FIRST BET WINS £1920

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27211, 1 December 1953, Page 12

FIRST BET WINS £1920

DOUBLE PICKED BY DART THROW WAGER ON ADDINGTON MEETING (From Our Own Reporter) WESTPORT, November 30. To win a double worth £1920 4s 6d at Addington on Saturday with his first wager on a horse race was the very happy experience of a young Englishman. Mr William Farmer, an employee of the State Hydro-electric Department on line transmission work between Inangahua Junction and Waimangaroa. Knowing nothing of trotters, he decided, after throwing a treble 18 at darts on Friday, to invest £1 on numbers five and four at the Metropolitan Trotting Club’s meeting the next day. He looked up a popular racing publication which gave these horses as Star Rosa and High Class. Mr Farmer’s friends tried to dissuade him from “wasting” as much as £1 on the double and suggested that it was only worth the minimum wager of ss, but he had made up his mind to take the pound’s worth. His first thought, after hearing of the win of High Class, was of a brother in New Zealand who is threatened with blindness. He hopes that some of the money may assist in recovering his sight. After receiving his chit for the large sum this morning, Mr Farmer casually observed, “This will buy a sheep or two.”