How I became the world's only stand-up comic, pro punter and newspaper columnist

We live in an age of self-promotion and legend-building, where even accountants have 1,000-word biographies on LinkedIn about how they were bitten by a radioactive spreadsheet as a child, leading them to pursue a life of selfless, heroic number-crunching and book-balancing.

However, it's occasionally useful to know a person's back story, especially if said person is tasked with writing a weekly column about his area of expertise for the foreseeable future, and, as most of you reading this quite rightly have no idea who I am, allow me to introduce myself.

Hello. My name is Ross Brierley and I hereby declare myself to be the world's only stand-up comedian, professional gambler and racing journalist.

My incredibly specific area of expertise doesn't qualify me for much, but the bigwigs at the Racing Post agree that writing a humorous weekly column about horse racing and betting might be in my wheelhouse. I hope they're right.

They say you don't choose the betting life, the betting life chooses you. And by they, I mean me. 'Congratulations, it's a gambler!' is the second least popular greeting card in the new baby section (after 'Sorry! It's not yours'), but betting runs in my blood. I can trace it back as far as 1900, to my great-great-grandad, William 'Fatty' Foulkes, a 6ft3in, 20st behemoth and once-capped England goalkeeper.

Post-football, he ran The Duke pub in Sheffield, and was quite the punter. His local legend status didn't protect him from the fact that gambling was illegal back then and, after the pub was raided by the police, they found 45 betting slips hidden on his gargantuan frame. His excuse that he "had no idea how they got there" didn't pass muster. Given his size, it's entirely possible he was telling the truth.

My 'uncle' (grandma's cousin), Billy Foulkes, was also quite the high roller. "Rich one minute and poor the next" according to family lore, a legendary Sheffield gambler and one of those old racecourse characters who have seemingly drifted away in the computer age.

I was blissfully unaware of this history when, at the ripe old age of eight, I placed my first bet via my granddad, picking Party Politics to win the 1992 Grand National through a selection method involving such scientific rigour as the colour of the silks and the alliteration of the name.

Party Politics (right) was Ross's introduction to betting when winning the 1992 Grand NationalCredit: Mirrorpix

If backing the winner of the National was supposed to fire my interest in horseracing it failed miserably as I didn't place another bet for 12 years, while studying journalism at the University of Sheffield. I got a job working in the William Hill call centre and, in the pre-smartphone era, telebetting was big business. It was vital that the minions on the phones could take a 50p Union Jack patent in the blink of an eye without batting an eyelid, which is nigh-on impossible.

During a two-week training course the trainer took us to a Ladbrokes across the road. To test my new-found knowledge I placed a £1 reverse forecast on traps one and two in a Crayford dog race and, as the blue jacket beat the red, decided to take this as a sign. A magic sign, if you will.

I often wonder what would have happened if the first bets I placed had lost. Would I have persisted, or would I have given up and tried something else? If I'd have chosen Docklands Express instead, or traps five and six, would I be editor of the Barnsley Chronicle right now?

Luckily, they did win, and I'm not.

Inspired by a good friend, I soon discovered the world of speed figures, the incomparable madcap thinking of Nick Mordin and Andrew Beyer, and we began to back more winners from the numbers than we ever did from studying form.

It baffles me that people still bet today without them. Can you imagine any other sport without the importance of time? "And Chelsea take the lead late in the game! How long is left?! We quite literally have NO idea. If only there was some way to measure just how long this match has been going on for." "Is Usain Bolt the fastest man on the planet? Nobody knows as the lads in the stadium couldn't be bothered to check their stopwatch." People use more complex systems to plan their route to work than they do when putting their hard-earned on a horse race and I don’t understand it at all.

After graduating, I managed to talk my way into work experience at William Hill Radio, turned up until they gave me a job, and worked full-time until July 8, 2010, when I inadvertently placed one of those life-changing bets that people hope for, copping the best part of two years' wages after Sans Frontieres, Poppet's Lovein and, an agonising five hours later at Epsom, the Chris Catlin-ridden Hairspray won at healthy double-figure odds. Chris, if you're reading this, I owe you a pint.

I quit working full-time (although I'm still there on a freelance basis. I might be a gambler, but I try to calculate my risks) and began spending my free days in what was ostensibly an in-running trading room but was really a Portakabin above a bookies with a high-speed internet connection. The punting life really is as glamorous as it sounds.

A steep, 24-month punting apprenticeship followed in which I would have made more money per hour doing a paper round (subsequent years have, thankfully, been significantly kinder) and, to let off steam, I took up a relaxing new hobby. As there's nothing more relaxing than barking drivel at a room full of strangers for their desperate approval, I decided to try my hand at stand-up comedy.

Gradually, these two disparate interests would collide. Together with my comedic writing partner at the time, we transformed Simon Holt into a member of So Solid Crew and created an unexpected viral smash with UK Garage Horse Racing, and in 2018 I took my debut stand-up show 'Accumulator' to the Edinburgh Fringe, learning quickly that things I found hilarious about racing and betting were often lost on the general public.

Which isn't a huge surprise. Horseracing is a sport in which 5ft, pyjama-clad adrenaline junkies ride half a ton of speeding flesh as fast as they can in a race to pass a bright red wooden lollipop, while the general public attempt to predict the future using a mind-bending number of ever-changing variables that most people don't truly understand. It's utterly ridiculous.

It's a fascinating, glorious sport and betting on it is a thrilling pastime, but at the end of the day it's healthy not to take it too seriously. Which is why it's a relief to finally find the perfect outlet for such nonsense, the sweet spot at the centre of my own skill set venn diagram.

This article has been made free as an introduction to our superb new weekly columnist. Read Ross Brierley every week in Sunday's edition of the Racing Post, or read online and get full access to our wide range of columnists, interviews, special reports and expert tipsters by joining Members' Club Ultimate today.