“You know what you’ve done wrong here, don’t you?” he asked.
“No, not really,” I said. “But I’m sure you’re going to tellme.”
“You didn’t take the prices on any of these horses, you’ve justlet them run at SP. Hot Girl was 5/1 this morning, if you had taken that price,you’d be looking at nearly a million quid now.”
“I was sure Hot Girl would have been a bigger price thanthis,” I replied. “I thought it would start at about 4/1.”
“And it probably would have done,” replied Nobby, “if ithadn’t been for this bet. The bookies won’t be worried about whether your horsewins or not. They will have sent all the money back to the course or backed iton the exchanges to drive the price down as low as they can. In fact, Iwouldn’t put it past them to stop it winning altogether.”
“Does that happen?” I asked.
“Some people think so,” said Nobby. “There was a big scandalabout it years ago with a number of jockeys arrested. But it hasn’t happenedrecently. It would probably be a lot harder to get away with it these days,what with the technology and everything. And they can hedge anything at abigger price on the exchanges anyway, so they will probably end up making aprofit whatever happens.”
This interesting development in the conversation was cutshort by the start of the race. Word seemed to have got around the localpunting fraternity and a sizeable crowd had gathered in the shop now to cheerHot Girl on.
It was a five-furlong handicap and it didn’t take more thanabout a minute to run. Thankfully, Nobby’s conspiracy theories about the horsebeing stopped proved to be unfounded, and Hot Girl did indeed win amid muchcheering, but the starting price was a huge disappointment.
Hot Girl was returned at 4/5, which gave me a grand total of£272,160. Not anything like as much as I had hoped, but a sizeable sumnonetheless.
Unfortunately it was a sum I was not going to be able to laymy hands on. Amid the celebrations and congratulations from the shop’s punters,I made my way to the till. Up until now, I hadn’t really thought about how Imight collect the money, but it was more problematical than I’d thought.
“Yeah, they shortened that up, alright,” said Nobby. “Justlike when Frankie landed his magnificent seven.”
“Congratulations,” said the manager, who had joined the restof us in front of the big screen. He seemed as delighted as everybody else. Ifwhat Nobby had said was true, his firm had probably done quite nicely out ofthis. He then added, “I’m not going to be able to pay you out until tomorrow,though.”
Obviously I wasn’t expecting him to have a quarter of amillion quid just sitting in the safe, but I had hoped that I might be able toget a bank transfer or a good old-fashioned cheque.
“I don’t have the authority to pay out a win for thisamount,” he explained, “but someone from Head Office is coming down tomorrow,and they will present you with the cheque. If you don’t mind, we’d like to geta photographer and a couple of journalists along to cover the story.”
“No can do, I’m afraid,” I said, quickly thinking up aplausible lie. “I’ve got to fly to the States on business tonight and I won’tbe back for a month.”
I considered the situation, and then decided I knew what Iwas going to do. It was time to do a good deed for the day. “I’ve got asuggestion,” I said. “Can we go somewhere private?”
He took me into his office, and I explained what I wanted todo. I then gave him all of my contact details, name and address, and wrote outdetailed instructions in a letter, signed it, and left it with him.
If they did contact me to confirm all this, hopefully myfuture self in this timeline would verify it. I’d instructed him to send£125,000 to the Injured Jockeys Fund, £125,000 to the RSPCA, with the remainderto be shared amongst the shop’s staff and punters.
Happy that I’d given something back to all those involved inputting on the daily sport of kings, I left the shop, head held high, good deedfor the day well and truly done.
April 2021
After my memorable experience in the betting shop thatafternoon, I only went back a couple more times. I restricted myself to morerealistic targets on those subsequent visits, putting on bets that paid outmore modest sums like £3,000, but even that proved problematical to get myhands on.
There always seemed to be some sort of issue. Either theydidn’t have enough money in the shop and the bank was closed, or they did havethe money but it was in a time-locked safe that wouldn’t open for another hour.
In the end I grew rather bored of it: there was no realthrill in the gamble when there was no risk involved, and it was a waste oftime waiting around to get paid, so I decided to try another tactic.
As far as I could see, the only way to get a large wad ofcash from a bookmaker was to go on-course to a big meeting and bet in cash. Itwas very handy if I wanted to get hold of a large sum of money for usespecifically on that day. Despite the world in general shifting money aroundelectronically via plastic, on-course bookmakers still preferred to deal incash.
Using the winnings to buy material objects was a waste oftime, but what I could buy was experiences. Any money that I laid my hands oncame with a strict “expires at 3am” stipulation.
I got into the habit of starting the afternoon with a visitto a racecourse, usually one not too far from London, such as Sandown Park orAscot. I would take £10,000 or more in cash from the on-course bookmaker’ssatchels and then head into London to enjoy some of the finer things in life.
I booked myself into the penthouse suites of some of thecity’s most expensive hotels. I dined in three-starred Michelin restaurants,washing down my gourmet dinners with the most expensive wine and champagne Icould lay my hands on.
I also got to indulge myself in every
