Gamble Landed

By Wily Fox

It was a wintry day back in the early eighties that a monster gamble was to be landed at a sparsely attended Wolverhampton racecourse. The exciting thing I was to be involved in the audacious plot to take the bookies to the cleaners.

Let me take you back 12 months when the plan was hatched in a smokey little pub in Ireland. We had heard on the grapevine there was a horse for sale at the right price from a shrewd Irish trainer that owed us one or two favours. We thought if this horse could be brought back to her best (as she was injured ) and been off the track for a year she had enough in the tank to win an average novice hurdle in England.

My associate had some great contacts in the betting world plus had been brought up with horses, although he did not hold a trainers license. His son was also well known jockey riding for Fred Winter and booting home plenty of winners. He also claimed he had a secret formula to apply to horses that had "a leg" which this beast indeed had.
We contacted the Irish trainer and a deal was struck at a paltry £500 for the crocked animal named RACHEL'S DELIGHT. When we set eyes on the wretched beast she could hardly walk let alone gallop, the plan was looking light years away but as the deal was done we at least had to give it a go.

The horse was shipped over to England and housed at a secret location in Cumbria. My associate now had to get the beast fit and ready to race. His "magic" formula was applied for 4 weeks to the horses leg. Gradually she became sound and in her quite, idyllic surroundings began to thrive. The horse was asked to do miles and miles of walking around the country lanes, his rider ( my associates son...the professional jockey) never daring to force a trot in case she broke down again on that fragile leg. As each week passed her muscle tone increased and after three months we decided to try her at half speed. The smiles on our faces grew as she stretched out in grand style on the disused old air field we used to train her on in Cumbria. We gradually increased her work rate over the weeks and she did show some fabulous speed....we knew that this horse could now do a "job". We also popped her over some rusty oil drums which we found lying around...hell this horse could certainly jump...our confidence was growing daily, the dream was definitely on!

Our close circle of racing contacts now had to be requisitioned to pull off our long term plans. Firstly we needed a trainer to race the horse under....this was no easy task as the penalties for getting found out that a trainer who did not actually train a horse in his care were severe. After much persuading we finally found a man to help us. This character was down on his luck and had taken to drink as his training business was going down the pan at a rapid rate of knots...he needed money fast..ideal.

We let him in our intentions and promised to pay him £10,000 should the horse oblige. He was well up for it at that point.

Now the second part of the plan was to make sure we put the least amount of money on at the biggest price to minimise any financial risk. Luckily we had dealings with a front line bookmaker that "blew" back prices to the main four bookmakers on the old Extel commentary system at the time.

After a few drunken meetings and a promise to pay the bookmaker £20,000 in cash to rig the first show "blown" back into the betting shops he agreed to help. The next step was to recruit a select band of punters who had plenty of credit accounts as we needed to get on at the "first show" in order for the sting to work properly. This was achieved by placing an advertisement in the Sporting Life. We sifted through the many replies and sorted out 20 people we hopefully could trust not to blab to all and sundry. We did this by having a dry run on another piece of information we received prior to the big day....this horse won and the 20 punters all paid up and the price was not affected...this was great news as another piece of the jig-saw was complete.

RACHEL'S DELIGHT continued to blossom, we now had to find a race she could win. Her form from before her injury was a second and third placing and behind some fair Irish horses at the time. Given the right race and good ground she had the credentials to claim a victory.

We spotted an ordinary race at Wolverhampton in the entries book and decided this course would suit her....she was entered up in our trainers name even though he had never even set eyes on  the horse as she was still housed at a secret location.

D-day had arrived and the papers overnight price for our horse was 4/1.....not nearly big enough!

After a conversation with our front line bookmaker he agreed to put the horse in at 14/1 first show. This would then mean all our money placed on the morning of the race would be on at 14/1 as we all asked our bookies to lay us the first show on the horse....bingo!

We arrived at the course in our beaten up horse box, nerves jangling at the thought of what was about to take place. RACHEL'S DELIGHT looked calm and in mint condition probably wondering what all the fuss was about.
The "trainers" son and jockey got on board in the paddock, he said in nonchalant mood "don't worry boys she'll win".

I was told the bookmaker had indeed got away with rigging the first show, all bets were on at 14/1 and in two minutes the horses price had collapsed to 4/1....nearer it's true price.

My friends had also managed to get a fair old lump on the course for me and my "trainer" at 14/1.

Then came the race itself, which to be honest was a bit of an anti-climax as "RACHELS" travelled through the contest pulling double all the way, jumping like a stag and won hard held by 2 lengths.....GAMBLE LANDED.
We took home over £80,000 pounds in Sainsbury's carrier bags from the course, but had to wait 4 weeks to be paid out on our credit accounts as BOLA held an investigation into suspicious betting patterns and rumours of wrong doing. Nothing was proven though and our total haul of cash rang in at over £140,000. Some great nights out were had by all I can tell you, and some shrewd property investments made at the time. One sour note to report though, we thought she was a raging certainty next time...we invested £10,000 in readies and she managed to get stuffed into second place at 5/4...that's racing!

Hope you enjoyed the story...it is NOT FICTION. More tales from the "inside" at a later date.
 
The Wily Fox