But there is one method guaranteed to give any backer a run for his or her money, although it requires patience and the nerve to hold steady and restrict your involvement to two small periods of the year.

It's October, the spring carnival is catching fire, the cups and the Cox Plate are on the horizon and the "system" is just about to come into its own as one of the country's biggest owners, Lloyd Williams,  flexes his muscles.

Williams makes no bones about his racing aims. He is in the game to win the majors, the cups and the group 1 classics, and his entire operation is geared to peaking in that short window between Turnbull Stakes day at Flemington and Sandown Guineas day in mid-November, when the carnival slows down.

Of course the Macedon Lodge yard is happy to win at other times – the Melbourne autumn, when the Australian Cup has been a popular target, and the Sydney carnival, when the famous navy blue with white hoop colours have been seen to great effect in races like the Sydney Cup, is also a key period for the leviathan owner.

But it is in his home state of Victoria, and in Melbourne's majors, that Williams takes particular interest.

Racegoers who can barely pin the tail on a donkey and are there for the socialising as much as the sport can turn up over the next few weeks knowing one thing, if nothing else, as they head to the tote windows or queue to get on with a  bookie:  they will get more than a run for their money from a Williams galloper, whether its having its final prep race before a tilt at the cups or Cox Plate, or in the championship event itself.

Williams has won four Melbourne Cups to share top billing ( with Bart Cummings' great partner Dato Tan Chin Nam and  19th-century horsemen John Tait and Etienne de Mestre) as the most successful  owner in Australia's great race.

The property developer and casino king – he established Crown before selling his majority stake in the late 1990s – has spent fortunes on pursuing his dreams, establishing a much admired training centre at Macedon Lodge, north of Melbourne, and purchasing large numbers of choicely bred horses from Europe to aim at the cups.

These days Williams, once a racing partner of the now deceased and legendary  Kerry Packer, no longer bets and rarely attends the races.

His son Nick has become a well-known figure on racing broadcaster TVN and the Seven Network during the big meetings as he analyses the Williams  runners' performances and lays bare future plans, all designed to climax at this time of the year.

But Williams does break cover occasionally, conducting thoughtful and wide-ranging interviews on the racing radio station RSN and, on Thursday night, putting in an appearance at the Australian Racehorse of the Year awards dinner at the Melbourne Museum.

On a night when the horses generally take centre stage, it was  Williams who very nearly stole the show courtesy of a mini documentary showcasing the man and his commitment to the racing game, a lifelong devotion that began in the mid-1960s and shows little sign of wavering now that the Xavier College-educated businessman is into his 70s.

Shot in the bucolic environment of Macedon Lodge, a lush green pasture of paddocks, horses and post and rail fencing, Williams looks every inch the racing man in flat cap and jerkin fastened against the elements.

It is hard not to see the attraction of such a place, nor have any doubt when Williams smiles at the camera and says, simply : "I love to be with the horses in the morning. I have to be involved. It's a passion for me – it's been in my blood since I was young."

Williams acknowledges the racing debts he owes to those who have been his educators along the way, none more so than the great Sydney trainer T.J.Smith, who prepared his first Melbourne Cup winner, Just A Dash, back in 1981.

"I don't think I would know anything about racehorses if I had not met T.J.," Williams admits with a frankness that is disarming. "He could have  been successful in anything he chose to be. I was fortunate in my life that Tom took a great liking to me."

Along the way there were some great horses, especially the likes of Mahogany who, his owner points out, had the class, speed, stamina and ability to win two derbies over middle distances at three and also two Lightning Stakes over the minimum trip of 1000 metres, beating the best sprinters in the land as an older horse.

But it is the stayers and the classic distance gallopers that Williams returns to time and again. His success with Just A Dash was complemented by What A Nuisance in the 1985 Cup, and then in more recent times with Efficient, a particular favourite, in 2007, and Green Moon, an English import, in 2012.

Green Moon has not won a race since his greatest triumph at Flemington almost two years ago, but he returns to the scene of that victory on Saturday when he will carry the No.1  saddlecloth in the Turnbull Stakes, a race that he won  in 2012.

The eight-year-old son of Montjeu ran down the track behind Fiorente in the Cup last year, but showed he retained plenty of ability a few months later when he ran Gai Waterhouse's Cup winner to a half length in the group1 Australian Cup at headquarters.

Team Williams will also saddle up Thought Worthy in the Turnbull Stakes. He  will be ridden by Williams'  godson, Nick Hall, successful for the owner on Fawkner in the Caulfield Cup last year.

While Fawkner is a home bred – he is by Reset, a top-class horse raced by Williams, out of Dane Belltar –  and is the stable's top Cox Plate hope, Thought Worthy is another import who, it is fair to say, has hardly set the world alight since coming to Australia.

Prepared  in England by leading trainer  John Gosden, Thought Worthy was one of the better young stayers of his generation, having finished fourth behind Coolmore's Camelot in the 2012 Epsom Derby. He subsequently won the group 2 Great Voltigeur Stakes, beating home the likes of Encke and Frankel's full brother, Noble Mission, but could finish only sixth of nine behind Godolphin's Encke in the St Leger, the final classic of the English season.

His Australian efforts have been poor in comparison, failing to run a place in three starts. It is possible that like many imports he needs a year under his belt in this country to acclimatise, but he would need to show vast improvement on his season reappearance, a nine-length last of 10 behind Foreteller in the group 1 Underwood Stakes recently, to have any chance in the Turnbull.

Still, it is October and it's a Williams contender, so if the son of Dynaformer was to come good, this would be the time of year to do so.

Earlier in the afternoon the stable sends out yet another highly credentialled import in Sea Moon, who will seek to once again be first past the post in the Bart Cummings, a race he "won" narrowly last year only to lose on protest. Sea Moon is another high-class English import (he was trained by Sir Michael Stoute before coming into the Williams camp) and although he has been successful at group 2 level (in last year's Herbert Power Handicap) expectations were probably that he might have achieved more by now.

Perhaps he, too, will be better in Australian conditions with a year under his belt. He gets the chance to prove it  in his first racecourse appearance of the spring when he shoulders 60 kilograms, giving upwards of 2.5 kilograms  to his  eight rivals.