Tuesday 31 January 2012

Best Apprentices of 1957 – “The Sam Armstrong Academy” won over 100 races



From the 1958 edition of Cope's Racegoer's Encyclopaedia


Apprentice jockeys mentioned - Dennis Walker, Eddie Hide, Greville Starkey, Bruce Hellier, Josh Gifford, George Atkinson, Paul Tulk, Nicky Pearson, Kipper Lynch, Michael Hayes, Colin Holman, Sean Beary, Brian Jago, Duncan Keith, Jimmy Uttley, Brian Connorton, Percy Willett, Walter Bentley, and Ron Armstrong.

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Sunday 29 January 2012

The best Apprentices of 1953 – Outstanding Ability of Swift, Povall, Hide, and Swinburn.


From the 1954 edition of Cope's Racegoer's Encyclopaedia



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Saturday 28 January 2012

Apprentices who will Ride Winners in Coronation Year


From the 1953 edition of Cope's Racegoer's Encyclopaedia


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Thursday 26 January 2012

More compelling evidence - Vakil-Ul-Mulk

Yet more compelling evidence that Vakil-Ul-Mulk just had to be the greatest racehorse that ever lived…


February 8th 1968 - And the one and only Vakil-Ul-Mulk having taken on the very best three year olds in Europe some five years before in the Epsom Derby was now a busy eight year old campaigning over hurdles. No longer with John Meacock, Vakil-Ul-Mulk had presumably been head-hunted for his services by “Lieutenant-Colonel Guy Richardson Aymer Vallance” or “G. R. A. Vallance” for short… or even “Ricky Vallance” to his mates.

And get this… Vakil-Ul-Mulk wasn’t running in some selling hurdle at Fakenham or Buckfasteligh or even the little greyhound track for horses at Wye… he was in a hurdle race at classy Ascot no less! And furthermore the great horse was tackling an inmate of the powerful all conquering Fulke Walwyn stable, none other than the mighty Kirriemuir who had won the 1965 Champion hurdle!





Okay, before you say it… I know - Vakil-Ul-Mulk was receiving 18lbs from Kirriemuir… and so he should too as Kirriemuir was trained by one of the best NH trainers in the history of racing whilst poor old Vakil was lumped with Ricky Vallance as his trainer. I don’t know what it was with the great horse but he did seem to have crafted a very fine art of attracting eccentric trainers… Vallance was known to have stepped out in his underpants and slippers at six o'clock on a frosty morning and wash his hair in a tank of rainwater in the yard, and then later, he might dip his nine Maltese terriers in a washing machine! Furthermore his marital disputes with Mrs Vallance were apparently the stuff of local legend such as one row beginning with an oil-filled radiator flying out of a bedroom window… Vakil-Ul-Mulk must have been thinking "Come back John Meacock - all is forgiven”!

So for me the great horse was in a way covertly handicapped by the trainer and also it’s worth mentioning perhaps by the jockey too as Kirriemuir was to be ridden by the great Stan Mellor whilst poor old Vakil-Ul-Mulk had to make do with none other than Ben Hanbury. For all intents and purposes, and in the interests of fair play we really should assume that the two horses were meeting on level terms to be fair to both of them. Kirriemuir was probably expecting to jog round with poor old Vakil-Ul-Mulk seeing nothing more of him during the race other than his almighty backside but he hadn’t bargained for our horse’s tenacity or adaptability… and I say “our horse” because Vakil-Ul-Mulk was the people’s horse, the darling of the adoring public! Anyway to cut to the mustard Vakil-Ul-Mulk didn’t quite win the race but he did come near, finishing in a very respectable third place. And what of Kirriemuir? Well the nearest he got to being in front of Vakil-Ul-Mulk was in the betting and going around the paddock. Kirriemuir was sent off as favourite whilst Vakil-Ul-Mulk was an outsider sent off at 20/1… but of course Vakil-Ul-Mulk’s class shone through and he beat him easily as Kirriemuir was unplaced!



Friday 20 January 2012

The Curtain comes down at Lanark

1977 - The curtain comes down at Lanark Racecourse

The last meeting at the track took place on the eighteenth of October 1977... Great to see that the opening race on the card carried the name of Peter Poston who was a regular at Lanark and the other Scottish tracks for many years, he had a runner in the race and it would have been great to see him sign off from Lanark with a winner but it wasn't to be. All in all a good day for the punters with five out of the seven favourites obliging although the honour of being the last ever winner at Lanark went to jockey John Lowe and trainer Bill Elsey with the 15/2 shot Bird of Fortune. 

The card for the final day


Results


Wednesday 18 January 2012

A Memorable Day's Racing At Bogside

The Bogside card for July 19th 1957 and Alec Russell looks like he might have some good mounts.



Results from Bogside




Report from Bogside

Tuesday 17 January 2012

Sure I planned the thing... Why not? It's every mans dream, isn't it, to skin the bookies?


From Brian Radford’s book "Taken For A Ride"
The story of the Gay Future Affair



In the summer of 1974, a handful of sporting Irishmen carried out an ingenious scheme to relieve English and Irish bookmakers of a massive £300,000, by placing multiple bets on three horses when they knew that only one would run. It was to be the perfect 'sting'… One glorious chance to take the bookies for a very expensive ride. The basic idea was simple, but both the planning and the execution of the biggest attempted coup in racing history were absolutely brilliant. Chief organizer was Cork millionaire Tony Murphy, a man who had gained a considerable reputation as a fearless punter and the owner of several successful racehorses. One person was so impressed with his record that he actually named a steeplechaser after him. Tony Dickinson trained it for a season in Lancashire, but it turned out to be so slow that he sent it back in disgrace. Tony Murphy himself was far from lethargic. In mental agility he had few equals. He was a bright, intuitive, convivial man who had a Midas touch for turning pennies into pounds.


The plan was to take advantage of a race meeting where there was no Blower service in operation. It was first conceived over pints of stout in the back-room bar of a pub in Galway on the West Coast of Ireland one rainy day in August 1973. The races were over and William Anthony Murphy, a father of seven, turned to his pals and announced, 'I've worked out a way to win a fortune.' It was a simple scheme to play the bookmakers at their own game. Murphy's plan was firstly to find two horses — one good, one bad. Next, he would need to find a trainer over the water in England who would take the bad horse. Finally, he would need a Bank Holiday race meeting sufficiently obscure for the attention of the big boys to be concentrated elsewhere.


Yet even Murphy, with all his intrepid adventures, decided that this was one job that should be thoroughly tested before setting out for the big prize. So, on Easter Monday 1974, Murphy and his men arranged that a non-runner should be coupled in bets with a horse called Hindsight at a National Hunt meeting at Towcester in Northamptonshire. The test was a flop, superficially at least, for the horse finished fourth, and the conspirators lost six thousand pounds. But these were patient men, and they were not dismayed by the set-back. The test had taught them valuable lessons. The six-man syndicate pushed on buoyantly.


Their next move was to pay out five thousand pounds for a four-year-old chestnut gelding called Gay Future. They put him in training with the established and capable Eddie O'Grady at Ballynonty in Co. Tipperary. The horse had never run in Britain, but had won a Flat race for amateur riders at Thurles. At the time the plotters were buying Gay Future, they were preparing to ship another chestnut gelding, masquerading as Gay Future, across the sea to England. On 29 July 1974, a horsebox carrying the bogus horse left Dublin consigned for the seaside town of Troon in Ayrshire. It was heading for the small, little-known stables of Scottish trainer Tony Collins, an Old Harrovian and stockbroker.


The documents showed that the horse was Gay Future, and the letters G.F. were printed on his rug. In fact, the horse was a nothing. By Arctic Chevalier out of Madria Fox, it was unnamed and unraced. The bogus horse arrived with Collins a month before the intended coup. This was essential, because Jockey Club rules stipulate that a horse must be kept on a trainer's premises for at least twenty-eight days before it may race for him. Collins, in the meantime, had entered the real Gay Future to run in a novice hurdle race on Bank Holiday Monday, 26 August, at little Cartmel, a Grade Four track in the heart of Cumbria. Cartmel was deliberately chosen because it was well off the beaten track, had no Blower service, and generally attracted the country's worst runners.


While the bogus horse continued to graze and grow fat in the Highlands of Scotland, the real Gay Future was reaching his peak with O'Grady in Ireland. At this stage, everything was going like clockwork. A bogus horse jumping badly over logs placed on oil drums at the Collins stable, and an engagement at a Bank Holiday meeting at a racecourse with no Blower. Up to the time of the race, the public were to be told the jockey was a Mr J. (Jimmy) McNeill, a Scottish factory worker and amateur rider. The syndicate were well set for their plunge. If the coup were to succeed, it was essential that no one, least of all bookmakers and touts, should know that the real Gay Future was being trained to extreme fitness in Ireland, or the starting-price would drop dramatically before the race.


The next move was to bring the real Gay Future across from the O'Grady stable. The horse was again consigned to Collins, but this time unnamed. Driving the horsebox was Chris Hall, one of O'Grady's employees. Looking after the horse was Tim 'Micky' Finn, a top lad with O'Grady and an expert horse-handler. The box docked at Liverpool early on 24 August. It then made its way up the M6 and turned down a lane near Kendal in Cumbria, stopping by arrangement at a telephone box. Waiting there in the shadows was Collins's jockey and stableman Ian McAllan. An empty Collins horsebox was parked nearby, and Gay Future was transferred into it. Soon after-wards Gay Future arrived at Cartmel racecourse, some fifteen miles away, as though it had just been driven from Troon.


The switch had been made. All was ready. The real Gay Future was locked in the racecourse stables overnight while the bogus horse was driven back to Troon. Still taking no chances, Gay Future was given a final test gallop at the racecourse at six o'clock on the morning of the race. He was adjudged fit and sure to win. A report of the gallop was telephoned to the syndicate and operation 'Crock of Gold', as Murphy called it, was reaching its conclusion. 'Gay Future' was entered to run in the 4.20 Ulverston Novices Hurdle, and was listed in the Racing Calendar and on the racecard as being trained by Mr A. Collins, of Troon. Collins had bought Gay Future from O'Grady for £4,750, although no money changed hands at the time. Tim Jones, the regular rider of Gay Future in Ireland, also made the trip. It had been arranged that he should replace the seven-pound claimer, Jimmy McNeill, who was shown in the morning papers as Gay Future's partner.


To pull off a coup of this size, Murphy knew it was essential that the horse should start at attractive odds. So, to confuse the public even more, the plotters arranged for soapflakes to be rubbed over the horse's flanks and down his legs. This created a massive white lather and gave the impression that the horse was sweating badly, which of course frightened off any punter who might have thought of betting on it. While the horse dripped with soap suds, men connected with the coup raced around the betting ring deliberately supporting other horses, in order to cut their odds and to make sure that Gay Future ended up at a big price. When the race began, Gay Future was showing at 10-I on all the boards. But the success of this operation still depended on how well the bets could be placed in shops far away from the racecourse.


In order to conceal Gay Future as the 'job' horse, the syndicate had decided that Collins should also enter two other horses in separate races that day - Ankerwyke in the 4.15 event at Southwell, and Opera Cloak in the 4.30 at Plumpton, two more racecourses where the Blower service was not in use. Ankerwyke was making his debut over hurdles. He was last seen in public on the Flat a year earlier. The horse had appalling form. Opera Cloak's ability was little better. His only worthwhile show the previous season was when he finished a five-length second in a novice chase at Ayr. Later, he was well beaten in several novice events, jumping poorly almost every time. Collins himself hadn't trained a winner since a hunter-chaser of his called Jungle won at Doncaster in February 1973. It was agreed that syndicate members should place bets of five, ten and fifteen pounds on Gay Future, both on its own and in doubles and trebles with the other two horses. In this way, bookmakers would be less likely to suspect that something odd was going on. Opera Cloak and Ankerwyke were entered to run simply as a blind. Neither horse left the Collins stable, although jockeys Gerry Griffin and Paul Kelleway were contacted about taking the rides. As a result, with both horses ruled out as non-runners, all the double and treble bets would automatically become single wagers on Gay Future.


Early on the day of the race Murphy and his men boarded an Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to London, and six men, each with about six thousand pounds and using an A-to-Z London street directory, toured the betting-offices in a fleet of Daimlers, spreading their investments. All seemed to be working well at this stage, but the big bookmaking companies have an uncanny sixth sense for detecting when they are being lined up for a stroke. By midday, their bloodhounds were on the scent. The vast number of wagers on Gay Future, Ankerwyke and Opera Cloak had aroused suspicion. Also two of the team had accidentally crossed paths... both Irish, both swaggering into the same betting office, both with the same bets.


With twelve Bank Holiday meetings taking place, the large betting companies were not represented at any of the small National Hunt courses - and time was running out. At 12.30, most of the big companies brought down the shutters on Murphy and his men, and Ladbrokes frantically despatched representatives to Southwell and Plumpton with open cheques to bet the horse that ran and to make sure its starting price was cut to nothing. It was around 3.15 before either man got to the course, and they learned straight away that neither Opera Cloak nor Ankerwyke would be running. Ladbrokes even tried to get a man to Cartmel, but the track was so remote that the race was already over when he sprinted through the gates. By the time the shutters came down, Murphy and his associates had managed to invest little more than five thousand pounds of their intended thirty thousand pound blitz. Undaunted, Murphy returned to his London hotel and fell asleep while the race took place. He woke at five o'clock and telephoned a contact in Dublin who gave him the great news that Gay Future had won by fifteen lengths at 10-1. Without delay he ordered a crate of best champagne and prepared to celebrate his stupendous stroke. Although the party went on as planned, the bubbly lost some of its sparkle when an early-morning paper announced that the bookmakers were refusing to pay out until the police had investigated all the circumstances surrounding the race.


Many top racing people condemned this as a laughable contradiction by bookmakers, who after all manipulate, inflate, and deflate prices every day to protect their own vast financial interests. If their representative had succeeded in reaching Cartmel in time, there is little doubt that Gay Future would have ended up closer to 2-1 favourite than a juicy 10-1 long-shot. Some smaller firms were not bothered by the result and paid up without question. The syndicate eventually collected £15,000 for all their efforts, but they left behind winnings amounting to £40,000. This was made up of £10,000 with Ladbrokes; £5,322 with Hills; £14,946 with Mecca; £4,056 with Corals; and £3,509 with Mark Lane. None of these prodigious winnings were ever released, and stakes of almost four thousand pounds were not returned. When the syndicate finally examined their accounts, they found that after hefty expenses, their profit was little more than a miserable ten thousand pounds.


When The Sporting Life telephoned the Collins stable, Mrs Collins assured them that Gay Future had been difficult to school over hurdles and that Tim Jones had been brought over to provide advice. She said her husband was at Plumpton where, in fact, he had told the stewards that Opera Cloak would not be running because his horsebox had broken down. In the meantime, Collins had given the same reason, by telephone, for Ankerwyke's absence at Southwell. The Plumpton stewards were foxed completely, and because they felt Collins had suffered enough already, they agreed not to impose the usual twenty five pound fine. But the Collins luck couldn't last forever.


The meeting's senior steward, Major Derek Wigan, was informed that a betting coup had been attempted. Wigan instantly reported the matter to Brigadier Henry Green, director of Racecourse Security Services and to the Jockey Club. Reacting with their customary speed, the major bookmakers announced, through their national organization BOLA (Betting Office Licensees Association) that they would not be paying out on the Gay Future result until the circumstances were fully investigated. The Southwell stewards held an immediate inquiry, and after interviewing Gerry Griffin, who was shown in most newspapers as Ankerwyke's intended rider, course director John Levy referred the matter to the stewards of the Jockey Club.


Brigadier Green had already spoken to Paul Kelleway, who had been shown in the newspapers as the rider of the absent Opera Cloak. Kelleway told Green that he had received a telephone call on the evening before the race from someone who gave his name as Tony Collins. The caller had said there had been a mix-up and, although he would be shown as the rider of Opera Cloak in the newspapers, he 'should not worry'. Within days the police were approached with a view to a full-scale inquiry. Collins also crept from his shell, and in a statement to the Press Association he insisted: 'I telephoned the Jockey Club this morning and a meeting was held with their security department regarding events connected with Gay Future winning at Cartmel. I understand the person who arranged the placing of the bets has named himself to the Jockey Club and has informed them in writing that I was not involved in the betting operation.' Almost before Collins had time to put the telephone down, Scotland Yard announced that two detectives from the Serious Crimes Squad were being given the job of investigating allegations of frauds regarding Gay Future. Detective Chief Superintendent Terry O'Connell and his assistant Detective Inspector George Dent were put in charge of the case. It was arranged that they should work closely with the Cumbria Constabulary, in whose area the race took place.


Harmony among the bookmakers didn't last for long, and Heathorns rapidly abandoned the BOLA policy and decided to pay out on all bets concerning Gay Future. Managing director Michael Simmonds, who was also a member of the BOLA committee, said he did not feel the irregularities were enough to withhold payment any longer. Heathorns felt the bookmaking image had been badly damaged by BOLA'S decision to involve the police and refuse to pay out. Their forthright spokesman Alan Kinghorn argued: 'If the horse had lost, no money would have been refunded, and nothing would have been said. It makes us look mean.' The Tote and the Billy McMahon Group, together with six other betting-offices in London, also agreed to pay up in the usual way. At this point, it was still not clear who had masterminded the plot, but then Murphy decided the guessing had to stop and willingly admitted that he was the ace in the pack.


Police investigations intensified immediately, and on 12 March 1975 the irrepressible Murphy and trainer O'Grady, together with fellow Irishmen John Horgan and Brian Darrer, were all jointly charged at a special court in Ulverston with 'conspiring with others to defraud bookmakers by attempting to win by means of fraud and ill-practice multi and single wagers made by them or on their behalf on Gay Future, Ankerwyke and Opera Cloak'. All four had been arrested at Cheltenham racecourse, where they had gathered to watch the festival meeting. Murphy, Horgan and Darrer were all remanded on bail of twenty thousand pounds, and O'Grady on bail of fifteen thousand pounds. The very next morning, Collins was taken before the same Ulverston magistrates, accused of plotting to cheat bookmakers, and was remanded on bail of five thousand pounds. Scotland Yard were still not satisfied that they had seized everyone connected with the coup, and spread their net even wider to cover every inch of Ireland. They applied for the extradition of Patrick O'Leary, Michael Rose, and police superintendent Joseph McMahon, all from Cork, and all charged with conspiring with others to defraud bookmakers. The Cork district court, however, rejected the application, because no particulars of fraud or ill-practice were set out in the warrants.


The five men already on bail appeared before the Ulverston magistrates again on 29 May, and Superintendent O'Connell told the court that the prosecution would be ready for committal proceedings by 8 July. All five men - Murphy, O'Grady, Darrer, Horgan and Collins - were released on bail totalling a massive £180,000. Strenuous efforts were still being made to extradite McMahon, O'Leary and Rose, but on 18 December a Dublin High Court judge endorsed the decision of the Cork court, and ruled that these three men should not be sent over to face the charges. While this legal wrangling was going on, Gay Future, the centrepiece of the whole plot, was sold to bookmaker John Banks for a reported nine thousand pounds. The horse was then syndicated for eleven thousand guineas, with Banks keeping one of the twelve shares. Soon afterwards, while racing at Wetherby, Gay Future broke his neck and died ingloriously alongside a hurdle far out in the country. On 18 September 1975 Darrer was cleared by the magistrates at Ulverston of all charges against him. The other four men - Murphy, Collins, O'Grady and Horgan - were all committed for trial, on bail totalling sixty thousand pounds, accused of conspiracy. They were ordered to appear at Preston Crown Court on 4 February, and all the complicated preliminaries seemed well-past at last - until yet another unexpected obstacle suddenly cropped up to hinder the progress.


Just a week before the case was due to open, it was reported that the Irish Turf Club had granted a work permit to stable lad Ian McAllan, a member of Collins's staff at the time of the coup. Scotland Yard and the Jockey Club were incensed. McAllan was considered a key witness, but was now stubbornly saying that he would not attend the trial. He was living in Dundalk and working for trainer Bunny Cox. While the battle to bring McAllan to court continued to rage in the wings, the spotlight was finally focused on the stage for the dramatic opening of the case. The first act began sensationally. Two of the principals were cleared immediately and walked away, beaming and relieved. The prosecution offered no evidence against O'Grady, or against Horgan, the 37-year-old cattle dealer from Cork. Collins and Murphy were left to face the charges and both pleaded not guilty.


In opening the case for the prosecution, Mr Ivor Taylor QC alleged that Murphy and Collins knew that Opera Cloak and Ankerwyke would not run, and because of this they had deliberately created an artificial price for Gay Future. Mr Taylor said that Murphy had predicted that those taking part in the coup would win something in the region of three hundred thousand pounds. There was no Blower, and no other way of communicating with Cartmel, so on-course bookmakers would never know of the large amounts of money being placed in the betting offices. It was at about 12.30 on the day of the race that a William Hill official realized that a coup was taking place, and the firm instantly stopped accepting bets on all three horses. Mr Taylor conceded that the prosecution were not suggesting there was anything wrong in a punter taking advantage of information and doing his best to beat the book-makers. What the Crown objected to was the setting up of a charade to let bookmakers believe that three horses were running when it was never intended that more than one should run.


Mr Taylor reminded the court that Murphy had admitted using a hundred men to place the bets all over England and Ireland, and that five other front-line men had helped him carry out the coup. The jury were told that on the day after the race, a number of police officers went to a London hotel in the course of their inquiries into bombing incidents. In the lounge they met a group of Irishmen who were in company with Murphy and Collins. The conversation centred on a betting coup and the placing of numerous wagers in offices in London. Referring to a statement made by Collins to Superintendent O'Connell, Mr Taylor alleged that when Collins was asked whether he had intended that Ankerwyke and Opera Cloak should run, the Troon trainer had replied, 'To be truthful, no.' He had added: 'I agree I was party to that coup, but I don't think I acted fraudulently.' Collins stated that in May 1974 O'Grady asked him if he would like to buy a horse. A deal was eventually completed and Collins learned that the horse was Gay Future. The statement went on to reveal that O'Grady suggested to Collins that he should enter the horse at Cartmel, and that he said there was a betting interest in the horse. It was the prosecution's case that the public were not aware that O'Grady was the real trainer of the horse. Later in his statement, Collins said that he telephoned Kelleway to tell him he would not be needed for Opera Cloak, and left a similar message for Griffin regarding Ankerwyke. 'When I entered those two horses it was never intended that they should run,' admitted Collins. 'I was acting on instructions from O'Grady.'


When Collins heard that Gay Future had won, he headed straight for a pre-arranged rendezvous in a London hotel with Murphy. He had no idea of what the Irishman looked like, but he found him without trouble alongside a group of other men toasting themselves in a reservoir of champagne. When interviewed by police officers, Collins told them: 'I felt I was being used by the Irish syndicate. I knew there was a coup, but it didn't start from me.' John Harrington, a trainer, and a director of the Curragh Bloodstock Agency, told the jury that he had once owned Gay Future, and in July 1974 had sold him for about five thousand pounds. He believed O'Grady was the buyer, but later discovered that he was shipping the horse to Collins. Referring to the bets on the horse, Harrington said that all the bookmakers in Ireland had paid out on the win. 'Racing men in Ireland are still talking about the Gay Future affair - laughing about it,' he said. Angela Mulhearn, a former stable girl at the Collins yard, gave evidence that, on the day of the Cartmel race, she went in an Irish horsebox with an Irish driver to pick up two horses from a farm near Girvan, a hamlet in Ayrshire. These horses were Ankerwyke and Opera Cloak. They were out to grass and obviously not fit for racing. They were driven back to the Collins stable and put in boxes on Collins's instructions. Later on, Mrs Collins telephoned to say that Gay Future had won, but there was no mention of any horsebox breaking down. Miss Mulhearn said that Gay Future left the Collins premises on the day after the race. He went in a horsebox driven by an Irishman, and she never saw him again.


Collins made his first appearance in the witness box on the fourth day. He agreed that he had not wanted the bookmakers or members of the public to know that Gay Future had come over from Ireland especially to run at Cartmel. He said he had two personal bets of twenty five pounds on Gay Future in addition to the money he sent O'Grady in Ireland, making a total of £184. The ebullient Murphy then walked briskly into the witness box, and in answer to his counsel on whether he regarded himself as taking part in a stroke of genius or in something criminal, he replied, 'A stroke of genius, sir.' He did not regard himself as a villain, or what he did as dishonest.


Murphy recalled an attempted coup at Easter when he had arranged for a horse to be sent from Ireland to race in England, and for its form to be kept as quiet as possible. Hindsight was entered at Towcester, and another jumper, Golden Lancer, was entered at Carlisle. No trainer was listed alongside Hindsight, but the owner was named as a Mr A. Geraghty. Golden Lancer was shown as being owned by Darrer and trained by O'Grady. It was planned that the money should be placed on Hindsight, as Murphy and his friends knew that Golden Lancer would not run. The coup flopped, with Hindsight finishing fourth. Murphy said there were no complaints from bookmakers on that occasion. A fortnight later, Hindsight reappeared at Punchestown and won by six lengths at 12-1.


After Towcester, he had begun planting the seeds for the bigger and better harvest at Cartmel. Gay Future was bought, and six people, including Murphy, joined in - each partner taking a one thousand pound share, and two others a half-share each. To organize the coup, they flew over to London and linked up with a certain Robert Henry, who was put in charge of betting. He had flown over earlier and marked out betting offices on an A-to-Z street map. Asked by Mr Taylor if it were clear that Collins was not the owner of Gay Future when it went to Cartmel, Murphy replied: 'I didn't make any arrangements about the sale of the horse.'


Mr Roger Gray QC, defending Collins, insisted in his summing up that the two defendants might have broken Jockey Club rules, but they had not been dishonest. Ruses, said Mr Gray, were all part of the racing game. There was also the Eleventh Commandment of the bookmakers - 'Thou shalt not win!' Mr Gray spoke of the little men with binoculars who spy on horses at gallops, and the groups of punters who place large numbers of small bets. Such devices were embedded in the folklore of racing. The ancient war between book-makers had existed for years. Many people would say it gave colour, life and fun to the sport. Others, of course, might think it was a dirty game. Indeed, the whole affair was riddled with deceit, but it was accepted. In the betting game, the whole object was to 'take the bookies for a financial ride'. 'This was a betting coup that came off,' stressed Mr Gray. Though it was a jolly case, containing plenty of laughs and conducted in a friendly spirit, Mr Gray emphasized that Collins and Murphy were behind the brass rails of the dock in a criminal court, when the only rails they should have been behind were the wooden ones of a racecourse. Mr Richard du Cann QC, for Murphy, told the jury it was not a case concerned with the doping or pulling of horses. Gay Future won on merit because it was a first-class horse. And there was nothing wrong in seeking to beat the bookmakers. In his closing speech, Mr Taylor said it was a conspiracy from start to finish to defraud bookmakers.


On the sixth day of the trial, Mr Justice Caulfield presented an immaculate summing up, using a string of racing terms to impress on the jury the main issues. They had rounded the bend and the post was almost in sight, he said. Dealing with the Cork party who placed bets in London, the judge said it did not follow, because they showed some cunning in these transactions, that they were dishonest. There was nothing wrong in a person who had good information about a horse spreading his bets. There was no doubt that Murphy, though he did not proclaim to the world that he was the sole architect of a brilliant piece of betting, was at least not running away and concealing his identity. The jury were away six hours and seventeen minutes considering their verdict, and when they returned, on the seventh day of the trial, they found Murphy and Collins both guilty of conspiring to defraud bookmakers. Each man was fined one thousand pounds and ordered to pay five hundred pounds in costs. Mr Justice Caulfield told Collins that he had no doubt he had great devotion to the Turf and eventually might suffer at the hands of the Jockey Club. In his position it would probably be the equivalent of being drummed out of the regiment. Murphy, he said, was obviously a racing man who had obtained some thrill in helping to design the coup. 'It would be absurd to classify you as a fraudulent man,' he told him. As soon as Collins and Murphy had left the court, Mr Taylor successfully applied for a warrant for the arrest of McAllan, the absent stable-lad who had refused to attend the trial as a prosecution witness. Superintendent O'Connell said he had tried to serve a witness order on McAllan but the lad had thrown the recognizance notes to the floor. Though the trial officially closed on it February, it was not until to March that the anxious winning punters, whether connected with the coup or not, were told by BOLA that all bets on the race were being declared void and that no one would be paid out.


Even then the complex drama was far from over. McAllan finally crept from his hole to surrender, and was gaoled for a month, while in the Court of Appeal a solemn Lord Justice McKenna firmly refused Collins leave to challenge his conviction. With the legal door slammed tightly on the errant Collins, the way was now open for the Jockey Club to step in and deliver their own decisive knockout blow. They sent for Murphy first, and on 14 July 1977 the disciplinary committee decided that the Cork millionaire had committed a criminal offence in relation to racing and banned him from British racecourses for ten years. A week later, they sentenced Collins to the same lengthy stretch, and for the same reasons. Collins reacted angrily. He thought the sentence was harsh, particularly as 'a jockey was recently suspended for only seven years when he admitted deliberately stopping a horse from winning'. He was referring to Chris Thomson Jones and the Even Sail incident. Bookmakers also came under fire from Collins. In a letter to The Sporting Life he wrote, 'Might I suggest that Lord Wigg arranges for the public, who were in no way involved, to be treated honourably.' It was a nice parting gesture, but for a man of Collins's deflated reputation to advocate honour to a highly respected peer of the realm was probably the most audacious feature of the whole extraordinary affair. After the trial, Murphy was reported as saying, 'Sure I planned the thing. Why not? It's every man's dream, isn't it, to skin the bookies?'


Monday 16 January 2012

The Directory of the Turf 1967

Some scans of pages from the Jockeys section of the Directory of the Turf 1967... Some Flat and National Hunt Jockeys who were licensed at that time. *Indicates an Amateur rider and the summaries include the following Jockeys...





Page 248 – Alec Russell, O. Ryall, Brough Scott, Derrick Scott, Gerald Scott, Johnny Seagrave, Graham Sexton, J. Shakespeare, John Sharman, Ron Sheather, Ron Shepherd.



Page 249 – Bill Shoemark, Joe Sime, Jock Skilling, Peter Slade, George Small, Doug Smith, Stan Smith, Willie Snaith, Jeremy Speid-Soote, Derick Stansfield.



Page 250 – Derick Stansfield cont., Greville Starkey, Norman Stirk, Terry Sturrock, Wally Swinburn, Pat Taaffe, Brian Taylor, Keith Temple-Nidd, Taffy Thomas, Michael Tory.



Page 251 –  Paul Tulk, Andy Turnell, Robert Vallance, Ron Vibert, Richard Walker, John Wall, Liam Ward, Ken White, W. Williams, Bill Williamson, Jock Wilson.


Saturday 14 January 2012

Taken For A Ride - Point to Point Racing

From Brian Radfords book "Taken For A Ride"
Point to Point Racing


Point-to-Point racing generally enjoys the clean healthy image of ruddy-faced farmers and their families enjoying good, healthy banter, and honest rivalry between hunters competing in the open countryside. But just how far is this reputation deserved?  Records reveal a wide range of discrediting cases which extend from ringers to dope, as well as the blatant stopping of horses to land big bets.


One day in 1967 the large crowd at the Garth and South Berkshire Hunt at Tweseldown near Aldershot could hardly believe their eyes. Bobby Bunting, ridden by thirty-two-year-old amateur George Ware, was galloping home by twenty lengths and the bay mare had never won a race in her life! Her form was appalling. In her two appearances the previous year, she had been pulled up each time.

Before the 'off' at Tweseldown her price had plunged from 10-1 to 5-2, and the grumbling bookmakers were not long in asking questions. Their suspicions were well-founded, for it turned out that it was not the useless Bobby Bunting that the crowd had cheered home, but a ringer called Complete Treasure, a winner of ten races in a long and distinguished career.

The fascinating story unfolded at Hampshire Quarter Sessions in Winchester, where George Ware, a farmer and horse dealer of Crookham, near Newbury, was fined one hundred pounds for receiving thirty pounds in prize-money by falsely pretending that Complete Treasure was Bobby Bunting. It transpired that Ware borrowed Complete Treasure for the day from a training stable at Marlborough, saying that he wanted it to gallop with another horse. Eric Foster said in evidence that he trained Complete Treasure and occasionally lent it to Ware for schooling, but never to race. The horse was owned by champion amateur rider Chris Collins, who said at the time: 'If anything did take place, it was certainly without my knowledge and consent.' When interviewed, Ware had told the police that he had sold Bobby Bunting shortly after the race because she was lame, but the horse was never found. It was generally assumed that she had been taken to a slaughter-house and ended up as dog meat.

Later on that year, racehorse owner Cyril Light, a builder from Pyecombe near Brighton, won the Adjacent Maiden Chase at the Bridge Hunt point-to-point with a horse called Striker, although he knew its correct name was Midas Well, and that it had raced under Rules. The horse described as Striker won by a distance from Torquil, the only other runner to finish.

Light appeared before the Jockey Club stewards on 30 November 1967, and was warned off all courses where National Hunt racing was scheduled to take place. The stewards were satisfied that Light had provided them with false information regarding the pedigree and purchase of the horse when applying for the name Striker.

Though there were many other well-informed rumours of point-to-point ringers, it was exactly ten years before the next case officially came along. In 1977, reliable informants tipped off the Jockey Club that the horse running under the name of Red Keidi was, in fact, a former steeplechaser called My Virginian, three times a winner under Rules.

On 12 February 1977, Red Keidi won the Hunt Open at the Staff College and RMA Draghounds meeting at Tweseldown. Backed from 7-1 to 2-1, he sauntered home by six lengths, carrying a colossal fourteen pounds in overweight. His form then suddenly slumped, and he was well beaten in his next four races. But the Tweseldown gamble was not forgotten, and a year later, in a dramatic, well prepared operation, members of the Jockey Club's detective agency, Racecourse Security Services, mixed with the crowd at the Tickham Hunt near Sittingbourne in Kent and, as the runners assembled for the Open race, they burst into the parade-ring and seized the horse. He was then quickly pushed into a box and driven to the Military Academy Stables in Aldershot.

On 4 April 1979, the Jockey Club's disciplinary committee found that Eric Cordery, a racehorse owner and car salesman, and Raymond Butcher, the owner of a deep-freeze centre, had committed various breaches of the Rules governing point-to-points concerning the identification and ownership of the horse that ran as Red Keidi during the seasons of 1977 and 1978. In one of the stiffest sentences for some time, the committee disqualified Cordery for seven years and fined him five hundred pounds. They also fined Butcher the same amount, and disqualified My Virginian for five years. She would be seventeen by the time of her comeback.

The Jockey Club's forensic department is crammed with some of the most sophisticated detection equipment available anywhere in the world. Only very rarely do they fail to come up with the answers. They came close to defeat in April 1979, when they were sent a urine sample taken from Tartan Prince, after the horse had finished second in a Hunters Chase at Stratford. Tartan Prince, the 7-2 favourite, had looked a certain winner as he jumped the last fence in front, but his supporters were soon groaning as he slowed dramatically on the run-in and was beaten by a length and a half. On receiving the sample, the analysts were confronted with a substance they had never seen before. In the end, after considerable research, they decided the drug was Pyrantol, a substance which couldn't be traced to normal feeding and could, by its nature, affect the racing performance of the horse. Having established the name of the drug, they were then able to trace its source, a proprietary brand of wormer called Strongid-P Paste.

Satisfied that they had a case to consider, the disciplinary committee interviewed the horse's owner, Richard Williams of Barry, and fined him three hundred pounds. At that time, Tartan Prince was being privately trained at the livery stable of Bill Bryan in Herefordshire, and the committee decided that it was he who administered the substance, and fined him one hundred pounds.

Racecourse Security Services and the disciplinary committee were equally baffled in August 1978 after a urine sample taken from a horse called Osgodby Coppice was found to contain Phenylbutazone, a pain-killing drug. The gelding was tested after winning the Restricted Members race at the Melton Hunt Club meeting at Garthorpe in Leicestershire. Owned and trained by A.R. Adcock, the horse had won by a length and a half, and paid sixty-seven pence on the Tote.

After considering evidence from Adcock, the committee were unable to establish where the drug came from. Nevertheless, they disqualified Osgodby Coppice and fined Adcock fifty pounds for not informing the Jockey Club that the horse, which was qualified from his stable, had been transferred to a livery yard without official permission.

It proved a busy day for the committee, who later sat through a second point-to-point inquiry. Samples taken from the gelding Hello Louis after it won the Sporting Chronicle championship final at Newcastle showed the presence of caffeine and theobromine. The committee studied evidence from Hello Louis's trainer, Mrs Mary Reveley, of Saltburn in Yorkshire, and were satisfied that the source of the drug was Chapsaltz, which the makers explained had been affected by a manufacturing error. Though Hello Louis was disqualified, Mrs Reveley escaped without a penalty.

Of course, the system of dope-testing at point-to-points differs enormously from what takes place under Rules, where a minimum of four routine tests are taken at every meeting. Dope tests are taken only occasionally at point-to-points, and always without warning. The van and staff just turn up and park in a field. On one Saturday in the late seventies, a well-known trainer withdrew all his five horses after arriving at the course to find that the dope unit was present.

A rumpus erupted in South Wales in the seventies over an eight-year-old chestnut called Quip, after it had won the Maiden event at the Pentyrch Hunt. Quip had failed to complete the course in his three previous races, twice being pulled up when tailed off, and once running off the track. Each time he had started at 33-1. Yet at Pentyrch his odds were never better than 7-1, and he ran his previous races right into the ground. In a thrilling finish he dead-heated with the highly rated Prince Haven, later to become one of the best point-to-pointers in Wales.

Suspicion was inevitable - and justified. Far from being a maiden, it soon emerged that Quip was not even a novice. The horse had won six races on the Flat in Scandinavia, including the Danish St Leger. In the end, however, Quip was allowed to keep the race, the Jockey Club explaining that a winner of a Flat race, or a National Hunt Flat race, was permitted to run as a 'maiden' in a point-to-point steeple-chase. Those who knew the horse's true ability had scooped the pool.

Curious glances were also flashed towards Gwyn Williams after his nine-year-old gelding Hesperus had won the Maiden race at the Glamorgan Hunt meeting at St Hilary in 1976. A delighted John Beavis had plenty in hand as he eased Hesperus over the line, winning by a comfortable ten lengths to justify a massive gamble from 16-1 to 2-I. Investigations were started immediately, and it was soon discovered that Hesperus had competed in a handicap hurdle under Rules at Hereford a few weeks earlier, finishing ninth of eighteen. Williams was summoned to a top-level Jockey Club inquiry and fined £250. Hesperus was disqualified.

It is clear, therefore, that although point-to-point racing has not seen corruption on the scale suffered by racing itself, it is by no means free of sharp practice.