The turf
Such a perfect day
Robin Oakley
Had it not been for the Prime Minister the garden might have been dug last week- end, the bills might have been sorted and the more pressing ones paid. Instead, when he started telling Welsh Tories in Porth- cawl about the moment when voters go into the polling booths 'to pick up those stubby little pencils' (maybe, he mused, when the economy is doing better we will be able to afford bigger pencils) the die was cast. Stubby little pencils, or the kind of sawn-off ballpoints with which one could imagine human interest reporters on the National Inquirer compiling their copy, are the basic tools of the betting shop too. I needed no further reminder to head for Sandown the next day, a sunny Saturday, with my betting boots on.
Not only did I have a fancy for the day's main sprint event, I was in that most dan- gerous of conditions for the would-be back- er: I was in receipt of half a piece of possi- bly vital information. A dog-walking friend on Epsom Downs had overheard one of a cluster of local trainers, none of whom he could identify, express deep confidence in a filly, which he did not name, which he was due to race on Saturday.
The Porthcawl-Sandown journey time had been well spent in the small print. It had to be the favourites, Conspiracy and Shehab, for the first two races. And so it was. 'Favourites won the first two', said the gateman cheerily as I arrived, panting, at the Esher course just after the second of those two races. The trip from Wales and the performance of the bare minimum of domestic duties had taken somewhat longer than anticipated. I am no great plunger on short-priced favourites, but win- ners are winners. And then came the real blow.
Finding no Epsom-trained filly on the day's card at Sandown I had noted two entered at Bath: Gary Moore's Owdbetts and Philip Mitchell's Pedaltothemetal. The first race at Bath had been run and so I hastened to the Tote betting shop's results' board. There it was. Owdbetts the winner at 7-1. It was surely not to be my day. Three winners down, without a bet. But betting days are betting days. Nothing for it but to plough on.
Tempted by the outsider, Ballpoint, in the next as a 12-1 each way 'omen' bet after what had determined me to come rac- ing, I decided to stick to the formbook and sided with the well-backed favourite, Formidable Partner. He proved rather less than formidable, failing to make the frame while Ballpoint ran in second at 12-1.
I always take note of horses sent a long way to race. The racecard suggested in the next that Alan Bailey's Crabbie's Pride, sent all the way from Cheshire, would be worth an interest if the betting ring sug- gested that connections were 'on'. Some- body was certainly on, as a suggested probable starting price of 8-1 tumbled to 11-4 favouritism, and I joined them on the way at 4-1. Crabbie's Pride too failed to make the frame. Anguished debate among a disconsolate-looking group under the trees as he was unsaddled afterwards sug- gested to me a touch that had gone wrong. But it was my touch which was worrying me.
I had just one off-course investment at York, backing one of the country's best lady riders in an amateurs' race on a horse from Les Eyre's in-form stable. I paused just long enough by the television screen to watch it refuse to jump off with the others, swerve violently left and drop a furlong behind the field before they had covered two. I was allowing myself just two more bets on the day. One was to be Mark John- ston's useful sprinter Double Quick, my real fancy of the afternoon. The question was what to go for in Sandown's fifth, an open-looking contest over one mile six fur- longs. Major Dick Hern, the best trainer in the country without a winner yet this season, had turned up at Sandown rather than at Bath, where he had a runner too. A point- er, but which of the two Hern horses to back? Both were on offer at 13-2. Majdak Jereeb still looked a touch burly to me and Farringdon Hill, which had come back after a long lay-off in his previous race without the blinkers he'd worn before, this time had them back on. I got 7-1 about Farringdon Hill and he led all the way for a comfortable win. He'll win again too.
That left just the horse I'd come to back, Double Quick, brought south from Middle- ham for the second time in a week and weighted to win. I was down the line of bookies with my winnings to invest as fast as she came out of the stalls a little later. I got 3-1, cheered her home in a surging fin- ish from Speed On and Crowded Avenue, both of whom are worth an interest next time out and then survived a stewards' inquiry without a coronary.
All in all, the perfect day out. Tragedy followed by triumph. Thank you, Prime Minister. And the moral of the story? There are three. Yes, horses in blinkers first time out are worth an interest. So too are horses which travel a good distance to their races. But if you want to back all the winners you should it is worth studying the railway timetable as well as the form book.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
Previous page
