The turf
Place your bets
Robin Oakley
One racing acquaintance with a taste for dreadful puns used to inquire what the difference was between a street trader and a male dachshund. Answer: the street trad- er bawls his wares out along the pavement ... But not for much longer, it seems, are the bookies going to be bawling their wares out in the same old style, perched on orange boxes in Tattersall's with clerks at their elbows recording wagers in Dicken- sian ledgers and dispensing multi-coloured cardboard pledges for the bets struck. From the end of 1999 they will trade from standardised moulded plastic 'joints' on pitches spread round useful access points. Every bet will be recorded on audiotape, every computer-printed ticket will give full details of the bet and there will be betting advisors and betting managers on every course.
The changes follow a Levy Board review after years of fruitless negotiation between bookmakers' organisations and the Race- course Association. They include provi- sions for bookies to be able to sell on their pitches to a new generation, plus the requirement to put up a financial bond and to attend regularly. The courses are not getting the extra money they had hoped for instead of the five times entry price they are currently allowed to charge the book- ies. But punters should benefit, financially if not aesthetically. Personally, I will miss the sight of those elderly gents with gaudily painted satchels staggering off the race train with what looks like the equipment for a week's fishing trip or the kind of bag- gage an Edwardian lady watercolourist would have had a retinue of bearers carry to the banks of the Nile.
I patronise the Tote to ensure that a decent proportion of what I lose finds its way back into racing. But I patronise book- ies too because of the colour and tradition they bring to the racecourse. It is more fun losing money to a face than to a machine. I love the yells of 'Six to four the field, are you all done?', the tortured pronunciations of horses with foreign names: 'Ninety pounds to ten Eddie Wiss Doo Mule-In and the odds a place.' And I enjoy the bad- inage. 'Is that a bet, squire, or a gratuity?' `Two pounds, darling? If I was you I'd trade in your boyfriend. I'm free.' And I love the rituals of sew-lying runners: 'Harry owes a monkey. That's six hundred down to Binns', and of counting out grubby fivers from back-pocket wads as thick as election night vote bundles. (Have you ever had a clean note from a bookmaker?) I only hope it does not mean too that walkie-talkies will take over completely from the white-gloved tic-tac men, who once managed to alert the late William Hill on his pitch that both his wife and his mis- tress had arrived at the course. (His clerk was despatched, successfully, to keep the mistress in the bar until racing was over.) No bookmaker, I am afraid, was forced to make it Minehead rather than Mar- tinique for his holidays this year as a result of my Cheltenham selections although Oakley's Ten to Follow this winter did pro- vide the winner of the Champion Hurdle (Istabraq) and the second horses home in the Queen Mother Champion Chase (Or Royal) and the Gold Cup (Strong Promise). But no turf columnist worth his commission ducks the Grand National so, undeterred, I will offer you my own idea of the 1-2-3 on Saturday.
Rough Quest, winner of the National two years ago, was cruising in the Gold Cup when he fell six from home and Terry Casey is content that he has him back to his best. Suny Bay's trainer Charlie Brooks warned all and sundry that his splendid grey, second last year to the now absent Lord Gyllene, was short of peak fitness when he ran him at Cheltenham. And Philip Hobbs's dour stayer Samlee, who has long struck me as an ideal National type since he won the Becher Chase over the Aintree fences, will have the invaluable assistance of Richard Dunwoody. The for- mer champion jockey has had a rather quiet season by his standards and must be due a big victory. I will go for 1. Rough Quest; 2. Suny Bay; and 3. Samlee.
If you are looking for something at a long price to bustle them up, then my favoured outsider would be Venetia Williams's Celtic Abbey. Cool Dawn has made it the year of former hunter-chasers and Celtic Abbey's trainer has a remark- ably good ratio of wins to runners. With the Queen of Aintree Jenny Pitman run- ning Nathen Lad and Julie Camcho han- dling Avro Anson since her father's retirement it would be interesting to find what price the bookies are laying this year against a female-trained winner.
Robin Oakley is political editor of the BBC.
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