I was reading about bookmaker Gary Wiltshire in the Times at the weekend.
He was an average small time bookie, on a good day heād win a grand, a bad day heād lose a grand. After getting caught in traffic jam on the way to a race meeting he decided to divert to Ascot instead. It was the day of Detorriās 7 timer. He made Detorriās ride in the last a 12/1 shot but all the big firms needed to get it as short as possible and it opened up at 3/1. He decided to lay it at 7/2 and did ā¬1.4m. :lol:
He still paying back Corals and has written a book about it.
Gary Wiltshire is the fat fella that is on sky dogs talking about the betting each night. He works for BB2 as well on televised meetings they show. Heās a gas man. Speaking of books, iād rather read Barney Curleys. Actually i might get it today. SS**, is it worth a read?
THE SEVENTH and last race was the Gordon Carter Handicap over two miles, in which Frankie Dettori was riding a gelding named Fujiyama Crest for Sir Michael Stoute.
In the morning papers Fujiyama Crest had been priced among the outsiders for the race, generally at around 12-1 and as long as 20-1 in one place. But as the day progressed and punters around the nation became aware of Frankieās apparently unstoppable surge towards racing history, the betting shops were landed with ever-growing liabilities through an avalanche of multiple bets on his rides in the later races. It was the best example ever of how the weight of money affects prices. The more that people lumped on, the lower the price of Frankieās horse fell.
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Look at this another way: 20-1 meant that the horse was considered to have roughly a five per cent chance of winning, while 2-1 meant that he was considered to have a 33 per cent chance. Which, in terms of form and all the rest of it, was closer to reality? Weight of money didnāt make Fujiyama Crest a better horse or his opposition weaker. Furthermore, he was wearing blinkers and as punter and bookmaker Iām always wary of any horse wearing them. To me, Fujiyama Crest was unreliable, in racing parlance a dog - and laying dogs had long been how I made my living!
If, before the avalanche of money, he had been anything up to a 20-1 shot, that was a realistic price and those odds which were showing on the bookiesā boards in Tatts or being yelled across an increasingly hysterical membersā enclosure - 3-1, 11-4, 5-2, 9-4 - were not.
No, those low prices were worse than unrealistic. They were barmy, stark staring bonkers insane. As far as I was concerned if Fujiyama Crest had been a 12-1 shot in the morning he was still a 12-1 shot, Frankie Dettori or no Frankie Dettori. Yes, Frankie was on fire by then, but how could that in itself make Fujiyama Crest run faster? Obviously, with everyone around me going 5-2 or lower Iād have been barmy myself to offer anything like that morning price. But here was what appeared a heaven-sent opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime chance to lay around 4-1 or 3-1 about a horse whose odds should have been five times that. It was a licence to print money, I thought as I took our first bet: pounds 5,000 at 4-1 from bookmaker Roy Christie.
Then Ralph Leveridge of Coral started firing in bets at us, starting with pounds 40,000 at 7-2, then pounds 20,000 at the same price. The more we took, the more people were scrabbling to get on.
Itās important to be clear that none of these bets were in cash and the great majority were from other bookmakers who were desperately looking to hedge liabilities as off-course money flooded into the on-course market. If one of the big chain bookmakers had taken a sizeable bet on Fujiyama Crest at 3-1 and they could back the horse with me at 7-2, clearly that was sound business.
A licence to print money? Well, almost.
WITH the big bookies on the rails now going as low as 6-4 as the off-course bookmakers were trying to force the price to odds-on to limit their massive liabilities, I was still calling out 3-1 and attracting loads of takers.
It would have taken a machine gun to stop me over the next 20 minutes as Christie was followed by a flood of others, all betting big - some in ten grands, some even six figures. The representatives of the major high-street betting shops - the big three - were coming in hard, as well as some of the tic-tacs.
I really canāt remember those few minutes in any detail. My clerk, Peter Houghton, was rushed off his feet, recording in the ledger all the bets raining down on us. But I never had the chance to pause and assess how deeply I was going in. It was a maelstrom. It was chaos. But all the while I was thinking: āAt the end of all this Iām going to have half a million pounds wrapped round my bollocks to play with for the rest of my life.ā
It was like being on the stage, an end-of-the-pier performance. I was taking the world on. It was my 15 minutes of fame. There was I, the kid whoād come from selling flowers down Leather Lane market, now at the very centre of things on the greatest racecourse in the world.
Iām not kidding; it felt fantastic.
And it never entered my mind that Fujiyama Crest could win.
At the off I was going 9-4, a fraction longer than Fujiyama Crestās starting price of 2-1 - he got as low as 6-4 before easing half a point - and things started to calm down only once the race had started.
The Gordon Carter Handicap began a little down the straight from the Ascot grandstand, which the runners passed before going out for one whole circuit of the course. As they came past us - with me, at the lowest rank of rails bookies, very close to the action - the place went wild and I started to get caught up in the mood.
Iād had neither time nor inclination to pause for a second and work out what my liabilities would be in the event - for me, the unthinkably unlikely event - of Fujiyama Crest winning, though I had a vague idea that Iād taken around pounds 500,000.
Frankie and Fujiyama Crest took the lead early and as they went past the hysterical stands and towards Swinley Bottom at the far end of the course, the delirium in the crowd kept scaling fresh heights.
Bizarrely, I found myself thinking: I might be teetering on the brink of ruin, but at least Iām witnessing one of the greatest racing moments ever.
Fujiyama Crest held the lead quite cosily all the way round Swinley Bottom and as the field met the rising ground taking them back towards the straight was still going very easily within himself. He was running more like a 2-1 chance than a 20-1 shot, but still I didnāt appreciate the scale of what was unfolding before me.
At Ascot the long-standing tradition is that they ring a bell as the field swings into the short straight. As I heard it ring out, Fujiyama Crest was still leading.
The cheering was getting louder and louder and louder, and then - thank you, oh thank you, God! - Pat Eddery on Northern Fleet came out of the pack and started to lay down a serious challenge to Fujiyama Crest. As the two horses came past me it looked as if I might yet be spared ruin, but it was as if the stands themselves, as well as every single person in them, were willing on Frankie and Fujiyama Crest, and that old dog managed to keep his blinkered head in front and hold off Northern Fleet to win by a neck. A neck!
TOTAL bedlam, and itās very hard to explain how I felt as Frankie went past the post in front. A combination of horror and a weird sort of elation, as Iād just seen an unbeatable moment of racing history.
Then I saw Peter staring into space, looking completely shell-shocked, all the colour drained from his face. I punched him hard on the arm - even money he still has the bruise - to bring him round.
There was chaos in the winnerās enclosure, with Frankie being cheered and cheered and repaying the acclamation by spraying the crowd with champagne. But Peter and I couldnāt hang around to watch all that.
As quickly as we could we made our way to Car Park 3 so we could assess the damage in comparative peace. We got into my car and started going down the ledger in more detail and as I ran my finger down the rows of recorded bets an icy trickle ran down my neck as I thought to myself: I could be in trouble here.
That was the understatement to end all understatements. I was scarcely halfway down the ledger when it became clear just how bad the damage was, and the name of one firm was pointing at me, like the rifles of a firing squad: Coral pounds 40,000 at 7-2 Coral pounds 20,000 at 7-2 Coral pounds 30,000 at 3-1 Coral pounds 10,000 at 3-1 Coral pounds 40,000 at 11-4 Coral pounds 10,000 at 5-2 Coral pounds 10,000 at 9-4 Iāll save you the bother of doing the sum. I owed Coral alone pounds 487,500 - nearly half a million smackers.
All told, the total was over a million pounds. Over a million pounds - I was in a daze, but had to pull myself together as my working day was far from over. Earlier that Saturday, when I thought I was going off to win a few quid at the humdrum meeting at Worcester before my plans were altered by traffic problems, Iād told my oldest son Nicky that Iād be joining him at Milton Keynes dogs later to run a book on the eveningās programme.
Nicky had been helping me out for several years and I knew he could easily hold his own at the pitch until I got there.
Peter got out of the Merc and walked ever so slowly back to his own car, still in a state of shock and trying to come to terms with what heād just been part of, while I took a large dose of the only medicine I had handy: Chas and Dave blaring out of the speakers more loudly than ever before. I just had to drown out the whoops of delight and appreciation I could still hear a hundred yards away in the winnerās enclosure.
I drove away from Ascot, round the M25 and on to the M40 as Iād decided to drop in on my old friend Ralph Peters, who lived in Beaconsfield. Ralph sometimes took a share in my betting but had declined to go with me to Worcester that day as it was too far for his liking. I hadnāt got round to telling him that Iād switched to Ascot so he wasnāt sharing my gains or losses there.
I think he must have been the luckiest man in the world that day, but of course he was not aware of that when he opened the door to me and asked me innocently, āHow did it go today, son?ā I had to tell him straight: āRalph, I think Iāve lost a million quid today.ā
To his eternal credit, he made no immediate reaction but sat me down with a stiff drink and went off into his kitchen. Three minutes later he emerged with a plateful of smoked salmon sandwiches, which were by a long, long way the most delicious smoked salmon sandwiches Iāve ever tasted - though I couldnāt be sure whether the liquid glistening on the top was lemon juice or the tears I was shedding.
Iād promised Nicky Iād join him at Milton Keynes dogs and, whatever might have happened, did not want to let him down. So I drove straight from Ralphās to the dog track, where one race had already been run. Nicky met me with a long face.
āWeāve had a bad start, Dad,ā he said gloomily. āWeāve lost 17 quid on the first.ā This put my own day into some sort of perspective, but I didnāt yet tell him what had happened.
I took over for the second race and the first bet I took was from a punter who wanted pounds 1 on a 2-1 shot.
Itās going to be a long way back from here, I thought.
Itās a mad story alright but you have to say (whatever about hindsight) that he did the right thing laying a 12/1 horse at 3/1 until his balls fell off. Iād have done much the same thing in his positionā¦
Lads, if anybody missed it, Pat Keane tearing bookmakers a new one is on RTĆ player , part 2 of thursdays coverage, 29 minutes inā¦
Crafty fooker got 800-1000 of Hills then.
Was recounting the story to a punter pal of mine who collectef 4700 off a lucky 15 on Thurs, and tried to have 200 on St nic Abbey @ 11/8 while in ladbrookes, and the cunts would only lay him 100ā¦