Silhouettes.

Fair Play, Volume I, Issue 19, 10 March 1894, Page 11

Silhouettes.

No. II.—“ THE BACKER.”

He is generally very young, but sometimes very old. It’s astonishing and almost pathetic to notice the amount of faith that a young man will put in a “ gee-gee,” but when this faith is shown by an old un, who ought to have learnt wisdom, but hasn’t, it is doubly sad. Most backers are “mugs,” but few suspect the fact and none will acknowledge it when they do know it. When a backer isn’t “broke,” which is very frequently his condition, he is very sanguine. He has usually got a “ dead certainty,’’ a “ perfect moral,” upon which he planks down his hard-earned money—and generally loses it. The amount of faith which a backer will exhibit in a tip given by the second cousin of a man who had a friend whose mother-in-law once washed for a jockey is something surprising to those who are unacquainted with the amount of damned folly of which the average backer is capable, and which is generally unfathomable. The backer keeps himself poor in order that the bookmaker may wax fat, may eat the best of game, the most expensive of fruit, may guzzle the choicest of wines, build the snuggest of houses and have a good time generally. The backer goes in for a sixpenny feed, a glass of fourpenny beer and a saveloy. Ho has no money to spend on luxuries except that of backing horses. All the other money he has he gives to the “bookies” in order that they may have the best of everything. This is very thoughtful on the part of the backer though he doesn’t realise the fact himself. He buys the sporting papers very regularly and reads all the dismal rot about King Cole being in “ good nick ’’ just now or Tommy Turnip being a bit crooked in the fore leg, or how Jack Spratt did a mile in such and such a time when the probability is that he never did it in that time at all, and never will do it. The daily and weekly newspapers keep the backer supplied with all sorts of useless information. The really useful and valuable information about the horses never goes into the papers at all. The owners and trainers keep as much of the really valuable information to themselves as they want but the jockeys manage to let their dear friends, the bookmakers, know what is going on. The backer knows nothing. The backer never calculates the odds against his favourites. He is too big a fool for that and in any case the bookies would never lay him the fair odds. It isn’t their game. Their game is to induce che backer to make a lot of bets which are about as likely to come off as the Sultan of Turkey is to join the Salvation Army. The backer is generally dreaming of the great hit he is going to “pull off” some day. He very rarely pulls it off. 'When he "does half the money is mortgaged already, and what he has left he speculates with afresh. The bookie is always

hovering around a winner with ad' ditional voracity until he gets all his “ lost ” money back again. Some backers can afford to waste money in pursuit of their favourite imbecility. Others cannot afford it. These latter are in the majority. Some of them are young clerks. They often end by losing their billets having previously lost some of their employer’s cash. The cases do not often get into the papers. The backer’s friends do not like the idea of his going under the kind care of the amiable Mr. Garvey, and so they pay up for him. There is, however, no mention made of any possibility of the man going to gaol who made the bets with the backer. There ought to be. The confirmed backer of racehorses in Wellington may be known by his slouching round two or three gambling shops in town. Another sign of the confirmed backer is that he is always in debt to his butcher and baker. He is always going to make a big hit some day, but meanwhile ho owes money to those who supply him tucker. Sometimes his wife and family have to go without tucker. The bookmaker’s wife and family never know such a state of things. Perhaps it would be just as well if they did once and again just to see how it feels. Taken all round very few backers make the game pay. If they did the bookmakers wouldn’t, and yet it is well known these latter are generally prosperous. The backer isn’t prosperous. Ho never will be until he swears off and chucks his betting book at the back of the fire. The backer is the finest specimen of the genus idiot to be found in the community. It is, however, almost impossible to convince him of this solemn truth. He will probably swear at the man who wrote this article and call him a fool. Then he will put the paper down and go out and back a dead “ stiff’un” for the Great Patagonian Handicap and lose his money. There’s no hope for the confirmed backer lunatic. Zero.