Tipping Tim’s Arc Survival Guide

I’m off to Paris this weekend and, having sat out last year’s Arc for the first time in ages, I’m absolutely chomping at the bit. Aside from going to Peru with nothing but a bikini and a bad haircut and coming back with twenty-five kilos in your hand luggage, I can’t think of any other holiday that earns you money whilst you have fun and I will be following my five golden rules to ensure that I come home bulging with Euros on Monday morning:

1. Bet all the good French horses at English odds.
2. Bet all the good English/Irish horses at French odds.
3. Don’t bet the ‘good’ Japanese horses at all.
4. Bet Olivier Peslier’s steed in all Arabian races, doubling up if it is grey and having the lot on if it is favourite.
5. When in dancing bars near Pigalle at three in the morning always pay with cash rather than entrusting the friendly proprietor with a credit card (unless it is someone else’s card).

Stick with these rules and it is almost impossible to lose. In the big race I will be betting Ruler Of The World on the French Tote (although it’s a blow to the master-plan that he is now coupled with that lumbering lump Leading Light) and in the Abbaye I will be betting Dutch Masterpiece to land a decent prize for Gary Moore. For the Trixie I will go with the first grey Arabian that I see being straddled by a small bald Frenchman, and hopefully I’ll be joining the masses of jovial Parisians as they roar home their greatest ever jockey on a beast that no-one in Europe has ever heard of.

Vive la France!