Cotswold Racing – Talking Points From The World Of Horse Racing – Week 1

James has asked me to write a bit of a blog type this each week, reviewing the news, or events in racing over the past week.

I always assume everyone else reads everything I do and then have a chat with friends and realise, I have a lot more time to go over everything and plenty haven’t heard some of the snippets I have. So, maybe these may turn out to be old news to some of you, some maybe not. Let’s see how we go and any feedback to the office is helpful to know if we are going in the right direction with these things.

GRAHAM BRADLEY PRANK 

Last week saw the passing of Graham Bradley, who had been ill for some time. He was certainly taken from us too soon.

Apart from being a great jockey, he was unwittingly part of one of the most amusing, racing based, pranks me and my mates had pulled on each other, back in the day.

Brads bought many cars off my good friend Paul, who worked in a Merc dealership, but he never managed to actually tip Paul a winner in return, despite how Paul used to big him up as a great tipster. So, one day we decided to get our own back on Paul after feeding us plenty of Brads duff info.

Eight of us were playing golf at Bowood in Wiltshire and I was with my old mate Sean Brookhouse son of well know owner Roger Brookhouse.

The two of us had hatched a plan to pretend that Brads had massive gamble lined up and to have some fun at Pauls expense.

So, Whilst playing round Bowood, we got Sean’s partner to text Paul saying it was Brad’s and his own phone had broke, so he was using his wife’s phone, but there was a massive gamble going down. Tell as many of your friends to get as much on, as this horse would not lose.

“Brads” told Paul the horse was running at 3pm at Kempton. Paul proceeded to ring everyone he knew that liked a punt, whilst slowing down our round of golf.

As the time got closer to 3pm, more and more people were texting Paul back, asking him what this horse was called. We were shouting at him constantly to play his next shot He gradually got more and more frustrated as no message was coming through and Brads wasn’t answering his texts.

He didn’t want to rock the boat with Brads, so resisted the urge to call him, but at 2.50, he finally burst and rang the number. Sean’s partner answered the phone(Paul had never met her, so didn’t know her voice!) and said that Brad’s was putting his final big bets on and would call Paul back, but the gamble was full steam ahead.

Paul was now beside himself with excitement, and the rest of us were in bits watching him, but knowing it was all a wind up.

He waited a few more moments and then started to get angry with friends that were ringing him, because they were stopping Brads getting through. It was hilarious watching him getting madder and madder.

He then rang “Brads” again and the phone was turned off. It was a touch of genius from Sean’s missus and the look on Paul’s face was to die for.

The race came and went and his phone was going mad. No horse had come through, no tip, no nothing.

Paul was besides himself and calling Brads all the names under the sun and he then called Brads proper number and it started ringing.

“Hi Paul, what can I do for you mate?” Paul asked him about the horse and why he hadn’t called back and you could see the penny drop. With seven of us there, he didn’t know who to blame, who to shout at or get angry with, he just had to accept he had been stitched up.

When we got back to town, we went to the local and found out two of our mates had been stood outside the local Ladbrokes for an hour waiting to get the call. Even funnier was one had tried to guess the name of the horse and even backed a horse that actually was well backed, and it got beat.

He didn’t see the funny side until we pointed out it was actually his fault for being so desperate, he made himself back something.

When Brads heard the story, he was full of admiration for us and said he would have struggled to pull off anything that good.

He never did give us a winner though. RIP Brads.

BEST HORSE IN EUROPE?

Did we see the best horse in Europe on Saturday in Constitution River. He was certainly impressive, but I would like to see him beat Ombudsman before we get too carried away.

WERE WE ROBBED?

I have shown several friends a still of the photo finish on Saturday, where I tipped Magnetude, who we all saw at the very worst dead heated the first race at Sandown. Not one felt the other horse had won and couldn’t see how they could be split.

I see the trainer and owner are going to contest it, which tells you enough. We were robbed of a 16-1 winner. I bet they get a dead heat on appeal. We will get nada.

The really murky bit for me and I do hope someone looks into it, is that it took ten minutes before we got the result of the photo finish. For six minutes Magnetude for heavily odds on for the race. Five minutes. Nothing changed. Then, all of a sudden the odds on Betfair flip flopped. No one on any channel had given a result, but there was something going on. It was a disgrace. Someone knew something and was filling their boots and two minutes later the result came out.

The game is so dirty and this was clearly somebody close to the judge doing some insider trading effectively. There is no other reason for the odds to change so markedly, with no other evidence being shown on the box. It was disgraceful and leaves yet more distrust about racing from those that keep it afloat.

WHAT WE GO TO LOOK FORWARD TO…….

A great week ahead with the July Cup and Bunbury Cup on Saturday at Newmarket, two of my favourite races of the year and one we have a decent record in, so looking forward to the week ahead.

Keep it warm, I’m loving this weather! See you next week.

Adam (Cotswold Racing)