Racing: The A-Z Of Betting - E is for . . .

Each-way: A bet which does not require a horse to win, only to be thereabouts, and also as prime an example as you will find of the law of diminishing returns. Earlier generations of punters would have settled for nothing less than a quarter the odds a place whatever the race, but these days you will be paid at one fifth if your choice finishes second or third in anything but the tightest of handicaps. Changes to the rules have squeezed each-way betting to the point where the pips do not squeak, they negotiate for a formal surrender. These days, if you fancy a horse to run well without necessarily winning, there are two alternatives, one easy, the other difficult. Easy: back something else to win, rather than waste money on a place bet - perhaps a runner on the opposite side when you're not sure how the draw will work out. Difficult: don't back anything at all.

Early-Bird prices: A relatively recent development, and cunningly named to call to mind a hungry bird tugging away at a juicy worm in the first light of dawn. In fact, a phoenix would often be a more appropriate avian image, given the mythical nature of many morning-line odds. Although still a fine reminder of the need to search for value, these now seem to be little more than an early-warning system for bookies who have stepped out of line, as well as a source of fodder for the letters columns of the racing papers as frustrated punters recount how 12-1 became 6-1 within 30 seconds of opening time.

Easy to back: Instructive description of a horse which is drifting in the on-course market. Should you wish to support it, you will find the bookies more than happy to accommodate you - at which point any sensible punter will stop to wonder why a sharp-suited wide-boy with two kids at a minor public school and a mock-Tudor pile near Basildon should suddenly be so keen to give money away.

Eligible: Which you are on your 18th birthday, a year after the law allows you to drive, and two after it's okay to procreate. This is yet another result of the long-established official attitude to gambling - that it is a tatty enough business for adults to engage in, so God - and Parliament - forbid that impressionable minors should ever get corrupted. Despite this, strangely, a young person's inaugural visit to a betting shop has never been a cherished rite of passage, like their first snog, or that ill-conceived attempt to drink a bottle of Thunderbird in less than 10 minutes. But then it does not take long to realise that what looks like a tangible aura of licentiousness hanging over the door is in fact just a thick pall of fag smoke.

Exchequer, the: By rights, dour old Gordon Brown should be the biggest racing fan in the country, since the Treasury's share of the tax on all off-course bets amounts to some pounds 350m each year. This compares to just pounds 50m, less than one per cent of total annual betting turnover, which returns to the sport via the Levy. As Peter Savill, of the Racehorse Owners Association, never stops reminding us, prize-money levels in Britain are among the lowest of any major racing country, a situation which might be rectified if the Chancellor did not grab quite so much for himself. Then again, if the multi-millionaire Savill paid British tax like the rest of us, he might not have to.

Explanation: Would-be trainers learn to make excuses for a disappointing run almost before they discover which end of a horse bites, but an explanation is a little different. This is an official statement supplied by a trainer at the request of the stewards when a horse has performed unaccountably badly and, thanks to a sudden attack of glasnost on the part of the authorities a couple of years ago, it can also be published in the racing press. This last idea was one which, rather tellingly, the National Trainers' Federation was none too pleased about, since bleating about a horse needing a different trip or going tends to imply that the handler concerned does not have the first or faintest clue what he or she is doing.