A Q and A with Horse Race Predictor supremo Gav Summerhill
Hi Gav, and many thanks for joining us this month, first off would you start by telling our readers a little about yourself and your background prior to Horse Race Predictor?
I was born in Richmond, London and have been married for 15 years with three young children. My Mother was French and my name is actually Gavroche, though many people assume it to be Gavin. I don’t mind either way!
Originally, I trained to Bachelor level in Linguistics but have never really used it professionally, though it does assist me in discerning the most surprising things day to day. I write poetry with a number of books published over recent years under pseudonym and have a keen interest in yoga. In addition, I am a qualified Life Coach and ordained as a Taoist in the Tianshi tradition.
My earliest background to horse racing and betting comes from studying the Daily Mail racing pages while the afternoon racing used to be on ITV. I recall the commentators Jonathan Rickman, Lord Oaksey, Brough Scott etc. I would try and find (I am about 7 or 8 years old here) correlations between the form numbers and predictions by the newspaper and the horses that actually ran the race and won, lost or placed. To this day I have a deadly personal ‘system’ which uses the Daily Mail racing pages exclusively and takes me about 5 minutes to hook out a couple of decent bets.
Can’t remember ever having a losing week in around 8 years, on that little pearl alone. Surprisingly simple!
Would you say that you have a “typical” working day, and how would you describe it?
I get up around 4am each day and check the software for The Football Predictor and The Horse Race Predictor to see if it has built the daily bet prediction grids. Any issues and an alert is fired over to my tech team, in order that we can have all our daily bets in place by around 7am latest.
Then I check our live chat boxes, forum posts and comment sections within the site to see if there are any urgent messages from members which need attending to. I do one hours yoga, then have a cup of tea and some breakfast. This gets me to the time to stroll over to my local newsagent for the Daily Mail and my first inspection of the full race cards of the day.
3 or 4 times a week I will take the Racing Post to check in on how the industry is faring and catch up on any relevant issues within horse racing and the sports betting industry generally.
Around 7am I deal with emails, issues relating to The Football Predictor, The Horse Race Predictor and begin to assemble my own bets to be presented to our membership for the day. 8am I will take the kids to school then check over my garden to see what is new and might need doing that day.
10am I write until midday then break for some vegetable juice and salad. This gets me to begin my betting afternoon in time for the first race.
What do you think of the world of sports tipping in general and what do you think people are in search of when it comes to their hunt for a successful tipster?
Sports tipping is a fascinating world, for it deals with things which at their core are the realm of deep mathematics and probability theory. This is then aligned with human endeavour and the fascination of variables within competition and challenge. I am a Leeds United supporter and unfortunately used to let emotions get the better of reality and of course ‘emotions’ are the one thing that you need to keep under orders when it comes to sports betting.
One of our flagship products is called The Football Predictor, we have a daily 24/7 updating prediction suite with a largest winning run to date of 27 in one day! (yes, you read that right) 27 consecutive winning bets called in our Under/Over 2.5 Goals bet predictions.
So that brings me onto what people want from their ‘successful tipster’. They
want winners, knowledge and a positive customer experience.
Do you regularly bet yourself? What style of approach do you take to your
betting? What do you think of staking plans, loss retrieval systems etc.?
Yes, I bet every day and use a vast repertoire of bet techniques gained from
over 20 years of experience, trial and error, plus hands on development. From
multiples, to accumulators, from win singles, to dutching, from place betting
to doubles. A sound staking strategy is key and without money management then
nothing much can happen.
Loss retrieval is a perfectly sound approach if you understand your odds and
strike rate ratios. I can tell you for a fact that most daily professionals use
it in some form or another, dependent on the odds and strike rate of the
betting approach they are covering. Any method which delivers a level staked
profit will significantly increase it’s yield by a scientific and graded
approach to stake management.
What attracted you to the world of horse racing and what do you enjoy most
about the sport?
I love the depth of the industry and the fact that it is not just a spectator
sport in set piece events but a living, breathing endeavour which must be
attended to around the clock and every single day of the year.
Though we now get 3 days off at Christmas, the horses must still be mucked out,
fed, watered, prepared, exercised and tended each day. There really is so much
to it before you even start getting to the ‘form’ and betting as a proposition.
I most enjoy following the various stables, jockeys and trainers – seeing how
they fare through the ever changing seasons of the year.
What led you into the world of racing tipsters?
Some twenty years ago, I began to think again about my early enthusiasm with
the ITV racing and the paper tipsters and it’s betting recommendations.
It occurred to me that a serious study could possibly be made and if my study
was successful it could lead to appropriate reward and income. Thereafter, I
started to buy the Racing Post each day and searched the internet for ‘Systems’
and began the work of learning the lexicon of horse racing form study and
betting to odds.
Therefore, what my service can offer the client is a proven knowledge of absolutely every aspect of form, odds and betting strategy for profit and success.
I know the odds, percentages and margins as well as any on course bookmaker!
Though, I would not like to do it all with pen and paper and now the bookmaker odds are all automated via computer, it must make the bookies life a hell of a lot easier.
In 2001 I attended a seminar by a well known tipster of the day and that was where I really started to get ahead. I learnt how to read the form in the Racing Post, and multiple methods for betting successfully. What can’t be taught at a seminar or established in the very early years I think, is the aspect of ‘mastering yourself’. That is what stops many players from really making their betting pay.
Attitude is all wrong.
From the seminar I came across Che Van Der Wheil and the famous Moss Publications edited by Tony Peach. This set the seal on my total initiation into successful betting for profit. Some 7 years ago I had the opportunity to buy the entire publication catalogue of Moss, including all the much sought after Che Van Der Wheil publications. The fact of the matter is, whatever is worth knowing about practical betting for profit is in these books and I own the rights to every single one of them.
What traits do you think a good racing tipster should possess and what do you think the average punter is looking for from a tipping service?
A good tipster needs to do much more than tip horses, he needs to provide an approach and strategy which can be adapted by all types of people coming from all levels of experience. I think the average punter is really seeking ‘strike rate / odds’. They want a good strike rate with some bets coming in at morale boosting odds.
In addition, a bank growth or money management strategy is imperative and that is why all our members within The Horse Race Predictor and The Football Predictor are provided with these insider secrets as standard.
What do you feel you can offer racing enthusiasts
and punters that other tipsters can’t?
One of the highlights of recent years occurred this April at the beginning of
the flat season, where we held and hosted a live seminar Masterclass for The
Horse Race Predictor.
Over 50 people turned up for a smashing weekend event where we divulged in
great and enjoyable detail the exact procedures for making your betting pay
with us.
Food, hospitality and accommodation were all laid on for our members in glorious surroundings and we also unveiled one of our flagship products the HRP Automiser.
This is a product which fully automates the selection and placement of bets and is absolutely invaluable if you are caught short for time on any given day or wish to cover an evening race programme and you are going out.
We recorded the entire weekend HRP Masterclass event and transferred it to video which are available to all our members (over 7 hours of information and knowledge packed videos in a dedicated suite) as part of the HRP Masterclass LITE package and which includes a membership offer along with access to the Automiser itself!
New and old punters alike can struggle to make a
success of their betting. If you could give them just one piece of advice to
improve their profitability what would it be?
Aim to learn one thing from someone who really knows and absolutely master it.
What would you consider to be a highlight of your
racing experience to date? Do you have any personal racing / betting
experiences which when reflecting back brings a smile, or for that matter any
which bring a grimace; you can share with our readers?
Some years ago I enjoyed a drink with Henry Cecil at Newmarket and he advised
me to have a ‘decent bet’ on his runner in 3.15.
£50 and 17/2 later, the day was more than paid for!
Conversely in my earliest days of frequenting bookmakers on a daily basis, I
blew the last remnants of a £1,500 bank with an eye watering bet on a runner in
the 4.20 at Plumpton called ‘Chris’.
It was the only time that I placed a bet in the bookies where the clerk told the floor manager and the floor manager told the office manager, who then phoned his head office (William Hills) to okay the bet.
The manager must have thought, ‘what the hell does this guy know? That will blow a hole straight through my returns today if it comes in’. Head Office must have said ‘Take the money, it can’t win’.
Unfortunately, they were right.
What about the gambling industry, is there anything you like to see changed there? Many website forums are full of criticisms of the bookmakers and their treatment of their customers? Is this something you have an opinion on?
I think the industry provides an excellent service. The bookmaker is a middle man, who takes your money and returns it with an agreed interest if you have been successful and withholds it if you are not.
There is a question about shortening prices at SP but profit margins are squeezed everywhere and betting is not a realm to expect undue charity.
All our betting is using Betfair Exchange where any amount will get matched and BSP is really a guarantee of profit, if you know what you are doing.
Going back to ‘website forums’ in my early days I learnt that most people on these type of forums were not only negative people, but they were people who were opinionated with the least possible knowledge. The well known tipster I mentioned earlier, well he used to take an enormous amount of stick from people on forums – and yet he gave me the beginnings of an education and that was priceless.
What do you do to relax and unwind? What interests have you outside the world of horse racing?
Yesterday I bought the entire box DVD set for the TV series ‘Rumpole of the Bailey’ If I have to wait for my next target race, I might slip an episode on! (There are 44 of them).
I am a big boxing fan and used to box at club level in West London during my teens. British wrestling is an unusual hobby of mine, along with an interest in culture, ancestral heritage and politics.
Finally, I wrote a poem for the readers of On Course Profits and here it is:
Once More The Saddle
Endless rolls the turf
With the clack of countless hoof
Dreaming for all it’s worth
As my effort finds the truth
For this day I gave
No less than meets my all
And I hope to win again
Before this world is still
– Gavroche Summerhill
We reviewed the Horse Race Predictor here
