Racing
Giving up
Jeffrey Bernard
Final and incontrovertible proof that the Irish are bonkers was registered in last Tuesday's Sporting Life. I repeat the story for the benefit of those of you who missed it. A County Kerry breeder took a horse to the sales and was asked whether he had got as much as he expected for his gelding. 'Jesus, no,' he replied, 'nothing like what I expected, but then I didn't expect I would.'
Proof that the English are going bon- kers has been registered time and time again during the past week by my gambl- ing companions in Soho. I started the ball rolling on Saturday morning by leaping out of bed shouting a vow to give up backing horses for good and ever. By midday, like an alcoholic twitching for the first hair of the dog, I was looking around for something to bet on. It really is a bloody disease.
As bad luck would have it I bumped into my amateur bookmaker friend. We had an idle chat in Dean Street and then, contemplating the weather and gazing at the heavens, I heard my voice say, 'What odds will you lay me that it rains before one o'clock?' I was laid £2 at 2-1 and my request for 20-1 against sleet during the weekend was refused.
Feeling a twinge of guilt at having had a bet at all, but consoling myself that at least I hadn't backed a wretched horse yet, I then had £2 at 1-2 that the sex of the first customer in the York Minster at opening time would be male. This seemed to me to be something of a racing certainty since I was as sure as a man can be that I'd be the first person in the pub. But my luck really stinks at the moment. I was beaten a head by the cleaning lady.
It was after that, while lingering over a refreshing apertif, that my eye accidently caught sight of the racing page in The Times. Saturday, of course, is the punter's pitfall day. It's sheer folly to try and go through four or five meetings on a Satur- day and I felt really pleased about my new resolution to eschew the Turf. Then, glancing at the runners in the Joe Coral Northumberland Plate, it occurred to me that Grey Baron stood one hell of a chance of winning even with his top weight of lOst 11b. I could, of course, make him my one final and definitely last bet of all time apart from the obligatory win double on Connors and Evert to win their Wimbledon finals. Well, Grey Baron came in third, which made my eyes water a bit, and then I lost a fiver playing my last ever game of spoof.
By now, guilt and remorse, not to men- tion considerable angst, had set in and when, at 4 p.m., I found myself in an afternoon club staring longingly at a fruit machine, I was damn nigh weeping. Well, a couple of 5p pieces wasn't going to do much harm, was it? The second one I put in produced the jackpot and that totted up to £7.50p. God, fate, luck and life had obviously returned to my side and, as it happened, I realised I was just in time to get on a good thing in the 4.20 at New- castle. The name of that particular beast is Gold Loom and how it came to beaten a short head and halt a length is some- thing that I still haven't quite recovered from.
I'm contemplating regular visits to a psychiatrist, but I reckon it's about 9-2 against one of them being able to help me. Actually it's probably nearer 11-2,
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