My name is Richard Mawer and I was born and brought up in Yorkshire, in and around horse racing. We had family outings to York, Doncaster, Ripon and Wetherby regularly. As a small boy we visited Middleham and watched the horses in training, so horse racing was in my blood and a passion ever since.
However betting was another thing and up until a few years ago I was training to be a solicitor and working 80hrs per week in a legal practice. I had no time to enjoy life and even worse I still had no money, once all the bills, training and living expenses were paid each month. I decided I needed a small 2nd income to help me through until I qualified.
Back in 1989 when I was up at Blackpool College I had met Andy, who was a trainee bookie in Manchester, working in his father’s business at the dog tracks and horse racing courses around the north of England. Over the three years of our college course Andy shared everything that he had learned form his father about betting, how to read a race card, form and how to track horses from one run to another – even how to create a “tissue” and price up a race.
I decided to use all this knowledge to get more serious about my betting and that was the start of what was to become a roller coaster ride in my career as a serious bettor.
I quickly learned that discipline and patience were not just words that bettors threw around, they were essential to making consistent money on horse racing but more importantly I realised that the people who were quietly making money every month as Betting Pro’s were not only the Patrick Veitch’s of the world, waiting weeks for that one big winner that would make them £1000’s but the vast majority were people who made small but regular profits day in day out month in month out building up their betting banks and slowly increasing their stakes.
But alongside discipline and patience what was the secret to making consistent and regular profits from betting on UK horse racing?
Over the next few years I set about developing a structured betting strategy, mixing up my “backing” of horses with “laying” horses to lose on the exchanges which were slowly starting to appear in 2001. I studied form and read as much as I could about the effects of going, weight and distance on horses. I studied trainers form, jockeys form and the different characteristics of tracks around the UK. I made it my job to visit a race meetings at least three times per week.
I started to sponsor races, build a list of contacts, I was introduced to bookmakers, trainers, stable hands, jockeys and other bettors who I met. You can see my wife Jackie and I here at York after sponsoring a race.
By the end of 2006 I had built my original betting bank up to £10000 and I realised that what was originally going to be a small second income now gave me everything I wanted, financially and the freedom to live my life on my terms, it was a wonderful feeling.
In 2009 I decided it was time to share what I had learned with other people and help them to develop themselves a profitable betting strategy themselves. I developed Racing Profits as a resource to help others make money from UK Horse Racing – so www.racingprofits.net was born.
