The golden rules of punting: how I plan to make the unequal struggle a little more equal this year

Another January and another year of the unequal struggle begins. I don't think that when I engineered my first major coup in 1971 I regarded making an annual profit from betting as a struggle – or unequal, given that I was plainly a few steps ahead of the bookies, even at the age of nine – but ever since then the pressure has grown.

When I earmarked Brigadier Gerard as the Guineas winner, I did so with certainty. I remember that wonderful feeling – a combination of disbelief and greedy pleasure – when I realised that everybody else thought either Mill Reef or My Swallow would win the Classic and my fancy could be backed at sweaty-palmed odds of 11-2.

In those days, there were no such things as affordability checks, so my grandad would have had no problem 'getting on', no panicked calls to head office while the traders checked to see that my 20p stake wasn't part of some international money-laundering scheme. Life was very simple.