Racing
Dirty tricks
Jeffrey Bernard
It's three weeks now since Youth won the Washington International and still they go on knocking the horse. Even if he would have been disqualified in England or France there just isn't any denying the quality of the animal. The fact that I got 100-30 about Youth one week before the race really hasn't anything to do with the fact that I think he should win the 'Horse of the Year' competition. But the business of foul riding and tactics has had me reflecting on sharp practices in racing. I suppose the most common form of them is betting after time. In America, some years ago, they went to an enormous
amount of trouble to get the man who relayed the racecourse commentaries to the bookmakers' offices to delay his commentaries for just one minute. They cleaned up packets before they were tumbled. There are endless dodges used by betting shop employees to mistime bets and you might wonder why they bother since they always get caught. It's the really petty stuff that intrigues me, though. A friend who is an exrunner for a bookie told me a fairly sordid one when 1 last met him. He said he was standing in a pub one day where he used to take bets when a woman said to him that he'd dropped something and pointed to a bit of paper on the floor. Without much thinking he thanked her, picked it up and put in in his pocket. Of course, it was a slip for a race that had just been run. He found out later that her husband got the results on the phone, she'd then write out a winning bet and drop it on the floor by the nearest bookmaker.
The same man also told me about the strange graffiti on the wall of the gents in a South London pub. He was idly gazing at it one day during an inter-race slash when he noticed that nearly all the words written had more than four letters. There were in fact the names Gentle Art, King's Petition and Prince Pan, which is exactly how they finished in the 1963 running of the Woodcote Stakes. Someone had been very fly in getting the results on the dot, tearing down to the gents to write them up on the wall where someone else would come in and see them and write out a quick bet after time. Oddly enough it never occurs to this friend of mine to admit that he was a bit of a mug. I'm less surprised than he is that he is no longer in the bookmaking business. Incidentally, he's a very strange bird indeed this man. He now manages an old people's home, but he's always got wads of readies on him when he comes up to the West End. I suspect that quite a few wills are written in his favour by people who discover too late that he's standing on the oxygen tube. But that's another matter.
The coup I liked the best that never came off was the Francasal affair. If you don't remember it they put in a ringer at Bath one day, cut the telephone wires to London so that the money couldn't get back and spoil the price and then they plunged on the horse which was returned, I think, at 100-8. The only other method I know of backing winners is to study form and take no notice of anyone. That's what I've been doing this week and the larder is empty. The only daft bet I've had recently has been a Yankee shared with three others. Two Irish barmen, an architect and myself picked out one each this week and did a Yankee plus an extra accumulator. The first one got stuffed and for the umpteenth time I realised that when the first leg of a Yankee gets beaten then straight away you've lost seven bets. Mind you, there's something really exciting about this sort of betting when the first two win and you know that the other two are in with a chance. But all the same it's lunacy. The other thing that might turn out to be lunacy is this horse of mine. Doug Marks phoned up today to say he'd put the forms for registering her in the post, so soon I'll officially ban owner. Old hat for some of you but very exciting for me. It's nice to hear him speak the horse's name, Deciduous, as opposed to referring to it as 'the filly.' I suppose in no time at all I'll be worrying about joints and tendons and making a bloody nuisance of myself with Doug by making flying visits to the yard in Lambourn and asking the staff daft questions. What I will do when I'm down there is to visit The Malt Shovel. This is a very pleasant little pub opposite Fulke Walwyn's yard. What's nicer about it than a London pub is standing in the window and watching his and Fred Winter's string walking back after working on the Downs. What you mustn't do if you go there is to take notice of everything you hear. You can be given fifty tips in the time it takes to drink a pint of bitter with the stable lads. You can then move on to The Red Lion and get another fifty tips to beat the fifty you just got. But still, it's a pleasant way to pass a morning as if you needed telling that. And speaking of tips I wouldn't dare do more than hazard the opinion that Fred Winter will have more than one winner at Ascot on Saturday.
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