Patrick Veitch on being a progambler

Independent:

" "The biggest challenge you face as a punter is how you deal with difficult times," he explained. "The ability to bounce back, and really focus on the day after a bad one, is something I probably wasn't that good at before. I don't think many punters are. In a way, if I didn't focus on the next day, I'd almost be betraying what I've [been through]. There's almost a switch inside me. If I want to turn on that intensity and motivation, at a difficult point, I know how to do it."

In fairness, the bookmakers have given him few truly perilous moments. Despite the "touches" pulled off with his own horses, he insists nearly two-thirds of his profit has come from races uncoloured by information. However glamorous his lifestyle, the inspiration is worthless without the perspiration. By the end of the Flat season, he is shattered, but by ignoring jump racing, his appetite is renewed every spring.

'Provided it's kept in reasonable bounds, it's almost essential to have a great self-confidence,' he said. 'Because you're not going to make money going with the consensus. I suppose it is a pleasure. But as a pure punter I don't try to deliver the buzz as a big priority. The more you succumb to the adrenalin, the more difficult you make it for yourself when things go wrong, and you have to make balanced decisions. The actual process of picking a horse, you want to be as dry as possible, to use cool logic, but the business of the battle – how I trade a position, how I use anything from a very small number of people to a whole army, how that's executed, yes, that's the big buzz.'

In his book, Veitch describes the split personality of a successful gambler: part brain surgeon, part mad axeman. In essence, the former must select the horse, and the latter back him. 'Betting's an immensely layered logic problem,' he said. 'You've got potentially 50, 60, 70, 80 different factors, each very subjective. The skill is in recognising which factors truly are important on any given day, and whether the combination is enough to make a horse seriously underestimated in the betting. The cliché is of the killer instinct – being able, without drawing a massive chart, to sift it through your mind and sense that enough boxes have been ticked.'

It is a clinical process, and few meeting Veitch immediately believe they are in the presence of a human sunbeam. But he can be pardoned a certain wariness. There was a time when his life might depend on the number of people who could answer the question: who is Patrick Veitch? In time, he thinks he will settle down, have a family. For now, however, he is happy to be admired, not adrift; to be the predator, not the prey.

'Enemy Number One', by Patrick Veitch, is published by Racing Post, £18.99"