Tag Archive for: Huntingdon

Roving Reports: Chasing the Easter Money

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It’s a busy time for bookmakers, is Easter, with a whole raft of meetings both Flat and Jumps to attend, although the early news on Saturday is not great, writes David Massey. Not only has Musselburgh bitten the dust after an early morning deluge, but for the Midlands bookmakers, the point-to-point at Sandon, near Stafford, has also been called off. That’s usually a really well-attended event, and will be a big miss for them. There will be no chance to see Eddie Redmayne, and his dogs, there this year. 

This matters not to us, as we’re off to Haydock for their family fun day. The weather looks mixed, to say the least, and it’s grey and damp as we set off. By the time we get there, however, the sun is trying to break through and things look brighter, literally. 

Other meetings being off means more bookmakers than there were last year at Haydock; four more, in fact, and this means betting on two lines rather than the one we were in last year. (The line takes 17 bookmakers.) When all the punters are in front of you, business is better; if you’re on the front line, you run the risk of a bookmaker betting behind you, and taking a share of your business. Such is the bookmaking life. 

We know what today will be like - all small money, lots of bets on “named” horses (it cannot be coincidence that one of the best backed horses all day with us is called Holly) and now the sun is fully out, we should have a decent day. 

Quiet to get going, as ever, and putting the forecast up for the four-runner first event is a waste of time. Nobody has a clue what it is, and nobody asks. I’d have been better putting the weather forecast up. It might have been more informative. 

As stated, the aforementioned Holly is an each-way disaster in the second race for us, and with the favourite, Brentford Hope, winning it’s a losing race. Secret Trix is much better in the next, but there’s a dinosaur show on for the kids, and business isn’t as strong. 

There are often dinosaurs in the betting ring - most of them will take your bets with a smile - but these two are bigger than the norm. One is a T-Rex and the other one isn’t. Some of the younger kids find it all a bit much. If you’ve bought “crying children” at 15 at the start of the day, go collect. 

Numitor is actually an okay result but Daly Tiger finishing third knocks a fair bit of the place money out. I go to get the coffees and offer up a loyalty card. Despite buying three drinks, it’s only stamped once. “One stamp per visit”, we are told. I shake my head. Come racing. 

Duke Of Deception is a good result but the enormous gamble on One Big Bang is joined in by a fair proportion of the crowd, and that’s not. Said crowd ebbs away pretty quickly after the sixth, with tired and emotional children in tow, carrying their dinosaur merchandise. Elleon wins the last, a good result, and it’s time to go home, although somehow I manage to join the wrong lane at the Haydock Island roundabout and end up taking a three-mile detour to get myself on the M6. 

Sunday sees me at Southwell, and in truth there’s little to say. Southwell are only allowing 100 public in, on top of owners, trainers and annual members, with the downstairs grandstand still out of operation. There’s only three bookmakers in the ring, and one on the rail, and whilst there’s enough business for the four, there’s only just enough. It’s families again, although with a cold, grey day, most are in the warmth upstairs, bar one family determined to stick it out on a couple of picnic tables. There’s an ice-cream van on the premises, but you wouldn’t want a share in it today. Results are irrelevant with the business - at least for four races - when suddenly a big punter appears, wanting a grand each-way Squeaker. He gets laid, and the business, rather than going back to the machine, is shared around the books. Squeaker looks beat at halfway but rattles home and is beaten under a length. He’s copped the each-way money for him, at least. He doesn’t bet the next but smashes into Brother Dave in the penultimate, and when that cops, it looks bleak. We get a bit back off him in the last but we’ve stood all day for very little. And it’s freezing. 

On to Huntingdon on Monday. This is more like it. My first McDonalds of any description for 41 days (not that I’m counting, you never do when you’re on a diet, do you?) is a Bacon Roll and Hash Brown as we make our way down the A14. God, I’d forgotten how good a bacon roll tastes. Everyone knows calories don’t count on Bank Holidays. Just for once, the Shredded Wheat can be passed over. 

After a rainy start, the sun really does come shining through - I contemplated sun cream at one point, no, honestly - and a good crowd are still piling in as the first goes off. If the money was small at Haydock, it’s positively minute here, with about 50% of the bets either £2 win or £1 e/w. Families having five or six bets, novices placing their first ever bets, mums taking advice from their kids, they’re all here today. Two families, from Cambridge, apparently remember my face from last year and have their knicker each-way bets with me all day. “You were very polite”, they tell me. That’s the game on these days - price is irrelevant, customer service everything. This is proven by the very first bet I take - £10 on Annie Day at 10-1 in the first race, when next door to me is 11s. Smile, be nice, have a joke. It works. 

However, I’ve got a problem. Two, to be precise. Because the firm have no fewer then seven pitches running between Huntingdon and the other half of the crew at Fakenham, it means that bits of kit that wouldn’t normally be used are wheeled out today. The laptop I’m using was the very one that Noah used to count the animals onto the Ark two-by-two with. The light board is old too, and for some reason, the bottom half of it isn’t working, which is far from ideal. The laptop crashes, at various inconvenient points throughout the afternoon, no fewer than eight times, and each time I have to restart everything. At the end of the day, I reckon that’s probably cost me a monkey’s worth of business. The temptation to launch the damned thing into the bin at close of play is great, but it’s not my equipment...

This is doubly frustrating with results as good as they are: not a winning favourite in sight until the last two races, by which time business has notably dropped off anyway, with many families off home after the sixth. We’ve won and won well on the day, and although the urge to double-dip at Maccy D’s on the way home is great, I resist. Just. 

And so finally, to Pontefract. I’m not working, just a day out. It normally takes me an hour and 10 minutes from my house to get to the track, so I leave in good time. Or so I thought. 

I drive into the track as they are going into the stalls for the first. The M1 was bad, the A1 worse, and finally Pontefract town centre itself appeared to be at a standstill. The nearer I got to the track, the further away I got, time wise, according to Google Maps. That’s never a good thing. So as you can imagine, I’ve fallen out with myself before I’m even parked up, and when the only parking space left appears to be in the middle of a lake of a puddle, the appeal of turning the car around and going home is strong. 

But I'm glad I didn’t, as it was quite an enjoyable day overall, bumping into a few old friends, backing a winner, then giving most of it back, and probably seeing a future winner in Vallamorey. However, if anyone wants to pop round and clean my car in readiness for Aintree next week (when it’ll DEFINITELY get dirty again) then don’t let me stop you...

- DM

Roving Reports: A Tale of Woe

/in /by

A very happy New Year to all Roving Reports readers!

I expect you've tuned in here today to hear exciting tales of Newbury, Cheltenham and the like. Tales of daring, of bookmakers standing lumpy bets, of big Christmas crowds and even bigger Christmas bad beats.

Instead, good people, I have a tale of woe to tell you. No sooner had Boxing Day come and gone than this horrid virus that seems to have gripped half the nation managed to get a hold on me too, and for the last week I've been so ill I've been unable to do much other than sit on the sofa and watch the racing. This has its advantages in so much as I haven't had any early starts or humping the gear around in the rain but it also means that, at a busy time of the year, I've earned nothing in the past week. There's no sick pay scheme when you're working the pitches, you know.

I'm hoping to be back at Southwell on Friday night. I'll make a decision on that on Thursday, but for the time being, I'll tell you about the last time I worked, which was Huntingdon on Boxing Day.

This was to be Huntingdon's Boxing Day swansong, with the fixture being moved to Aintree next year and from that point on. It remains to be seen how well that works, as Liverpool is very much a football city and whether people can be persuaded to change sport (and indeed, tradition) is not a given.

I get a lift to Huntingdon with my good friend Daren, who picks me up nice and early from Loughborough. Sharing the journey there and back always makes for an easier day, as there's someone to discuss all your certain winning selections on the way there, and to moan about what bad luck you've had on the way home. (It's the same with the Lottery - I'm picking the correct numbers every week, it's only the machine that keeps selecting the wrong balls.)

As is usually the case here, I'm working with the Speechley firm, otherwise known as S&D Bookmakers. We've a heavyweight team here to run no fewer than five pitches, three on the rails, two in the ring, and once we've set up we get betting straight away. There's an hour to the first but we know today will be busy, and it is important to get business for the first, as once a customer bets with you they tend to stay with you on a day like this. The key is to be pleasant, and have a laugh, which is second nature to me anyway. Every customer is wished the best of luck for the day as they place their bet, although one customer is hardly full of Christmas cheer, spitting back at me "yeah, you don't mean that, you want us all to lose!" I explain to her that some customers today will win, some will lose, and I'll get paid either way, so I may as well be pleasant to everyone! She does not have another bet with me.

It's slow enough to get going but once we're in full swing, it's a steady stream of punters, most wanting £2ew on. That's fine, as long as you've a near endless supply of pound coins (inevitably they'll pull a fiver out) and I make the decision to make it £2.50ew as a minimum, unless they've the correct money. Which on a day like today, I think, is fair enough.

Loup De Maulde is a good result for us in the first, although business is quiet. As the race is taking place, a look out to the A14 shows there's a whole queue of cars still waiting to get in. Supreme Gift is no good in the second, although it could have been far worse as we take a £50ew A Definite Getaway at 66s. Three out he looks certain to be placed, and maybe even win; there's a sigh of relief when he's just run out of the places.

The car queue has disappeared and the place is heaving by Race 3. One thing you have to recognise as a workman is when someone's clearly lurking with a wad of cash, looking for a price, and it's your job to try and reel him in. There one such bloke in front of me, and I start a conversation. "What you looking for, mate?"

He's looking to have a 750-400 the jolly, Crystal Moon. It's 13-8 with us. I offer him the middle ground of a 700-400 but no, he's insistent 15-8 is what he wants. Can't say I didn't try. When it wins, I feel I did the right thing standing my ground.

A stewards enquiry is called. Now, on a day full of once-a-year punters, that's the last thing you want. Those wanting payment are now milling about, waiting for the bing-bong to tell them their fate. This also has the knock-on effect of decreasing business by about 50% for the next race. Folk won't bet if they don't know how much they have to bet with. I'm keeping punters entertained with a joke or two whilst they wait and they really do have to wait, what looks a fairly cut-and-dried places-remain-unaltered verdict is taking more time than thought. Finally that announcement is made, and we can get paid out. Then... the rush begins.

They are at the post with around two minutes to the off and now everybody wants on. I've a queue of about 15 that isn't getting smaller. I'm flat out trying to clear it, which I do with about a minute to go.

Normally, with about 20 seconds to the off, I will stop betting as Jason, running the master book, needs that bit of time to make sure the book is how he wants it, and any late big bets that come raining in from the satellite pitches can easily affect it. However, having cleared my queue, I look up and all I can see is...queues either side of me.

I can't resist a challenge. "NO QUEUE HERE!!" I shout at the top of my voice. Like a pack of meerkats, up pop a hundred heads. The next 60 seconds are a blur as the twenties, forties and fifty pound bets are thrust my way. I'm serving two at a time, almost, to get everyone on. The horses are lining up to go. "Keep betting!" I say to Andy, on the keyboard and punching the bets in. More twenties and forties. We just - just - get them all on as they jump. The first thing I do is go and apologise to Jason for leaving him no time to sort his book, but he's not bothered! Better taking the money than not, he says.

We get a result with the aptly-named Seelotmorebusiness, Harry Derham's first runner which, strangely, has gone unbacked and drifted like the proverbial barge.

William Cody is no good in the next but Jason has decided I should bet the King George on my board, and so I give it a roar. Business for the big race is steady, but a £500-£200 Bravemansgame ensures it isn't a winning one.

Back to Huntingdon and my favourite £2ew punter of the day is back. She's having £12 on every race and has drawn every time so far. This time she backs Supasunrise and Master Malcolm ("because my brother is called Malcolm" - yes, it's that sort of a day) as two of her three bets this time and true to form, she's got the winner and third.

Billy Boi Blue is as bad a result for the payout as possible in the last, as everyone knows a Bill, or Billy, or Mac or Buddy, as Sheryl Crow might have sung, and that's the end of that. We've had a great day though, and as we pack away the gear and get paid, there's a definite sadness we won't be here next year.

That ought to be the end of the tale, but when I get home, I get a text from Jason.

"You've not got any money on you, have you?"

This is a text that sends your heart sinking, as it means the money is wrong. Now, it has been known for me to walk off with some of the float in my pocket. I once got home from Southwell, turned my pockets out and two nifties fell on the floor. I was horrified, as I knew they weren't mine. I rang Rob to ask if the float was short.

"Exactly a oner," came the reply.

"I think I might know where that is..."

One of the reasons Rob employs me is that he knows I'm honest all the day long, and if there's money missing it'll be a genuine mistake. However, after checking every pocket and bag I've taken with me, I find nothing. That gnaws away at me all night but I'm pleased when Jason finds a fair bit of it after a recount. Some margin of error is perfectly acceptable on a busy day like today but you don't want it miles out. I shall sleep easier now...

That is, until, the flu kicks in the next day. Best of 2023, everyone.

- DM