I worked in all the quietest shops where nobody else wanted to work so that I could study the form in the morning.
"One year, in February, I was getting a bit more successful and I realised that I wanted to be at Cheltenham rather than working, so I quit, and that helped. I always thought if you really can crack this game, you only need to be making a few percent to be winning a fair amount of money. If I can keep it going like this for the next 10 years, I'll be happy."
Gilbert had a "reasonable" bet on Moyenne Corniche, although it was only half of what he asked William Hill to lay him, and much less than he had backed the horse to win when mid-division in the John Smith's Cup on his previous start.
"We learned something about how to ride him that day but a lot of the last few years have been a learning curve," he admits.
His co-owners in Moyenne Corniche are Mark Lawrence and Andrew Bruce, who work as odds compilers in Hong Kong. He met them while watching the Australian Open in Melbourne.
"When I buy these horses, anyone who wants a share in them can have one really, it's nice to get people involved. It makes it a bit cheaper, too.
"I like to give Brian good horses. When the sales come along, I just get too tempted not to buy them. I like Brian to see the horse and often he can spot one with a problem straight away and, if we can get that problem sorted out, then we're in business.
"The first horse I bought a share in was Film Festival, with Kristian Strangeway [Ellison's stepson] after we had got talking on the Betfair forum.
"When that went well, I got such a buzz off it that I thought I'd like one for myself and decided to claim one. I didn't have a clue how to go about it, so I rang Brian and that's how it began.
"He did so well with that horse, Elite Land, in the first year, that when I wanted another one the following year, I wouldn't have dreamed of going anywhere else."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/aug/24/dan-gilbert-professional-punter
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