If a man spent as much labour in disentangling the cousinship of the
royal families of ancient Egypt, he would be venerated as a scholar in
five continents. Oxford and Cambridge would shower degrees on him. Sir
William Sutherland would get him a place on the Civil List. Hence it
seems to me that tipping the winners is not, as is too often regarded,
"anybody's job": it is work that should be undertaken only by men of
powerful mind. No man should be allowed to qualify as a tipster unless
he has taken a degree at one of the Universities. The ideal tipster
would at once be a great historian a great antiquary, a great
zoologist, a great mathematician, and a man of profound common-sense.
It is no accident that an ex-Prime Minister was one of the few
Englishmen to spot the winner of the Derby of 1920. Mr Asquith must
have gone patiently through all Spion Kop's relations, weighing up the
chances whether it was an accident or owing to the weather that such
an one fifteen years ago was beaten by a neck in a six-furlong race,
studying incidents in every one of their careers, seeing that none of
them had ever had a great-uncle a bus-horse, bringing out a table of
logarithms to decide difficult points.... We need not be surprised
that there are fewer great tipsters than great poets. Shakespeare
alone has given us a portrait of the perfect tipster--"looking before
and after ... in apprehension how like a god!"

It is perhaps, however, when we leave questions of breeding and come
to those of form, that we realise most fully the amazing
intellectualism of the betting life. In the study of form we are faced
by problems that can be solved only by the higher algebra. Thus, if
Jehoshaphat, carrying 7 st., ran third to Jezebel, carrying 8 st. 4
lb., in a mile race, and Jezebel, carrying 8 st. 4 lb., was beaten by
a neck by Woman and Wine, carrying 7 st. 9 lb., over a mile and a
quarter, and Woman and Wine, carrying 8 st. 1 lb., was beaten by Tom