The Racing Week

By Ian Henderson

This is a very difficult time for punters and has been difficult for a few weeks now. The failure of a number of hot favourites over the weekend only highlights this and you do need to take care. I could never understand why anybody would bet ante post. When you put your money down you haven’t a clue what the form will be like, whether the horse will be fit enough and if it doesn’t run you lose your money. Like they say, there’s one born every minute and thank God some of them live. Are these punters so wealthy that it doesn’t matter? If that is the case then it would be better to give the money to charity.

People seem to have lost sight of the fact that fillies and mares win in the autumn and you only have to look at nature to find out why. It is quite simple really. In the spring a filly wants to be caught by the colt down the field but in the autumn she doesn’t. Likewise pregnant mares run for their lives because they don’t need the attentions of a colt at that stage.

It is also a difficult time for both Flat horses and National Hunt. On the National Hunt scene just about every race has horses in it that haven’t seen a racecourse for months. Likewise on the Flat which is handing over to the All Weather but there are many Flat runners appearing on the All Weather after a long layoff from the surface and some horses that have never run on it before. It is no use staking all on the hot C/D horse only to see it beaten by an outsider who decides at the last minute that he does like the surface but has never run on it before. So November is a quiet month for me as I wait for everything to settle down.

I tried my football bet again. A Trixie on three sides that couldn’t fail. The result was two draws and a win. I was told that I was very lucky to score three from three on the first attempt. I thought that I had found a sure-fire way to help my crippled pension. Is there anybody out there who can actually live on the state pension? I am lucky in having two pensions but I can only just cope. The worst state pension in the Western world and Britain is supposed to be so rich?

Talking of Trixies brings me to the matter of each way doubles and trebles which are so popular. The bookies have carved up this bet to suit themselves. If you find a winner at 34.0 and a 2nd at 11.0 you don’t get the win element from the first runner. The bookies say that it is just a place bet. No it isn’t, it’s a bloody swindle. All you have to do is write your bet as follows;

£10 ew Horse A.     Any to come,      ew Horse B.

Simple but the best ideas are simple. Horse A wins and ALL the winnings go forward.  The same goes for Trebles and accumulators.

My best bets ever have been on following the England cricket team and backing their opponents for a win. The English Cricket team are pathetic and this might have something to do with successive governments selling off playing fields to Tesco et al. Years ago they had a match against Zimbabwe and Zim were 3.5. What nobody this side of Mt. Kilimanjaro realised was the

An uncertain future The Epsom Derby meeting

Zim team was three quarters South African players. England were walloped again. England Cricket supporters must have more blind faith than Muslims. They were beaten by South Africa again this weekend. I got 3.0 on SA. A brilliant bet. Just back all England’s cricket opponents. You’ll make a fortune.

The Derby was wrecked when they moved it from Wednesday to Saturday. On the Wednesday it was a good excuse for a day out and a very festive one at that. Next year it is likely that it will only be available by SKY subscription. This highlights the decline in racing’s reputation. The authorities should take something like the Derby and make it equal to cup final day but without the help of the media they are going nowhere. Royal Ascot and The Cheltenham Festival are still a good excuse for a day off and they are successful. It would be a real pity if the Derby were lost. Maybe we have lost interest because it is just an Irish benefit but so is the Cheltenham Festival.  Put it back to Wednesday and it would soon find its old magic. The powers that be don’t have much power to do the right thing. Just a bunch of prats still debating whether the prize money should be in guineas. The rule for fining a jockey 20 guineas for refusing a ride still exists from the 1700s and was applied a couple of years ago when a jockey was asked to ride a persistent faller two weeks before Cheltenham and refused. I don’t think the 20 guinea fine bothered him very much.  Of course 20 guineas would have bankrupted a jockey in 1780. Such is the sad state of British racing. All they can do is dream up more and more races when we have too many already.

Finally a word of advice from Barry Hills. ‘Never bet Odds On, if you could buy money they would sell it in the shop down the road.’

That’s all. 

Ian Henderson