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Archive for March, 2009

The Greatest Grand National Gambles

Sunday, March 29th, 2009

Triumph and disaster walk hand in hand over Aintree’s hallowed turf, affecting horses, riders, trainers and, perhaps most of all, punters. For there have been many big gambles on the National that have ended up buried in that well-tended turf. But some have been landed – in style.

In the early days of the great race, bets were largely confined to private wagers between wealthy rival owners. One of the first public gambles was when the white-bearded Irishman Joseph Osborne took on the ring with spectacular success in 1850.

Osborne owned and trained Abd-El-Kader and backed his horse to complete the National-Lincolnshire Steeplechase double, wagering £150 for a potential win dividend of £10,000, a staggering sum in those far off days. The gamble was foiled when Osborne’s pride and joy swerved and ran outside a boundary marker in the Lincolnshire Steeplechase. But Osborne won a cool £4,000 when his runner landed the second leg of the double.

The following year, Abd-El-Kader started second favourite at 7-1 to retain his National crown, but Osborne reportedly managed to strike a bet of £10,000-£500. It was a desperate finish, but Abd-El-Kader was the winner by ‘half a neck’. In 1952 twenty-two-stone owner Harry Lane landed a coup almost as big as his waistline when he pulled off a six-figure success as Teal – a horse he bought for a mere £2,000 – won the big race.

But perhaps the biggest gamble of all, certainly in modern times, came when bingo hall operator Mike Futter landed a financial ‘full house’ when Monty’s Pass took the 2003 race. Futter started off by backing Monty’s Pass in small each-way bets at 66-1, 50-1 and 40-1 then later got a bit more serious with one reported wager of £9,000 each-way with Ladbrokes 16-1 His total return was thought to be in the region of £800,000, but like all good gambling stories we’ll probably never know the truth.

Not surprisingly, Futter was renamed Mr Flutter. He had certainly earned his new nickname.

Of course the bookmakers have taken hit after hit too over the years. The third and unequalled win by the most favourite Aintree horse of all time, Red Rum, in 1977, had many a bookie crying and hurting even though that year Red Rum was only second favourite behind the well backed Andy Pandy who fell at Becher’s Brook second time round. Red Rum is immortalised at the Liverpool course by being buried beside the famous finishing post and a large statue erected in his honour.

So those are just a few National triumphs and disasters. What will this year’s race add to racing’s history books?

You don’t have long to wait to find out… the big race is on Saturday April 4. I can’t wait.

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There Is Only One Race – The GRAND NATIONAL!

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

THERE was the ‘Race of the Century’ when Grundy and Bustino locked horns for the King George and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes at Ascot in 1975. And there’s the ‘Race that stops a Nation’ – the Melbourne Cup when the whole of Australia grinds to a halt to watch a handicap, albeit a very valuable one! There was even a two-legged version of the ‘Race of the Century’ when Seb Coe – now Lord Coe – and Steve Ovett – still plain, old Mr Ovett – clashed in the 800 metres final at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

But there is only one race that captures the hearts and minds of virtually the whole world – and that’s the Grand National. Punters who never bet on the other 364 days of the year and even have a pathological fear of entering a betting shop, find themselves in the queue at the bookies just a few hours before the tapes go up at Aintree.

Of course, the race doesn’t always live up to its reputation. How many films given ‘must see’ reviews have turned out to be no better than average? But more often than not it does match its billing as the toughest test of horse and man ever devised.

Over the years there have been more National dramas than I have space to mention. Some come more readily to mind than others. Some are even celebrated year after year like Foinavon, the 100-1 winner whose memory is evoked when the field jumps the seventh fence on the first circuit, which becomes the 23rd obstacle on the second lap.

It’s actually one of the smallest fences on the track, measuring only 4ft 6in in height and you’d expect the riders – and the horses – would relax a little having just jumped Becher’s Brook, one of the most fearsome of Aintree’s obstacles.

But since 1967 its name has been etched inexorably into Aintree folklore. It was in that year’s National that the riderless and well-named Popham Down cut across the field causing absolute mayhem and bringing almost all the remaining runners to a standstill. But the unconsidered Foinavon was so far back at the time that he wasn’t inconvenienced by the carnage that was unfolding ahead of him and his jockey, John Buckingham. The pair sailed past the carnage and on to a victory that left most of the crowd speechless.

What about the race that was abandoned? That happened in 1997 when bomb threats caused the race to be called off. You can imagine the chaos that ensued and the Tote were reported to have left behind a cool half a million pounds, which was removed the following day under police escort. However, it was reported that one Tote girl had the presence of mind to walk out of the course on the Saturday with £7,000 stuffed into her knickers! She obviously didn’t trust the locals. The National is, after all, run in Liverpool! The race was run on the following Monday, but truth to tell, it had lost much of its atmosphere.

Or what about the time, four years earlier, when there was a false start with 30 of the 39 riders failing to realise that they had been recalled? Eleven of them pulled up after one circuit but seven others ploughed on regardless jumping all 30 fences and completing the full, gruelling four and a half miles.

The winner-that-never-was turned out to be Esha Ness, trained by Jenny Pitman, who was to win for real with Royal Athlete in 1995. She had become the first woman to train a National winner when Corbiere triumphed in 1983.

So those are just a few National triumphs and disasters. What will this year’s race add to racing’s history books? You don’t have long to wait to find out… the big race is on Saturday April 4th.

I can’t wait.

And what’s new this year online? Well those punters with the Internet to hand on the day will be able to lay bets during the actual race at many of the highstreet bookmaker online websites including Betfair. It will be quite interesting to have a further flutter, say if your backed horse succumbs to Aintree’s early tough fences, and hopefully recoup and win.

Posted in Articles, General, Sterling Brookes | 1 Comment »

The best ideas are the simplest – What odds Betfair?

Monday, March 16th, 2009

THEY say the best ideas are always the simplest. So I got to thinking about whether, in another life, I might have invented the internal combustion engine or television or even the light bulb. Not so simple eh? But then I turned my attention to the phenomenal phenomenon known as betting exchanges.

Well, here is a one-trick pony if ever I saw one. All you do is match a backer with a layer and if, in the words of the popular quiz game, the price is right, you have a match. It couldn’t be easier – and it’s all based on the stock market idea of matching buyers and sellers that’s been around for what seems like donkey’s years.

Since king of the betting exchanges Betfair was launched in 2000 when a group of businessmen sat around basically laying and backing horses with each other on the winner of that year’s Epsom derby, it has grown at a faster rate than the economy has recently declined.Now boasting two million customers and a turnover well in excess of £50million. Some events – like five-day Tests – can rack up turnover exceeding £10million in matched bets.

It’s the biggest online bookmaker in the UK and the largest betting exchange in the world. Actually the ‘online bookmaker’ part of those claims is far from the truth. Betfair is in no way a bookmaker. Bookmakers can lose on any given event. Betfair can’t. They simply act as a stakeholder. And unlike bookmakers they want their clients to win. That’s because they take commission from winning clients, while they don’t take a cent from losing bets. That’s the exact reverse of how conventional bookies work.

When Betfair first came on to the scene almost nine years ago, the established bookmakers didn’t appear too worried. Publicly they said they weren’t happy with the new kid on the betting block, but privately they couldn’t have feared the competition too much or else they would have set up their own exchanges. For a start the idea wasn’t copyright and initially there was some opposition to Betfair. Why the big bookmakers didn’t get together and produce a monster rival to Betfair, I have no idea. Perhaps the thought of working together to maintain their share of the betting market didn’t appeal to their sensitivities. Whatever the reasons, Betfair was left with what is known in the trade as an ‘easy lead’.

There are still a handful of other exchanges out there but they trail in the wake of the Betfair superliner. Even the fairly recent introduction of higher commission charges for big players didn’t seem to rock the boat too much. That’s because Betfair had first-mover advantage and spent a fortune on advertising and marketing to maintain that advantage and secondly, because in a marketplace that relies more on liquidity than anything else, Betfair has the highest liquidity of any exchange – and that doesn’t look like changing any day soon.

But the Betfair monolith does have its drawbacks. One is the perception that laying horses to lose leads to some dubious actions on behalf of some trainers, jockeys, owners and punters. That’s a red herring that needs filleting because that’s precisely what the traditional layers did when they had information that a particular runner wasn’t ‘off’, had missed a crucial gallop or was waiting for another day.

Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth so to speak, the old-fashioned bookmakers just laid and laid that horse – exactly what exchange layers are able to do nowadays. And why shouldn’t they – as long as they are not in possession of inside information, which by its very nature isn’t available to the general betting public.

Betfair has opened things up in a way that was unimaginable only a decade a go.It has ushered in what I feel is a golden age for backers. If you haven’t tried it already you don’t know what you’re missing. It might not suit everyone, but you’ve got to give it a go. Don’t remain a Betfair virgin forever…

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