SPORTING NOTES

Waipa Post, Volume 49, Issue 3554, 6 December 1934, Page 5

SPORTING NOTES

A RACING SYSTEM. AND WJHAT HAPPENED TO IT. (Contributed.) With the near approach of the annual race meeting' at Te Awamutu, and the carnivals at Ellerslie and elsewhere during the Christmas-New Year period, people with sporting inclinations who indulge in a bout of speculation on a racecourse, however modest the investment, will be looking about for signs and portents, even sport/ing writers’ anticipations, to influence them in their decisions. Some people—and regular racegoers too* — content themselves with investing a modejst sum on their fancy, a fancy arrived at out of consideration for the popularity of the jockey, the pretty colours worn, or even ilhe colour or breeding of the horse. Tine investor who, instead of letting his fancy roam, adheres to a betting system, will have the opportunity once more of demonstrating to himself the infallibility of his system, if only he had sufficient capital to stand an inevitable run of bad luck. A good story about a. betting system is told by the late Arthur Binstead, a member of the “Sporting Times” (London), in the days when that; journal, familiar, ly known as the “ Pink Un,” on account of tihe colour of the paper on which it was printed, was extremely popular with all sections of the sporting community. Mr Binstead wrote under the pen name of “ The Talepitcher,” and a series of half a dozen books, containing selections from hi s contributions to the Sporting Times, is still in print. The following story about a betting system appears in his book, “Pitcher in Pai-adise”:— “ Once upon a summer time I was incited to essay the breaking up of Tatfersall’s ring, though not primarily with my own money. Mine own ambition soars not as high as to attemnt the solution of so strenuous a problem, but I fell in with some fellows with a supposed invulnerable system. There were four of tvhem—three prosperous West End tradesmen, and their friend the licensed victualler at the corner—and they hail tested the scheme both upwards and downwards, and backwards and forwards, till they felt satisfied that they had got a dead-sure thing; the? only wonder was that all the sharps on the course were not following it. The idea, which consisted in backing certain jockeys over their best courses, of beginning wilfli £lO and doubling each losing stake, and in never, in any circumstances, laying odds on, did not strike me as surprisingly new. Consequently, though the plot was not unfolded to me in the bar plarlour of a favourite tavern of mine until close on midnight, I had before closing time, signed four different agreements, by eadh and all of which I bound myself, in consideration of a promise of 10 per cent; on winnings, and £2 2s a day for expenses, to begin operating on the ring at Sandown on the following d!a,y. “To Sandown Park I went on a Friday morning to back the mounts of my friend Charles Wood. The £lO and the £2O went down, but the £4O came up at 5 to 2. Another £lO went down, then a £2O came up at) 9 to 4. I returned to town with a clear profit of £95, and I and the three tradesmen had to sit on the licensed victualler to keep him down, since he figured out that he had been losing about £2700 a month for nearly four, months, through not beginning at Lincoln. On the Saturday Wood won the first race at 5 to 4, and the second at 3to 1. He lost the third, didn’t ride in the fourth, won the fifth at 2 to 1, and then turned it up for the afternoon. This showed a profit of £72 10s, : or £167 10s on the two days. After cashing- in I started (home with about twenty guineas, a bottle of rare old brandy, a new silk umbrella, and a salmon about as big as the ‘ Horse Shoe.’

“ On the reassembling of the syndicate on the Monday afternoon there was a slight breeze of dissension, but for which the very incident that makes this stoiy would never have happened. In checking my accounts by the newspaper returns the plungers had detected a slight discrepancy, though entirely to their own profit. On Wood’s fifth ride at Sandown on the Friday I had credited the congress with a win of £45 to £2O, whereas the, official return was but 2 to 1. They were good enough to say that they could ‘ see what I had done ’ — so could I—but they took the opportunity of warning me that had the betting veered the other way, and I had taken a point Under the odds, they could not have accepted my return. With that preface they had the immortal mind to pull out a fifth document for me to sign, guaranteeing them the starting price as returned nightly in the Evening Standard, neither more nor less. Of course I signed the thing, but with: murder in my heart. The flame of desire which eVery man should feel within him to stick, however, unwillingly, to the uneventful path of rectitude for a brief period burned low, and looked like going out altogether.” FAVOURED BY FORTUNE.

Mr Binstead went to the Leicester meeting with £SOO of the syndicate’s money and £l9O of his own. _ There were two days’ pacing at Leicester, and Fred Archer was our bird,” he wrote. “ I held, and still hold, the opinion that he was by far the most brilliant horseman of his time or since. As I walked across the course at Oadby on that 'Tuesday Archer overtook and greeted me; but I never did 'and never do ask questions on a racecourse, and Frederick volunteered no information. In the first race he rode the horse that finished second, and my syndicate lost a tenner. In the second he was astride something that appeared tq be anchored, so that my systematicians did another £2O. In the third scramble we were shortheaded for £4O more, and I began to wonder that a job so satisfying should be so unintelligible. The clanging of the bell announced the hoisting of the numbers for the fourth race. There were seven runners, of which Mr Gilbert’s Vermilion, ridden by John Watts, instant/ly became a hot favourite. A few of the earlier bettors, by snapping like vultures, got on at evens, but within fifty or sixty seconds it was f Take six to four; two to one bar one! ’ Bar one was Panic, owned by Tom Stevens and ridden by Archer. On the book it had no chance against Vermillion and as the money literally poured into the ring for that horse Panic quickly went out

to threes. By the light of the market it seemed almost a shame to throw real money away on the horse, and yet my little old £l9O was not quite strong enough to take the risk.”

He waited for an offer of 4 to 1 against Panic, but the bookmaker was astonished when he wanted to put £BO on the horse. “ No, no! ” he cried, thrusting the notes back “Forty to ten if you like; I thought you wanted it for yourself.” “ If you only knew what an effort it has cost me to pull it oufi” replied Binstead sonuowfully, “ your whole day would seem brighter. I’m simply doing this for a syndicate of mugs, and if you won’t hold it somebody else must.

“ That mention of the syndicate settled it; only your experienced turfite comprehends the enormity of the idiocy of the backing horses by systems. I was only just in time. For in that moment there swept into the ring three score of breathless men, who had run from the weighing room as hard as they could come. Men ran round the ring fighting for precedence before each bookie. Then, mad with excitement, scampered from pitch to pitch, trying to force bank notes upon unwilling layers, who, taking the cue, only stood aside and cried: ‘ All gone!’ Meanwhile two placid .Nottingham officials hauled down the frame in which the numbers were exhibited and took out that of Vermilion! He had been kicked by another horse while walking in the paddock; and had fallen so Hame that he could not go to the post! ” The race had now become a good thing for Panic, and the stampede to the ring had been caused by men anxious to get on, especially those who had backed Vermilion. Planic duly won by half a length, thanks to the skilful horsemanship of Archer; and Mr Binstead collected £320 as his winnings. . As Panic had eventually started odds-on Mr Binstead was debarred by his arrangement with his syndicate from putting any of his money on the horse. Therefore, the winnings were his own. He went to the bar, called for champagne and shouted for all and sundry. Meanwhile, Archer rode in two more races and was beaten in each. According to arrangement, Mr Binstead should have backed Archer’s mount in the first of these Paces for £BO, and his second mount for double that stake. But he was so busy celebrating his win on Panic that he didn’t leave the bar.

Wjhen he got back to his hotel at the end of the day he found awaitiing him a telegram from the syndicate, who, facing five successive losses in one day, had decided to go out of business. The telegram read: “Discontinue investments forthwith. Wire total of amount lost land meet us luncheon Palmerston one-thirty to-mor-row.” Mr Binstead “ with as much grace as may be assumed by a commissioner who has made a little over £550 in the shuffle” replied: “You lose £3lO. Will meet you as desired.” He charged the syndicate not only with the £7O he had actually put on Archer’s losing mounts in the first three races, but also witjh the £BBO and £l6O which he ought to have put on the last two races, when he was celebrating at the bar his win on Panic. The story has no moral.