Book Extract: Brian O'Connorhas put his money where his mouth is, and attempted to turn €5,000 into €50,000 in one racing season.

In these extracts from his new book Add a Z€ro, the Irish Timesracing correspondent takes us through his first attempts to find a winner on the other side of the world from the comfort of his livingroom, his mad dash to Leopardstown, his passion for Derby Day at Epsom and why a Bank Holiday Monday in Naas is not to be missed . . .

THE SUCCESS of the internet betting company Betfair is at least partly due to how easy it is to join it. After just 10 minutes online, and in spite of a tortuously slow broadband system, I've become a new member of the world's most revolutionary betting community.

Five minutes later, only some frantic pawing of the keyboard prevents Essendon getting laid for €500 against another Australian Rules football team called the Kangaroos. It's not an encouraging start, but there is nothing for it but to persevere.

There are still plenty of punters who distrust internet betting as a bewildering, unpoliced badland and who don't go near the exchanges on principle. But that attitude is quickly becoming akin to those who resolutely rode to work while munching on the muck thrown up by Henry Ford's Model-Ts. There's no going back.

Last year, a Japanese company purchased 23 per cent of Betfair at a price that valued the company at £1.5 billion (€2 billion). That sort of figure doesn't allow for nostalgia.

The central theory of the betting exchanges is so blindingly obvious it makes you want to gnaw the table with frustration that you didn't think of it first - but, basically, the idea is that there is no real need for a bookmaker, like Paddy Power or Ladbrokes. Instead, the customer can be a bookmaker as well as a punter.

All that matters is getting someone that fancies a horse to win to make contact with someone who believes that the beast will lose. Then, let them trade and haggle and negotiate on their own. Do that and there's no need for hiking to a betting shop and scrawling out a betting docket. All anyone needs is a computer and a credit card and it is Caesar's Palace in the comfort of your own home - except without the free drinks. But, although the exchanges pride themselves on being customer-friendly, there is no point in believing that everyone is going to play the system like a virtuoso from the off.

At first, it can be quite intimidating. When called up, each race, or match or event, pretty much fills the screen with a massive selection of figures that resembles a stock exchange.

Apparently, that is deliberate because whether it is betting on football, racing, the Eurovision Song Contest or the width of Posh Spice's waist, the idea is to treat the business very much in the same manner as you would if you were trading in stocks and shares. There is also the fact that making it seem businesslike allows customers feel less guilty about deliberating for hours on end about the possible outcome of a football match.

It isn't long, though, before a rather less-grandiose way of explaining how the system works comes to mind. At either end of the screen, and running inwards are the prices that both the better and the layer are willing to do business at. In the middle are the best prices available to bet or lay.

Anyone who has ever gone through the tortuous waltz of bid and counterbid when buying or selling a house will recognise it straight away - except that here finding a figure that suits both sides can take just seconds.

Practice, however, is important.

To prevent Essendon being doubled with the Wagga Wagga ladies' bowls team, some midnight fumbling is called for. At first, it takes an effort not to draw the curtains. There's nothing wrong with something so natural, of course - but still.

With the wife and kids tucked up in bed asleep, there is something undeniably illicit - maybe even a little grubby - about sitting in the dark with only the laptop's glow and a barely audible television for company. After all, it's not like watching the rampant, free-to-view soft porn that seems to be on every other channel after 10 o'clock. Instead, while the rest of honest-to-God mankind is perving out to the plasticboobed grind of the barely knickered, yours truly is glued to the attheraces channel.

Even a decade ago, it was unthinkable that racing of any kind might be available at home through the night like this. Satellite technology, however, has smashed the boundaries.

Today, after the horses have stopped running in Ireland and Britain, they kick into gear in the US, and when that's finished, the world spins us into the delights of Australia. With the exchanges open 24 hours a day, it's now possible to bet around the clock and around the globe.

So, rather like a middle-aged Holden Caulfield and his fateful hotel date, this is an opportunity to use American and Australian racing to practise. Improve technique, if you like: just a tenner in each race in order to feel comfortable with the technology. The horses and jockeys and their form are a total mystery, but playing hunches for small money can be fun.

And there is also the not-inconsiderable bonus of not having to slap the kids and/or wife away from the television when they demand to watch something else. Pretty soon, those first tentative stabs at the keyboard, usually accompanied by anxious glances at the screen to see if a bailiff has seen his cue, disappear in a blur of digital speed. After all, there's a mudloving filly with a bellyful of lasix who's on top of the rail bias at Forrest Gump Falls and just has to be bet.

The American stuff really is a different world from racing here. Even language gets cut up in the cultural mangle. In the US, a speed horse is one that leads: here, it is the one coming from the back. "Off" refers to a track that's wet whereas it has rather more colourful connotations on this side of the puddle.

But the unfamiliarity is good. This isn't what the season is going to be about at all. It's just play. It is three nights of play that results in being down €200, but the consolation is in knowing this is only a phoney war. There will be time enough to drive a punting Panzer through those massed ranks of bookmakers nearer to home. Form at this time of year has to settle down.

As wet going turns faster with the better weather, form lines can switch around spectacularly. Some horses can rattle off quick ground with aplomb. Others can hardly walk on it without flinching, like Ian Paisley padding through a friary.

What's important, right now, is to formulate a strategy. I lodge a grand with Betfair. The rest is kept for more traditional warfare with the bookmakers. And even though it might not have been obvious to anyone peeping through the curtain, there is one vital codeword that will underpin the whole enterprise. Read any betting book, or listen to the experts, and the one mantra they repeat over and over again is that "discipline" is everything. Playing hunches is what mugs do - to make it pay, you have to be disciplined.

Metaphorically, there is already a coat of arms above the desk, a Rubenesque nymph clutching a stubby bookie-shop pencil in one hand and a cat-o'-nine-tails in the other. Sometimes, as another tenner goes down the pan at Redneck Downs, she appears to pull those black thigh boots up even higher towards that studded corset with its spiked pelt of dead dockets . . .

The indulgence of Day One at the Curragh and of three nights messing on the sofa means there is €4,700 left in the pot. This is faithfully recorded. If that seems the action of a man with an excessively puckered rectum, then it's only fair to inform you of my underlying impulsive nature which is more than capable of finding a 10/1 shot and chancing its arm on an all-or-nothing gamble. Reining in such recklessness is vital.

A hundred will be the minimum stake. That allows for a maximum of forty-seven bets, or forty-seven points. The scale of confidence will rise from there. A "mortal lock", as the yee-haw merchants in the States describe a racing certainty, might mean a five-point bet. Any more than that will be proof that the plot is being well and truly lost.

Talking about points rather than money is also likely to prevent a leap from altitude when things go wrong. But such fears are fleeting. Instead, there is enough of that start-of-term optimism still around to arouse nothing but impatience for the real green light to shine.

And, today, it finally does. Mahler has his first race at Leopardstown. If you read enough of the overseas racing press, it can sometimes seem that being Irish earns everyone a free pass into the horsey-club. That usually manifests itself in lines about "the whole of Ireland" being on some favourite at the Cheltenham festival.

The truth is that the whole of Ireland mostly couldn't give a good goddam for any favourite at Cheltenham or anywhere else. In fact, the vast majority of the country has never been at a race meeting at all. A perfect example arrives in the form of a cousin, Karen, her husband, Rory, and their three kids, who are visiting for Easter.

"You know what? I've never been racing in my life," Karen announces at breakfast.

"Same here," Rory adds.

Taking them is perfect cover for being at the races and not working. Other options for explaining a rare Saturday at the track include telling the truth, but marines jumped ashore at Okinawa with lighter hearts than I have at the idea of informing some of my colleagues about what's going on. If you believe that to be a little insecure, then you're right. We are talking some good friends here, top people, whose ability to take the piss should have had them signed as consultants by the colostomy bag industry years ago.

We are also talking a level of cynicism that really does mean they would look around for the coffin if they smelled some flowers. For morale's sake alone, avoiding telling the truth on this matter for a little while is important. The problem now, however, is that this convenient cover is causing a delay. By the time nappies are changed, puke wiped away and kids organised, we've only 25 minutes to make the first race where Diamond Necklace, the big grey filly that Aidan predicted would do much better this year, is due to run.

She's a 7/1 shot for a maiden. That's the sort of price to burn some rubber for. But burning rubber presumes a certain velocity and the M50 is not playing ball. Karen and Co are treated to the sight of "Uncle Brian" doing a turkey cock of splenetic fury as the traffic slowly spews its way around the city. An eyes-down, buttock-clenched charge up the emergency lane eventually gets us off the four-lane car park and brings us speeding to the back of the queue snaking its way towards Leopardstown's front gates.

As we snake up the long avenue, alongside the finishing straight, the runners suddenly and dramatically are no more than a couple of hundred of yards away. Diamond Necklace is unmistakable, that grey frame angling for a run towards the lead.

The faint thud of the whips starting to strike reach over the engines and the course commentary: it's inevitable that she is going to win. But Diamond Necklace doesn't: she doesn't even make the first three. Instead, the other O'Brien runner, All My Loving, comes out on top at a longer price than her stable companion and I feel enough relief to make it feel like I backed a winner.

This is a good sign, like some-thing is meant to be. If Diamond Necklace had won, it would cast a pall. Like some higher power saying, "not today, pal". That's completely illogical, of course, but who ever came to a racetrack for logic?

So, instead of being escorted around by a mad, mystic mullah of doom, the racing virgins are being steered by a comparatively lighthearted guide.

It's an interesting experience looking at a race meeting through the eyes of newcomers. When you're not working, the time between races really starts to lag, especially when you're trying to stop the kids from complaining about being bored.

"I can see how it could be a good day out," Karen concludes. "But you'd need to leave the kids at home - and be able to drink. There's nothing else to do, really, is there?"

It's time to park this social experiment for a while, though. The third race is a seven-furlong handicap that features two that ran on Day One at the Curragh. Out Of The Red had Warriors Key a length behind him when he was runner-up to his stable companion, Little White Lie. Afterwards, the winning trainer said the second would be better on faster ground. Out Of The Red has got that now, and his jockey should be capable of a better ride this time. At 4/1, he looks a reasonable bet.

He is too - a perfectly reasonable each way bet. Out Of The Red travels like a winner for most of the race and 50 yards from the line, it looks over. But then, Warriors Key suddenly finds another burst and nails his rival on the line by a short head. Each way betting has never floated my boat. Paying the win and then the place just seems like doubling the bet. The sober argument is that it provides a dig out if things don't turn out ideally, but that probably comes down to a temperament thing - and this temper believes that if you fancy the horse, you just put your head down and go for it. Each way is the bet your accountant would advise, and who ever depended on an accountant for thrills?

There's certainly no each way option for Mahler. The Drumderrry Maiden, run over a mile and a quarter, might be worth just €11,747 to the winner, but that's only a fraction of what some of these three-year-olds could be worth. Early-season maidens at the big tracks are always competitive, but, from the gossip in the ring and around the weigh room, at least four horses are expected to win. Mahler will start as favourite. Another unraced O'Brien colt by Galileo called Acapulco made his debut at Navan a weekend ago and skated up by nine lengths.

Normally, these newcomers need their first run. But Acapulco didn't, and Mahler is reputed to be at least as good. The good news is that with Mores Wells, Mourilyan and a raw, gangling beast called Vincenzio Galilei also supposed to be the nearest thing to Pegasus incarnate, there's no danger of Mahler being a ridiculously short favourite.

It's always a good idea to examine the saddling box area. Considering the parade ring is only yards away, and people are spilling back from the front of the stands, it's remarkably peaceful. Not too many come here to lean on the rail and watch this behind- the-scenes tranquillity. They're missing out. The sun is warm enough to be pleasant and a breeze rustles through the oak trees overlooking the line of magnolia-painted stables. It looks like a pretty miniature terrace of suburban orderliness, until a scrape of a hoof or a moving shadow in the gloom betrays an occupant.

There is very little said as the runners are led around in front of the boxes. Some are saddled up already. But the three Ballydoyle runners are bare-backed and waiting. Mahler looks the pick of them by some way. That lordly attitude from a few weeks ago isn't quite as pronounced, but the idea that a new experience like this might cause him to get on edge is not a concern. Instead, he saunters around, head low, appreciating the sun on his back, and appearing not to have a care in the world. It's a great sign.

To his left, Red Kingdom, a 100/1 outsider, is on his toes and spookily pointing his head towards the sky as a possible escape route.

O'Brien arrives and begins his prerace ritual. It's the same at Epsom for the Derby or Tipperary for a maiden. The horse is held by one of the lads and the master horseman puts a reassuring hand along its withers and back. The rubber pad on which the saddle will sit goes on first, followed by the numbercloth, and then the postage stamp of a saddle. The girths are swung underneath the horse's belly and handed to a crouching O'Brien who pulls hard to tighten them before one final check to see that the saddle is sitting right. Then he gives the mane and tail a final brush out and sponges the horse's mouth with water.

Sometimes, one of them will require a leg-stretch, where both front limbs are stretched out in front, rather like a footballer warming up. It's a strange thing to see at first. You would think the animal's first reaction to such an unnatural position would be to lash out, but O'Brien can make it look no more unusual than a father ruffling a child's hair.

Mahler's mood doesn't change and he plods around the parade ring like an old steeplechaser rather than a three-year-old colt. Along with the rest of the field, he emerges from the chute out to the track and canters to the start just as I get 5/2 from a bookmaker.

At this moment, for a horse that "could be anything", the price looks like a gift from the gods. The original plan to ease into things with a one-point bet has disappeared. Out Of The Red had been a one pointer. It's time to bet properly. Four points will get a grand. It sounds good.

At the start, Mahler walks into his stall as if he's been doing it all his life. He's 9/4 now with the bookies, which means I've got a small edge already. As the last of them load up, my heart feels like it is plugged into a jack-hammer. For once, there is no large screen in front of the stands, so a TV in the bookies' ring is the best option and a group of us pack around.

My horse - and by now it feels like I have at least an equal share with John Magnier - breaks perfectly well and sits in third or fourth for the first furlong. His jockey, Séamus Heffernan, doesn't look anxious as Mourilyan makes ground to take the lead. Mahler loses a position on the outside, but, again, Heffernan appears unconcerned. There's a mile to go: plenty of time left. Mahler isn't exhibiting the usual keenness to get on with things that often blights a horse's first race.

The sickening realisation that he doesn't appear keen to do anything much at all doesn't come until another couple of furlongs. He slips back to second last and Heffernan starts tapping him down the shoulder with his whip. He may as well be tapping the Ark Royal for all the response it generates.

Mahler is clearly as green as grass. He looks like he barely knows how to gallop forward. They haven't even made the straight and it's obvious there's no chance. Nothing can win from there. Karen, Rory and the kids charge the gates on the way out. We leave before the last to beat the traffic.

The small ones have the exultantly relieved faces one imagines the Mafeking lookouts had when Mahon marched over the horizon. Their driver no doubt resembles Cronje after looking behind him.

Nothing much is said until we hit the M50 again. Then Karen pipes up.

"It isn't my cup of tea, I have to say. But it really is a relaxing way to spend an afternoon."