BETTING PROBLEM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 38, 14 August 1939, Page 13

BETTING PROBLEM

COMMISSION NOT LAID

The A.J.C. stipendiary stewards were approached at Kensington recently to adjudicate on probably the strangest betting tangle that has occurred for many years. The parties are not In dispute, but they prefer someone in authority to decide the issue, and the stewards may do so at a special session.

! A trainer sought the help of a bookmaker in placing a commission on his horse at Ascot. He „ did not have the money with him, but produced a guarantor, who, as a fact, was not known to the bookmaker. The instructions were that the commission was not to be launched before the horses left the enclosure. The bookmaker mentioned the name of the guarantor to a friend, who thought so much of the name that he sought to be associated with the commission to the amount of a few pounds. The race was run, and the horse beaten, but the bookmaker's friend was informed that he had not lost his money, as no investment had been made. On settling day the trainer gave £200 to the guarantor, who sought out the bookmaker, only to discover that the bookmaker had not put on the money. The bookmaker was amazed when he found that he should have placed the .commission. He had believed that the instructions were to be confirmed as the horses left the enclosure, and as neither the trainer nor the guarantor approached him, he assumed that some other arrangements had been made. The question then arose whether the trainer would have had any claim if the horse had won, and this aspect was made the more complicated when it was disclosed that others besides the trainer were interested in the commisAt first the parties were of opinion that they could strike some ratio for the division of the £200, since the trainer believed that he had lost it, although the bookmaker declined to receive settlement of money he had not lost. Now the stewards have been approached to give a decision to guide the principals in their dilemma.