Jump on a river boat at Windsor in the late afternoon and cruise up to Windsor Racecourse – Yes it’s on the Thames. There – you will have a great evening’s entertainment.

Flat racing takes place at Windsor Racecourse 26 times a year from April to October. The atmosphere is buzzing, the racing exciting and the hospitality superb.

You can choose different price levels depending on your pocket and what you like.

The Silver enclosure costs just £9. You can only access the picnic area and Centre of the Course, but it is the spot to go if you would like to bring a picnic. It’s about 150 yards from the winning post. Please note the limits of 1 bottle of wine or 4 cans / bottles of beer per person and no barbeques. Get there early for a spot with a good view. If you don’t fancy a picnic there is the newly refurbished Silver Ring Food Court, which offers a great coffee bar, a wide selection of both hot and cold foods and a full bar facility.

The Grandstand Enclosure costs £17 (£13 if you book online in advance) and is nearer (75 yards) the winning post. You can access the Grandstand and Silver Ring Enclosures, Centre of the Course and Paddock Lawn. The Parade Ring, Pre-Parade Ring and Winners Enclosure are just a short walk away and there is a wide selection of bars to choose from.

The Club Enclosure is £23 (£19 if you book online in advance). Smart jeans (no rips, tears or fraying) are allowed but shorts, t-shirts, sports attire and trainers are not permitted and men must wear a collared shirt. It has the prime position next to the winning post and has a dedicated big screen for all the racing action. With a ticket for this area you can access the Club, Grandstand and Silver Ring Enclosures, Centre of the Course and Paddock Lawn. The Parade Ring, Pre-Parade Ring and Winners Enclosure are close by and there is also a great choice of bars and three wonderful restaurants.

So whatever your budget you can have a fantastic evening. Maybe you’ll even back a winner!

At the end of the racing you wander back to the boat (It’s just £6 return) and cruise down river to Windsor. Just be careful you don’t over indulge and end up having a gloomy Tuesday!

On the other hand, favorites do win a lot of harness races and that means you have to find a way to spot a reason good enough to bet against the favorite. One such situation where you will find profitable bets is in claiming races when you have done your homework. By homework I mean, watching the horses and spotting problems that can be fixed.

When you watch a harness race you should be making notes about horses who had rough trips or got a dream trip. Notes should be kept detailing any problems or abnormalities as well. One example is a horse that is rough gaited in the turns, but flattens out in the stretch. While there can be several reasons for this, it means there is probably a problem that can be corrected by a good trainer.

That is when the change of barn becomes important. If you see that horse suffer with the same problem in several races and then get claimed, you can bet a trainer has been watching the horse and figures he or she can correct that problem. So if you see the horse you’ve noted get claimed by a successful trainer, then you should figure it will improve in its next race or two.

While that isn’t exactly a hot new angle, it is better than when you see the same trainer claim a horse that doesn’t have an apparent problem. It may be more difficult to move such a pacer or trotter up when there is nothing tangible to be fixed. On the other hand, with such a glaring problem, the trainer must have something up his or her sleeve to remedy the situation.

Therefore, when trying to make money handicapping harness races, pay particular attention to horses who have an obvious problem and watch for such a horse to be claimed. This is a very good sign that it will get the problem fixed and the crowd may still lay off the horse because of its past poor performances.

One of the best things about actually going the races is that you have the chance to look at the horses before they get to race. To spot a horse that is likely to run a good race you should look for the horse with the shiniest coat. I know this sounds silly but the fact of the matter is that the healthiest of horses will end up running the fastest they can.

A shiny coat is therefore a good way of seeing whether the horse is healthy and in good form. You can bet that this horse will be running to its peak. Other clues you can look out for is whether the horse is sweating a lot before the off. If it is sweating then it means that the horse is already peaked and will not run the race to the best of its ability.

First of all some simple truths. There are no Betfair loopholes, no secret markets or ways to ‘cheat’ the system. Betfair is a huge business using highly sophisticated technology and there are no ways to cheat it! I’ve read rumours of ways to beat the random number generators in the Betfair Exchange games, for example, but these are simply myths.

The Betfair winning formula is quite simple for me and it’s made up of the following -

1) A proven betting strategy. This may seem too obvious to even say but there are countless people out there following what are flawed strategies doomed to failure. Many of these are based on historical data and project this forward in what really is a meaningless way. To take a ridiculous example, we could use past data and find out that most winning horses at a certain race track have names beginning with the letters ‘d’ or ‘r.’ So to make a profit we just back every horse with those letters starting it’s name?! Of course this is utter nonsense. A winning betting strategy must have logical foundations. A good example is that generally the Grand National is only won by experienced horses over 7 years of age. This would be a good basis of a system but of course we would need to add other filters to find possible selections. The best systems on the market will publish results going back months or even years. If these results can be verified such systems are likely to be very strong.

2) Discipline. You can have the best system for winning on Betfair ever devised but if you don’t use it correctly and with discipline you will fail! Let’s say there are a set of rules by which you find your racing selections. If one day you are frustrated at a lack of selections and you choose to bend the rules you have deviated from what may be a winning Betfair system and are now just plain gambling. Managing your betting bank, using sensible staking plans and knowing when to quit for the day are all essential in profitable gambling and all require discipline. A Betfair winning formula is exactly that – a formula to follow to the letter. If you step outside of that you can’t criticise a system it doesn’t deliver.

3) Realistic expectations. This is a favourite of mine! Any system which claims to double your betting bank every week, or talks of the author buying sports cars and giving up his day job should set up alarm bells!

It really is possible to make good money on Betfair with the right system and right approach but it’s not an ATM cash machine as some would have you believe. Over my years of research and testing I’ve gradually built up from targets of £50 a week, to £200 a week and now regularly make £100 a day on Betfair. Of course I am willing to share my experience and now run a Blog where I test and review the best and worst Betfair systems out there.

Betfair offers a huge variety of betting markets and whatever your sport or betting style there’s something for everyone. By applying my simple Betfair winning formula you will have an excellent chance of making it to those top 2% of consistent winners.

Betfair bots are basically pieces of software which interact with Betfair. They can for example place bets on your behalf when set up to do so when certain conditions are met. For example, we may want to place a bet on a certain horse to win but only if certain criteria are met. If we can’t be at a computer screen all day we can program the bot to place a bet for us.

Betting bots can also react far more quickly than humans and can make lightening fast decisions and actions. They can alert us to changes in the betting markets and either allow us to place bets accordingly or even do it for us.

Dutching systems for Betfair are becoming increasingly popular and a Betfair bot can be an essential tool for profitable dutching. This is in effect placing bets on more than one outcome, for example betting on 3 out of 7 runners in a horse race. Again the bot can help us here as it can place bets very quickly in a few clicks.

Befair bots can identify steamers and drifters in a race and place bets on these – this can be a very lucrative way of betting. If the market moves for or against a certain horse the bot can alert us and we can place a bet.

Free trials of Betfair bots are common and if you are interested in these visit my Blog where I can offer more advice.

Blinkers. These are fitted to a horse to aid its concentration during the race. The blinkers are in fact cowls fitted to a head cloth and they can be either full or half cup. The overall effect is to reduce a horses vision from 180 degrees down to a around 30 degrees.

Visors. These are similar to blinkers except that the cowl has a hole or slit in the side to allow the horse to see other horses at its side.

Some people question how genuine a horse is that needs blinkers but there is no doubt that in some cases they can bring about a much improved performance. It is not uncommon that the first time a horse races in blinkers it has the desired effect but in subsequent races they seem to have no effect.

There are three reasons why a trainer may decide to fit blinkers to a horse. The first is to help the horse to concentrate and focus on the job in hand. They can also help a horse to stay calm and be less inclined to pull in the early stages of a race and thus conserve its energy for the finish. Finally they can sometimes encourage a horse that is reluctant to race.

Cheek Pieces. In recent seasons the cheek piece, also known as French Blinkers, have become a popular form of racing headgear. The cheek piece consists of two sheepskin bands attached to the side of the horse bridle. Again the purpose is to restrict the horse side vision and to help to concentrate on the race.

The Tongue Strap. A tongue strap ids fitted over the horses tongue and this stops the tongue lifting and restricting the air flow. A trainers will normally fit this to a horse if they suspect that this has been a problem in its previous races. Although tongue straps have been used for a long time in horse racing it is only on the last ten years or so that it has been necessary to declare that a horse is wearing one.

Other headgear sometimes worn by horse include:

- Hoods are designed to cover the ears and are worn by horses that are affected by noise.
- Eye shields can be worn to give full vision but protect the horses eyes.
- Eye cover can be worn by a horse which is blind in one eye or has an eye missing.