Why are we loyal to horses? Well, why did you fancy them in the first place?

In an interview that came out this week with the excellent William Kedjanyi from Star Sports, I was asked about the mistakes I make as a punter.

It is not a new question – apart from anything else, it's something I often ask myself and I have suggested in this column that all bettors should do the same periodically. So I knew what to answer at that moment: I was, and to a lesser extent remain, too loyal to certain horses.

This being a real-time interview, there was also some stream-of-consciousness stuff about how most of us continue to make our earliest mistakes all through our punting lives and how that is consistent with our wider characteristics. In other words, show me the guesser at 18 and I'll show you the man.