firmly in my pocket.
People gamble for many reasons but it is always, ultimately, the thrill of the win that gives them the “high” they crave. The professional gamblers-those few who can make their living from betting on the horses-would say that it is all about long-term returns, not short-term thrills, but even they would have to admit to having an extra burst of adrenaline running through their veins during a close finish involving one of their selections.
For most, gambling is for recreation rather than remuneration. It adds to their enjoyment of a day at the races. Some of my clients thought they’d had a really good day if they backed a couple of winners, even if their wagers on other losers had cost them more than their winnings. The delight of a win banished the memories of the losses.
Bookmakers, I suppose, would have to be placed in the “professional gambler” bracket. Bookmaking is a business, and solid, regular returns, rather than sharp peaks and troughs, are the aim. Nevertheless, it still gave me a thrill to be able to keep the young woman’s ten-pound note, especially when she had been so eager to place the bet even after the horses had started running. I suppose, to be honest, no one becomes a bookmaker unless they have at least a touch of Schadenfreude in them. After all, unlike for stockbrokers or investment-portfolio managers, it was my clients’ misfortune that made me richer.
Next up was the thirty-runner Wokingham Stakes, and that was even more of a lottery than the Golden Jubilee.
The race was always like a cavalry charge, flat out for three-quarters of a mile, from the starting stalls along the straight to the winning post. It is also a handicap, which means that the better-rated horses have to carry the most weight as determined by the handicapper, whose aim and dream it is that all the runners will finish in one huge dead heat. Wins by favorites have been rare, and rank outsiders have often claimed the prize.
Again, betting was brisk, with money spread fairly evenly on both the short-priced favorites and on the outsiders alike. Historically, there were very few pointers that helped the discerning punter in this race. Often in sprints, one side of the track seems to produce more winners than the other, and the number of the starting stall a horse was drawn in could be a good indicator of its chances. However, over the years, the draw in the sprint races at Ascot typically hadn’t proved to be much of a factor with winners of the Wokingham Stakes coming from all across the track.
Nearly every punter has some system or another that he swears by, even if it’s closing his eyes and sticking a pin into the list of runners on the race card. Some will never back mares or fillies in races with colts on all-weather surfaces, while others avoid short-priced favorites in handicaps. Some follow a particular jockey or a trainer with a proven record, while others will trust their cash only on horses that have run and placed within the last seven days.
In general, those punters who do the best are the ones who are disciplined and who study the form. Disciplined insofar as they record everything, don’t go mad on hunches and don’t panic when they have a losing streak, as they surely will.
The most successful are those who know almost every horse in training. And they study the races every day. They learn, over time, which horses run consistently to form and which do not. They discover which horses prefer right-handed tracks and which do better left-handed, which jumpers like long run-ins and which short, and whether they are more likely to win with uphill finishes or flat ones. They know if a horse runs above or below par on firm or soft ground, and also what weight suits a particular horse and whether to keep away from it in handicaps when it’s rated too highly. They know where each horse is trained, if it runs badly after long journeys in a horsevan and even if a particular horse tends to do better than its rivals in sunshine or the rain.
Too much information, some might say, but the discerning punter soon learns which pieces of the jigsaw are the crucial ones. Horse racing is not a science, and there will always be surprises, but, over time, just like human athletes, good horses run well and bad horses don’t.
Making a profit from gambling on horses involves identifying those occasions when the offered odds for a horse to win are better than the true probability of that outcome. So if the knowledgeable punter calculates that the chances of a horse winning a particular race are, say, one in two, and the odds offered by a bookmaker are better than evens, that is the time to bet.
In 1873, Joseph Jagger famously broke the bank at Monte Carlo by discovering and exploiting a bias in the casino’s roulette wheel, which made some numbers come up more often than others. These days, no one can seriously improve their chances of winning a lottery jackpot by simply studying how often the numbered balls have come out of the machines on prior occasions because so much effort goes into ensuring that the draw is completely random and unpredictable. But, in horse racing, if previous form was not a fair indicator of future performance, then there would be no bookmakers, and probably no racing. Certainly there would not be British Thoroughbred racing as we know it, with over five million people per year attending race meetings and some seventeen thousand racehorses in training.
“Ten each way on Burton Bank,” said a man in front of me.
“Ten pounds each way number two at seven-to-one,” I called to Luca over my shoulder.
I took the man’s twenty-pound note and gave him the ticket in return. “Ten pounds each way” meant ten pounds on the horse to win and ten on it to place. In British racing, in a handicap with over sixteen runners, a place bet would pay out if the horse finished somewhere in the first four.
The next person in the queue was the young woman in the black-and-white dress and matching wide-brimmed hat.
“Ten pounds each way on number eleven,” she said, tilting her head up so she could see me and I could see her. She was gorgeous.
“Ten each way number eleven at sixteens,” I called to Luca.
The ticket appeared, and I handed it over. “Better luck this time,” I said to her.
She looked slightly taken aback that I had spoken to her, and she even blushed a little, her cheeks showing pink against her monochrome outfit. “Thank you,” she said, taking the ticket and hurrying away. I watched her go.
“Do you take a forecast?” said the next man in line, bringing my attention back to business.
“No,” I said. “Win or each way only.”
He turned away. A “forecast” is a bet that predicts the first two finishers in a race. A “straight forecast” meant the first two in the correct order, and was known in the United States as an “exacta.” There are lots of multiple bets, from simple doubles or trebles, when all selections have to win, to others, with such strange names such as Trixie, Yankee, Canadian, Patent or Lucky 15, that contain multiple singles, doubles and trebles on three, four or five horses running in different races. We didn’t accept any of them because it became too complicated and too time- consuming. We left those to the betting shops and the big boys. Luca was keener to take them than me, but our regular betting ring customers would go elsewhere if we kept them waiting longer than the next guy.
Betting became fast and furious as the race time approached. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to have a bet on the Wokingham. A probable long-odds winner was encouraging everyone to have a punt, and the wad of notes in my hand grew steadily as the minutes ticked by to the start.
Burton Bank was just about holding his favoritism at seven-to-one, although there were two other horses whose prices had shortened to fifteen-to-two.
“Twenty pounds to win on Burton Bank,” said my next customer, a young man in morning dress.
“Twenty to win number two at sevens,” I said over my shoulder to Luca.
“Bloody hell,” he replied. “The Internet’s gone down again.”
8
Phones as well?” I asked.
Luca was busy pushing buttons on his mobile.
He nodded. “Same as before.”
The effect was startling. Suddenly there were men running everywhere with walkie-talkies in their hands and curly wires visible over their collars and leading, I presumed, to earpieces in their ears. They scanned the bookmakers’ boards, on the lookout for sudden changes to the odds.
“Twenty pounds to win on Burton Bank,” repeated the young man in front of me, slightly irritated at the
