Once uponatime there lived a king who had triplets. These 3 were all boys and all born at exactly the same time. Now the king was old but he'd made his kingdom a prosperous place, his land was thriving and now was the time he had to decide which son should take his place so this is what he did......

He called his 3 sons in to see him and told them that they must all do a task for him. He gave each 100 gold coins and told them they must go to The Cheltenham Festival and bet on the horses and whoever brought back the most money would be the new king.

A week later........
The three sons went to the races then they split up and set about their task.

At the end of the festival all the triplet princes returned to the palace, the king called them into his chamber to see how they had faired.

The first son came in, the king asked 'how did you do?' The son told him he spoke to a pug faced man who told him the horse was a dead cert, the man had a booming voice and I think was called tommo! Anyways he put the whole hundred gold coins on this horse at (what sort of odds does tommo give out) 8/13 say and the horse lost in the first race of the first day. The king turned to his son and said you fool that tommos rubbish he only thought that horse had a chance because it was 8/13.

What he does he gives odds on chances because he thinks they have a better chance of winning because they are short prices but there is no value in backing at prices that short. You would need to hit nearly all of them to make a profit with this the son left the room ashamed of himself.

The king called in the second son how did you fare he asked?

Well I spoke to this pug-faced man and he told me in a loud booming voice that this horse was a dead cert but I had a check of the form guide and didn't fancy it however, I did fancy the second favourite in the race so I backed that with half my money and it lost by a nose, but tommos didn't win either in fact that came last!

So then I looked through the form book again and found another horse that was a good thing I put the rest of my stake on that and it came second again, the king said to his son you tried your best and was probably a little unlucky on the day but you steamed in to hard and fast you need to learn Patience my young padowin and the son left ashamed.

Then the king called in the third boy how did you fare he asked?

Ive brought you a wheel barrow full of gold coins he replied that's great said the king how did you do it? Well said the 3rd son before I got to the races I sorted out a betting strategy. I decided to have 20 bets over the 4 days I was there and divided my stake evenly over these bets. Then I studied the form guide and wrote down the horses that I thought had a chance on breeding, on past results, on ground, I looked in to statistics all together it took me a week to go through every card but by the end I had 40 horses written down that I thought had a chance. However I only had 20 bets so I decided to use my royal privileges and spoke to the trainers of the forty horses that I had selected to find out what they thought about the fitness & their well being and attitude of there horse's.

I managed with there help to cut my bets down by half, then I got to the races placed my bets over the four days and even though I lost on every horse for the first two days, the third day I landed 4 out of 5 bets and odds averaging 6/1!!

The fourth day I had a 12/1 winner and a 25/1 winner and 2 4/1 winners with only one looser!! So over all I made a massive profit thanks to the time & effort I put in getting the correct info and splitting my stake evenly over the 20 bets. Even though I lost 10 times in a row I came out with a huge profit.

Wow! Said the king, how shrewd you are the kingdom shall be yours

and they all lived happily ever after .....................................