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Your Favourite Uncle Smart Arse's Unofficial Blog

Needless to say I love days like today.

Rhoscolyn 40/1 was a coup, the components of which combined to produce a perfect storm.

Racing off 96, a pound below his last winning mark.

And that was at Goodwood over today's mile, a course specialist's tricky track, where he'd already won five races.

And that last win was on Heavy.

There are weather stations and weather apps and there are weather stations and weather apps.

I have a source which is both accurate and ahead of the rest and it told me plenty about the weather that was coming.

I got on what I could at 40/1 and also combined Rhoscolyn in ambitious "cop the lot" multiples with other mud monsters, using accounts I purposely run at a loss for use at times like this.

Was it all plain sailing?

Far from it.

The rain didn't arrive soon enough for the first two legs of my multiples, though tbh the way they ran they weren't winning no matter how deep the ground got.

Then the race times suggested the ground really wasn't that bad yesterday despite the Biblical rainfall.

I felt like Virgil Sollozzo in The Godfather.

He had Vito Corleone hit with five bullets and still couldn't kill him.

Goodwood got hit with 29mm of rain, but it still couldn't turn the ground genuinely Heavy.

But, as I said on the phone this morning to "Leafy," my main collaborator, oldest friend and, for 40 years on and off, my Consiglieri and the wiser older brother I never had, who followed me in on this one (I follow him in often enough): "Look, it's not as Heavy as I hoped, but there is still give and anything wanting Good ground or quicker wins nothing on this, so we are still in with a chance."

The last remnant of the multiple bit the dust in the opener, which felt like an ill omen.

But it didn't stop the mighty Rhoscolyn, who made no mistake.

There were Rule 4s - varying from 20p to 30p - to contend with, plus reduction factors, but it was still a banging result and what I'm in the racing and betting game for, frankly.

The really exciting thing is I reckon there's plenty more where that came from.

No one seems to be talking about the learning points coming out of this - and that's just how me and "Leafy" like it.

Last day of the meeting tomorrow - I'm not gonna lie, I couldn't wait for it to end most of the week, but it turned out to be "Glorious Gas Pit" in the end and I couldn't be happier if I was making short work of the Medallions Of Steak in a red wine sauce dish I used to wolf down in The Hunter's Lodge with my Dad during Goodwood Week back in the day.
 
I nearly won today.

Which means I didn't.

I lost.

The "Stewfolio" was no good, but I did have a couple of winning bets - Al Aasy and Mubir - and had Whipcracker (20/1 win only beaten a head) won the last I'd have finished in front.

And so Glorious Goodwood ends and, as I sit here next to the perennially open French window, contemplating the serenity of this August Saturday evening, full of homemade chicken fajitas, I am already looking forward.

First item of real note is Saratoga this evening, where the Whitney Stakes is one of four races I am interested in.

There is also one good race at Del Mar, but west coast contests are usually past my bedtime.

Decent racing at Deauville tomorrow too.
 
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"had the most lovely time at Ascot on Saturday. Good racing, delicious King Prawn Tempura with sweet chilli sauce, then an 80s-themed gig in the late afternoon sunshine with China Crisis, Brother Beyond, Visage (''Two eyes staring cold and silent....'' – loved it!), Toyah, Altered Images (Clare Grogan looked AMAZING and was great), Odyssey, Kid Creole, and the brilliant Jimmy Somerville."

That was on my Facebook memories this morning - it was actually 2011, 14 years ago.

Anyway, I've not been to Shergar Cup Day since and I won't be there on Saturday either.

But I am looking forward to it - ditto The Racing League at Chepstow tonight.

Not the team stuff - or the no-doubt excruciating coverage (I caught a Matt Chapman interview with Richard Kingscote yesterday while surfing the web and Chapman just gets worse, literally unlistenable to for me) - but the sheer fact they are competitive handicaps, though I trust the integrity of the Shergar Cup more tbh after one of two Racing League rides I've seen.
 
It's August 1983 and I'm home in Hull for the summer after the second year of my Law degree at Warwick university.

I'm into my third year doing a summer job for Habbershaws bookmakers, providing holiday cover as cashier, boardman and bet settler at their 14 shops in the City and surrounding suburbs.

By now, I'm well versed with the scene and quite a Hull betting scene it is too.

There are a number of independent bookies, all offering unique early morning prices.

There are also notorious punters too - like the (surely losing) punter who I think did cash-in-hand handyman jobs around the town and would go in a betting shop and have a monkey or even a grand straight forecast the fav to beat the second fav in small-field pattern races where they bet something like 4/7, 7/4, 14/1 bar or Evens, 2/1, 10/1 bar - you get the picture and maybe more about him another day.

Ditto the "pro" or "semi pro" punters like Maths teacher Chris Kelly who would lump on shorties in "Dead Eight" bad each-way races or Eddie Gilman who generously tipped counter staff after wins, no doubt in the hope they wouldn't even ring his bets through to head office.

And there was Nigel Culbert, maybe ten years older than me, a shop manager for the Art Wells/Rossy Brothers chain, sharp as a knife, a really shrewd punter, he knew all of the above and I learned plenty off him about not only how to win but how to keep it and improve your life.

I've stories about all these people for another day too.

But my focus here is on Jack Ferens.

Jack was notorious, so many stories I heard from so many on the scene, and in later life Jack burst onto the racing media scene by basically calculating and publishing the Official ratings to exploit the arcane three-week entry system and rating to the nearest 5lb to his advantage.

Jack would price up just about anything and his shop near the City Centre was an Alladin's Cave of offers written on the wall every day of the week, a bit like specials in a Chinese takeaway or Kebab House.

Anyway, it's the Monday morning and the Arlington Million was on the Sunday night.

I'd noticed UK horses, while hardly ever winning, going off much bigger on the USA pari-mutuel, so I'd had a few quid on Tolomeo.

I didn't even know the result and I decided to go into Nigel's shop (by now he'd set up on his own) to find out and have a catch-up chat.

I didn't even get to ask the question.

The instant I walked through the door Nigel came out from the behind the counter towards me in excitement.

"Did you have a bet on that Arlington Million last night? Because one of YOUR (he knew I rated Tolomeo) horses won it and the bookies are going mental about it."

"Yeah, I bet Tolomeo," I said.

"Tell me you left it at SP!" Nigel almost shouted.

"I got the slip out and showed him: "Tolomeo @ pari-mutuel."

"Yeah you're in, it was 6/1 with the books but started monster odds out there," he said.

He wasn't wrong.

I went to Jack's shop and got paid out at 38/1 - I couldn't believe it, I was flush for months on the back of that.

But there's a post script to this.

Many many years later, after Jack had died, having long since sold his shop and got out of the game, for the first time ever I saw the result in newsprint.

I looked excitedly to see the dividend I'd been paid out at.

And there it was was $39 - but to a $2 unit stake!

It was never 38/1, it was 18.5/1, still a cracking price, but not the colossal return many UK bookies paid out at.

True story.
 
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There were so many pitfalls to overseas betting in those days. I can’t remember the details but a friend of mine was just about to throw his ticket away for a big French race, probably The Arc. He was moaning like a Banshee because the owner of the winner’s second string had just won. I had to explain ‘coupling’ to him. Mean bugger never bought me a pint though.
 
I backed Pilsudski when he won the Breeders Cup Turf in 95, or 96.
In them days as you referred to, I always put Pari mutuel on the slip.
Even though it was a strong field. I got paid out at ridiculous odds. More than triple what the bookies over here were offering.
 
As Editor, I hired Ray Brooks to do a voiceover for a TV ad for the Racing & Football Outlook in 1987. His voice was all the rage then and he didn't work cheap - a grand for an hour's work - but he gave me value for money. He was superb. From Big Deal to Mr Benn, he was a legend.
 
"I had kinda an interesting day myself:"

That is pretty much how I feel right now this evening, except I'd be fairly confident I don't live with her^ (I think I'd remember if I did).

I was losing all night at Windsor and the manner of it was so ridiculous I had to laugh.

Everything I bet got smashed off the boards.

Then got beat.

I'm still not quite sure - I'm a bit fazed by it tbh and had spent most of the last race looking at Claymore - how I managed to end the day in front tbh.

But I did and I'm actually buzzing as we go into the weekend.

Newbury and Ripon, Deauville on Sunday, then York next week with another Racing League (at Newcastle) for good measure.

Don't care about the team stuff, but do care about interesting betting opportunities and that is 💯% the way to look at it.
 
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Surprised you've not mentioned the race for grey horses at Newmarket Saturday.
One of those summer highlights to go with the Shergar cup + the Newbury 2yo yearling race 😆
 
I think I've read others state no horse is literally black, but depends on the exact definition of black, I guess, I think there are even shades of black.

But there are horses listed as black - they are rare, but there's a few.
 
I went to Geoffrey Freer Day at Newbury in 1984 - Baynoun won it.

It was all very different back then.

I think the Hungerford was on the Friday (they didn't always try to stage every decent race on a Saturday) and no one felt the need to stage music after racing on a card the quality of which sold itself.

Tbh, I always found Newbury a disappointment compared to how it seemed on TV, both Flat and Jumps.

Nowadays I think it's positively awful - it's half an hour from me and I haven't been for years.

I will, however, enjoy watching it at home on my phone, ditto Ripon, Newmarket and the cream of the USA action in the evening.
 

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