Ironically, for a devout, lifelong
atheist, Phil Bull (not pictured) once said, ‘I was bred to be a saint, you know’.
Born on April 9, 1910, in the small town of Hemsworth, West
Yorkshire, Bull was the son of William Osborne Bull, who began his
career in the Salvation Army, but later worked as a coal miner and as
a sanitation engineer, and Lizzie Jessop Watson, who was a Sunday
school teacher. He was educated at Hemsworth Grammar School and at
Leeds University, graduating with a modest degree in mathematics in
1931. Bull subsequently taught mathematics in London and did not
abandon the teaching profession, at least, not entirely, when he
embarked on a career as a professional gambler, which would make him
a familiar figure on British racecourses for decades afterward.
Interest in Gambling
Later in life, Phil Bull recounted
almost certainly apocryphal stories of how he was taught the
rudiments of odds and betting parlance by his mother in early
childhood. Nevertheless, Bull started betting, to small stakes, as a
schoolboy and, during his studies at Leeds University, his
mathematical and research skills, coupled with his abiding interest
in horse racing, naturally led to the statistical analysis of race
times. Following graduation, Bull continued to develop a unique
technique for evaluating horse racing form, based not only on
relative finishing positions, as was commonplace, but also on race
times. Bull bet on the conclusions of what became ‘Temple Racetime
Analysis’ with no little success and, in 1938, starting selling
information, by mail order, to the general public. Initially, his
teaching job precluded using his own name, so the ‘Temple Time
Test’, as the service known, was sold under the pseudonym ‘William
K. Temple’. The Temple Time Test proved highly successful, so
successful, in fact, that Bull gave up his teaching job to
concentrate on gambling for a living.
Golden Rules
In 1970, Phil Bull published his ‘Ten
Commandments’, which, paraphrased in less ‘Biblical’ language,
read more or less as follows:
1. The selection source is
unimportant, but bet only on selections you consider value-for-money;
avoid the temptation to bet in every race. (As a side-note, on the
subject of value-for-money, Bull was not afraid to bet odds-on).
2. Luck, the law of averages and
staking plans are delusional, so place no faith in any of them.
3.
Bet according to your means and adjust your stake according to the
chance of your selection, as you see it; a selection with a greater
chance deserves a higher stake.
4. Do not bet each-way in large fields,
unless you are satisfied that the place portion of the bet represents
value-for-money.
5. Shop around with bookmakers and the
Tote to find the best prices, according to your judgment.
6. Do not bet ante-post unless you
know your selection is a definite runner.
7. Do not buy
systems; if you come across a profitable system, keep it to yourself.
8. Bet in doubles and trebles if you
want to, but not on objections.
9. Make wise, attentive
betting decisions and adopt a patient, cautious approach to betting,
but do not be afraid to be bold if circumstances dictate.
10.
Bet only what you can afford to lose; increasing stakes beyond your
means, even in the short-term, can lead to catastrophic losses.
Successes
Thankfully, from a historical
perspective, Phil Bull kept meticulous accounts, just over three
decades’ worth, of his ‘serious’ betting activity between 1943
and 1974. However, it is worth noting that, even before the start of
that period, Bull had won enough money by backing Pont L’Eveque,
winning of the so-called ‘New Derby’ – a wartime substitute for
the Derby, run at Newmarket, rather than Epsom – in 1940 to buy a
five-bedroom, detached house in Putney, South-West London. In 1944,
the year in which he was bombed out of his London home, prompting a
return to Yorkshire, Bull had a ‘serious bet’ on Dante, beaten
favourite in the 2,000 Guineas and, always one to stand by his
judgment invested heavily at 5/1 and again, at 10/1, on the same
horse to win the New Derby. At Newmarket, Dante was sent off at
100/30 favourite and won by two lengths; Bull collected £22,000, or
in excess of £958,000 in modern terms. In 1952, Bull enjoyed his
most profitable season ever, collecting £10,500 for an investment of
£1,700, in various bets, on 1,000 Guineas-winner Zabara and £8,000
on Middle Park Stakes-winner Nearula; all told, that season he
collected nearly £38,000. Another notable success came in 1963,
when, after a series of unfavourable results, Bull staked £1,000 at
20/1 on Ebor-winner Partholon, thereby recouping all his previous
losses. According to his own accounts, between 1943 and 1974, Bull
made a total profit of just under £296,000 which, even at the most a conservative estimate, is the equivalent of over £3 million in
modern terms.
Publications
Aside from his early work under the
pseudonym William K. Temple, in 1942, Bull published his treatise on
betting, entitled ‘The Mathematics of Betting’, under his own
name. The following year he published ‘Best Horses of 1942’, the
first in a series of annual volumes that would ultimately evolve into
the ‘Racehorses’ annual under the ‘Timeform’ banner. Indeed,
the first Timeform annual ‘Racehorses of 1947’ followed in 1948,
and included an essay and numerical rating for each horse that ran on
the Flat in the 1947 season. Remarkably, the four highest-rated
horses, according to Timeform, filled the first four places in 2,000
Guineas, in the correct order, and were led home by My Babu, whose
entry read ‘should win 2,000 Guineas’. In 1975/76, Bull published
the first edition of the Timeform ‘Chasers & Hurdlers’
annual, which extended coverage to the sphere of National Hunt
racing.
Summary
In promotional material for ‘Bull:
The Biography’, published in 1995, Phil Bull was billed,
justifiably, as ‘racing’s most celebrated and successful punter’.
Certainly, Bull was one of the most influential figures in the
history of horse racing, developing an innovative technique for
analysing form by awarding a performance figure to each individual
performance by a horse. Nowadays, that practice is part of the
official handicappers’ methodology for handicapping horses.
However, although he won, and lost, thousands of pounds, Bull was by
no means an inveterate gambler. In fact, he once said, ‘I’m not a
gambler. Betting as such doesn’t interest me’, although he added,
‘Racing is different; it’s a continuing play with a fresh set of
individual characters every year. Not a who-done-it, but a who’ll
do it.’
