SPORTING

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 July 1927, Page 11

SPORTING

PARODY SOLD. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) SYDNEY, July 19. Mr Percy Miller has privately purchased Parody, which will be sent to his Kia Ora Stud. REEFTON JOCKEY CLUB. The following nominations for the various offices have been received:--President: Mr. E. W. Spencer; VicePresident: Mr. J. B. Auld; Committee: Messrs W. F. Brett, A. G. Wells, T. C. O’Brien, A. J. Chettle, Jas. Patterson, D, McKane, E. J. Conway, F. Keating, J. F. Seawright, J. M. Irving, S. Austin, P. Coghlan, D. Panckhurst, J. B. Discaciati; Auditors: Messrs T. H. Lee. B. P. McMahon. SOME BIG PLUNGERS. Though it is probable that more money changes hands over a modern Derby than ever was won or lost in the pre-war days, few racing men will dispute that the giant plungers have disappeared from the Turf. One, and by no means the least daring of the band of historic speculators, is still a well-known figure in the sporting world. He is Mr “Bob” Sievier, famous alike as owner, trainer, breeder, and backer, says the “Sporting Life.” “It was always my practice,” Mr. Sievier once wrote, “to play up my winnings. What has broken more men on the Turf than anything else is chasing their losings and buttoning up when winning.” Perhaps no more extraordinary case of playing up winnings can be quoted than one in which “Bob” was himself the principal actor. In 1888, when Fortune had withheld her favour from him for a spell, “Bob” ran into a friend who owed him two pounds, and paid up forthwith. A few snowball bets turned those forty shillings into £llO during the afternoon, and Mr Sievier’s first bet on the next day of the meeting was one of £lOO on a horse who duly obliged at five to one.

He followed this up by taking £6OO to 200, and again he backed a winner. Every bet was in ready money, and, going from strength to strength, “Bob” began to bet in real earnest for the next race which was the City and Suburban.

In three or four bets he laid out rather more than £lOOO on Fullerton to win him £BOOO, and at the end of the day his original two sovereigns had been transformed into more than £9OOO. In a sense those wagers were mere “chicken feed” to a plunger of his undaunted courage. In a selling race at Epsom Mr Sievier backed a horse named Crarae for £7OOO, and secured odds of seven to four. On another occasion Mr Sievier won £35,000 because he happened to get up early one morning. That was in 1900, and “Bob” went for a canter on Epsom Downs before breakfast. In so doing he had the luck to see The Grafter, a horse that had previously won the Melbourne Cup, run a trial in such convincing fashion that he made up his mind there and then to back him for the City and Suburban. Mr Sievier took three bets of £5OOO to £7500, and made several other wagers of smaller amounts, and when Morny Cannon romped home on The Grafter “Bob” became the richer by £35,000. In 1900 “Bob” again landed about £30,000, having backed Diamond Jubilee for the Derby to the extent of £lB,OOO. During that week he cleared up a total of £53,000. Charlie Hibbert, the famous bookmaker and owner, was equally reckless in laying and backing. At the Victoria Club in 1911 he laid against his own horse Mercutio to lose something like £20,000. The next morning he felt he had been rash, and started backing the horse all over the country, until, instead of standing to lose over him, he stood to win something like £40,000. The rack was the Victoria Cup, and at one moment it looked a certainty for Spanish Prince. Charlie fell off his seat in the stand in his excitement, but by the time he had picked himself up Mercutio had duly landed him his colossal winnings. In the middle ’nineties Humphrey Oxenham, an Australian sportsman, went back to his own country'rather “broke.” Things prospered, and he bought a mare called Cerise and Blue, and saved her for the Melbourne Cup. Steadily and systematically he backed her for all he was worth, and when she won the big race his winnings were not far short of a quarter of a million pounds. These and many other famous plungers were men who represented a formidable danger to the ring, but there were others equally reckless and far less skilful.

“Abington” Baird, who gambled away the better part of twn million pounds in a few years, was one of these. He thought nothing of having £5OOO on a horse in a tin-pot selling plate, but the ring hailed his coming with delight.

Ernest Benzon, “the Jubilee Juggins,” was another of Baird’s type, and if he only lost £250,000 it was merely because he had no more to lose. He, too, made wagers of five or six thousand pounds at a time, and in order to make sure of losing fast enough, he also played cards, with disastrous results. At one sitting of chemin de fer he lost £lO,OOO. Charlie Hannam, another great plunger, but very far from being a “mug,” would make terrific bets as simply and as calmly as an ordinary man might toss for a round of drinks. He would wagei’ £lOOO on making a losing hazard at billiards as readily as he would put five times that amount on some fancied horse. And yet, in strong contrast to these great gamblers of the Turf, there have been many famous sportsmen to whom this side of racing made no appeal. It is related of Lord Falmouth, one of the most famous breeders and owners of his day, that the only bet he ever made in his life was one of sixpence with the wife of his trainer. He lost his bet, and in due course he sent the lady the sixpenny-bit mounted in diamonds.