The Racing Week
By Ian Henderson

So the Racing Post decided to go in for full colour but what I would like to know is, what idiot decided that yellow print on white paper is readable? I realise that as I get older my eyesight may give me problems but this isn’t helped when the item I am looking at is more or less unreadable to a keen sighted 20 year old. Apart from that I can’t really tell the difference between the new colourful Post and the old version. It must be my eyesight but I could swear that some of the print size has been reduced as well. I’ll have to get a magnifying glass. They have messed up the Form Headings as well. Where before you could quite clearly see the race time, the distance and the value. Now the Distance and the Value have a muddy background and you have to really peer. In fact you don’t peer any more, you get the information from the Race card. Progress?  No thanks. Bring back the Sporting Chronicle.

It is fairly obvious that in this recession, which will go on for another ten years, the racecourses have to attract customers and not just the middle aged and pensioners. If racing is to have any future at all it must attract the young.  Sandown, Goodwood and Newbury have created free entry for youngsters up to the age of 18. That is the sort of deal that should be available everywhere. The reasoning behind the move is that under the age of

One of the most forward thinking Racecourses Sandown Park

18 you can’t bet or consume alcohol. Can we think a little bit beyond bookie and bar profits? These under 18s are going to eat and drink soft drinks and ask Uncle to put a bet on for them but the most important aspect of offering them free entry is that they may still be going to the races in twenty years time. I realise that the whole country with a few exceptions thrives on greed and profits but a little bit of planning ahead wouldn’t go amiss.

The bookies love multiple bets which is a good reason why the punter should avoid them like the plague. They do have their place as fun bets and every now and then they do pay off. A multiple bet is a minefield because as soon as one selection loses you have lost half your bet. Getting every selection up, even in a double, is quite rare but a friend of mine gave me a huge argument as to why his Trixie is better than my Round Robin. Saturday’s runners didn’t inspire much confidence with more that three quarters of the runners coming out after long layoffs. We decided to run an experiment. I know nothing whatsoever about football and I chose three teams to win and had two bets. One Trixie and one Round Robin. With four bets to a Trixie and ten bets to a Round Robin I set the stakes so that there was the same total on each bet. Which bet do you think is the best for percentage profit on the stake? The answer is at the bottom of the page. My football fanatic friend told me that it is a remarkable achievement to locate three winners from three in football so it must have been beginners luck. All three teams won but the prices were pathetic. The best of them was 4/7 but he insisted that even at odds on it is difficult otherwise the bookies would go broke. I offered to sell him my winner finding method for a couple of grand but he declined. I am writing this on Sunday and won’t find the payout on each bet till tomorrow, Monday, but I would think that the Round Robin payout is going to have me betting on football for ever. The bookies never advertise the bet so it must be a profitable one.

We tend to regard the bookmaker as the enemy but in fact he is the punter’s friend. Before the days of exchanges the only way that you could bet was with a bookmaker so in fact if he hadn’t been there we wouldn’t have been able to bet. He gathers the money in from the mugs and pays out a percentage to the winners. My father in law was arrested twice in the 50s as a bookie’s runner. A real criminal family that one! Even today you would be surprised to know how many people haven’t got a computer and many who do have a computer don’t have access to the internet. I have seen first hand a bookie who went broke and there have been instances where this has happened elsewhere. The world is always greener on the other side of the fence but many independent bookies have bad patches. I knew one in Eastbourne who would always give an extra point above SP. But his shop was in the middle of a Greek community which included three owners. He went bust very quickly. I think he survived for about eighteen months.

A mare in Yorkshire has just had a filly foal by Whipper out of Thrasher. They are looking for a name and I would suggest Eton Prefect. What do you think? They must come up with a good one for that filly.   Dominatrix?   GBH? (Bloody Good Horse but dyslexic). It’s sad that the name chosen has to be clean to get past Wetherbys. It was a miracle that the horse named ‘Wear the Fox Hat’ ever got approved. The clean minds at Wetherbys never suspected a thing. Shy Talk was mild by comparison.

I watched the Festival of Remembrance last night and I had a tear in my eye when the widows marched in. I really don’t know how Brown had the gall to attend. I never watch the Cenotaph ceremony because I feel physically sick when I see our crook politicians laying wreaths.

The answer to the Trixie versus Round Robin came as a complete surprise to me. To a total bet stake of £1.00 the Round Robin returned £2.80 profit and the Trixie returned £4.00 profit. 4/1 on a certainty sounds good to me. Football for ever! The prices were terrible. 1/2, 4/7 and 4/11. The result was good though. I owe my friend a pint now.

That’s all.

Ian Henderson