HIS COUP UPSET.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1929, Page 9 (Supplement)

HIS COUP UPSET.

ROGUE MEETS ROGUE.

(By

“Moturoa.”)

"Ringers” are, fortunately, few and far between in Taranaki, but many years ago one came under the writer’s notice, and the course on which the “ramp” was attempted was at Lepperton. The horses had gone to the post for a five furlong maiden event when this scribe got into conversation with a man who had a likely looking nag running in the race. He confided to me that his horse was a certainty, and elicited my help in putting £4O on the totalisator.

The machine was a single ring-up affair, and so as not to attract attention I was instructed to dribble the money on in fivers, or less. All went well, and I handed the tickets to the owner, and pocketed several for myself. Then another owner who had been watching the business, and who had a horse running also, approached my friend and said, “You haven’t got the cheek to back your horse to-day, have you? If he wins he will be ‘out’ before the jockey touches the ground!” "Why, what do you mean?” said my friend. “Only that your ‘maiden’ won a double at Karioi the other day under the name of Blank!” The fat was in the fire, and my feelings in being unwittingly dragged into it can well be imagined. But my friend, seeing that argument was hopeless, bolted to the lawn fence, which he vaulted like old Dummy when he used to fly those steeplechase obstacles, and raced across to the starting post, just reaching there in time to tell his jockey to pull the horse up. Our certainty finished fourth, and, on the look of the race, could have won by half the straight. It is only a shame would have happened if the bridle had broken, but the experience (and the loss of a fiver) was not lost on the writer.