Jonjo O'neill Horses Still Unwell

  • Thread starter Thread starter useful
  • Start date Start date
Originally posted by Colin Phillips@Jan 22 2008, 08:37 AM
".................You rarely see a bet bigger than 50 quid in a betting shop ................"

Heads, as you are a customer and not a member of staff, I find it difficult to see how you feel you are in a position to make that statement.

I think you would be surprised how many bets larger than that are taken.
Click to expand...
I agree with you there Colin.

A £50 bet is going to be less common than the 20p Lucky 15 merchants, but one thing it is far from, is "rare".

In fact I'd say plenty of £50+ punts are struck in shops on a daily basis - and up to a fair few hundred quid. Every shop has its handful of regular punters who bet in amounts of fifties or more. Unless maybe the shop is a real backwater dive in the middle of Ballygobackwards!

What you will find is that a lot of the regular £50+ punters cannot get a bet on over the phone or on the internet due to their accounts being restricted. In which case it is far easier to get a cash bet on in a shop. I've done it on many an occasion - been knocked back to a pathetic amount over the phone, told them where to stick such a ridiculous offering, driven to a shop from the same firm and got the bet on (after the predictable drawn-out phonecall to head office for authorisation first). It's actually quite amusing and I like to stick it up them in such an instance - a case of up yours, I'll put it on in one of your shops instead, you think you're being so clever! It's satisfying to then walk out with a large wad of real cash then as well!!
 
Lydia Hislop in The Times

This is a pressure-packed weekend for Jonjo O'Neill. Yet again, it has been a trying season for the Jackdaws Castle trainer: a conspicuously quiet winter, his key horses frustrated, his form patchy, his jockey sidelined until days before the Cheltenham Festival at best and his competitors enjoying notable successes for his primary patron. Something better change.

Saturday's crucial meeting at Cheltenham was good for O'Neill last year, although at the time resounding triumphs for Exotic Dancer and Wichita Lineman were overshadowed by now-customary disillusionment in Black Jack Ketchum. Lining up again, it is those same two winners who must now deliver or disappoint.

Riding this Hobson's choice is not Tony McCoy, retained by Jackdaws Castle investor JP McManus. He suffered a spinal injury in a fall 11 days ago but is determined to return in March. In the case of Exotic Dancer, his absence is no disadvantage. When Barry Geraghty rode him to finish second to Kauto Star in the Betfair Chase, he arguably jumped better than he ever has for McCoy.

But Wichita Lineman - a Festival winner last season and the best active horse O'Neill has to show for McManus - will miss McCoy sorely. Increasingly lazy and this season yet to prove a real contender for Inglis Drever's World Hurdle crown, he needs all of the organising and compelling at which McCoy excels.

O'Neill's experience may lie somewhere in between: would McCoy's presence at a troubled yard be better or worse than a McCoy with little else to do other than pore over each of your runners on the telly? The champion jockey has made it plain that he expects O'Neill to make good on McManus's investment by becoming champion trainer.

Last term, that ambition moved a step closer, with O'Neill's highest tally of 126 wins and a chart position of second behind Paul Nicholls. However, with just 87 victories so far and a ranking of just sixth place, this season is shaping more like the tribulations of 2004-05, when the stable shut down in January and failed to file a Festival winner.

McManus retains horses with a far wider spectrum of ability than other top owners - to his credit everywhere except his bank account, but to the detriment of O'Neill's strike-rate. It also complicates analysis of the stable's form. Some horses are running well, others palpably are not. Runner numbers are certainly depressed.

O'Neill knows how to deliver big wins, having scored 14 at the Festival alone. Impressively, last year's treble provided by the McManus trio of Butler's Cabin, Drombeag and Wichita Lineman was the third time in five years that he has achieved such a notable feat. Nurturing Exotic Dancer from handicapper to the only living being who regrets the existence of Kauto Star is creditable, as are the rewards he squeezes from pint-sized mare, Refinement.

Yet it is hard to envisage O'Neill mounting a serious challenge to Nicholls when he lacks his rival's conveyer-belt of talent. Among his nascent chasers even talented Albertas Run, owned by Trevor Hemmings, must find improvement to reach the top rank and gifted novice hurdlers, given Crocodiles Rock's Hereford defeat and Kia Kaha's absence, are scant.

It can't help that McManus's silks are carried to victory by promising youngsters trained elsewhere, notably Nicky Henderson's Aigle D'Or and Binocular, James Fanshawe's Song Of Songs and Alan King's Franchoek - albeit the latter pair remain with their original handlers after their purchase, another McManus trademark.

Young Nick Gifford even provided McManus with this season's biggest win, when Straw Bear took the Christmas Hurdle - albeit only after his owner had exercised his acclaimed patience. He will need it once more for Don't Push It, whom O'Neill must fear is becoming star-crossed, his ample ability thwarted by jumping errors and setbacks.

Jim Bolger once said pressure is for tyres. O'Neill had better lay rubber.
 
Originally posted by useful@Jan 22 2008, 03:52 PM

There seems to be a lot of people like you on the forums, who are probably similar in age. And every betting shop has people like you who look down their noses at everyone else. You might be surprised to know how many betting shops are in existence ........ I dont think people like you will ever change their opinion of so called "mug punters",
Click to expand...
Since you know nothing of me nor how many betting shops I go into into around the country - a considerable number! - I'll just say I think you are talking through your hat! I'm being kind as you are such a newbie.

I think I made it clear, if you would take the trouble to READ what I wrote, that I don't look down my nose at ANYONE punting, so long as they do some research into what they choose to bet their money on.

That is of course regardless of background, creed, colour, political affiliation, yadda yadda yadda

Of course the odd person person is likely to go and stick a grand or so on a horse if they want to be secretive - but why would they nowadays, when they can do it on Betfair, and over the phone? OK they might want to do a multiple which is easier in a shop - I'e done that myself. But otherwise?

I've spent plenty of time in betting shops round the country, and esp in affluent areas of London, over the last few years, when I've rarely been at home, and I see what goes on. I often stop off all round the country when driving from A to B and watch a race... I can tell you where to find a bookie in the most unlikely towns LOL . More often I spend whole afternoons in betting shops, and that includes some racing centres and big cities, which I doubt many criticising what I've said ever do. Sorry, don't buy it. Things have changed enormously over the last few years.


"people like you "
"look down your noses at *everyone else* "
"... *all* betting shop punters are scum and deserve to lose"

- Purr-leaze!
Do mind your manners, lest we take you for a troll


Gareth F:
<< They already give a 1-100 rating of a trainers form against each horse on the card, judged against the expected standard of that trainer's horses. shrug.gif At least they do on the online cards. Pretty sure they're in the paper too, and would be surprised if they were left out on the shop-wall version. >>

Yes Gareth, they do give all that info in betting shops, but you never see anyone reading it.
Which was my simple point.
 
Headstrong, I usually refraing from using the "Quote, taken completely out of context button" on forums, but I see you do.

You stated, "The kind of mug punters in the betting shops who don't even bother to read the RP [and I'm usually the only one in there with my own copy] are gambling addicts, who also bet on fruit machines and 'virtual' or cartoon racing".

The point about you usually being the only one with your own copy of the RP suggests a feeling on your part of superiorit.

Gambling addiction is a VERY serious illness which destroys lives and makes the lives of many spouses, and worse still, children, unbearable. Using this term so frivolously says a lot about you.

I never made a comment about people using other betting media such as the ones you describe. People who use the slots and the "cartoons" are perfectly entitled to, and not necessarily "addicts" - another example of you making assumptions about complete strangers and looking down your nose at them.

Don't make "veiled" threats about "not going for me" as I am a newbie please.

We are both adults and should be able to have an intelligent conversation without either taking offence.

Gareth is probably right about "trf" being also on the board copies of the RP cards, but my point is in an increasing number of shops I have visited there is no tabloid sized full shop copy, only the broadsheet boards - which do not have the "helicopter" view stats you require.

I also described the ritual "huddle" around the card for the next race due off - you cannot say the punters dont read the form offered. My point is that in the time they are in that shop, the form could be offered in a more user/customer friendly way, whereby people wanting a quick "lunchtime bet" can get an adequate picture of the make and shape of a race in a very short space of time.

I notice Lydia Hislop has picked up on this, although taking a different angle. She nicks all my best ideas.

I am really sorry Headstrong but more than ever you come across to me as a person who sits in the bookies clutching your RP looking around thinking your are vastly superiror to everyone else in the bookies. You clearly have no real insight into the people who go to the shops - as I said before the majority are good people, without illness, who fancy a bit of a craic in their lunch hour.

There are a few guys who work in bookies who post on these forums and they have an altogether better view of the people who bet with them!
 
fckng hell :laughing:



But...

Of course, people have posted on forums before with the notino of an RP/Bookies conspiracy desgined to feed betting shop punters with skewed information. The argument goes that because the RP earns so much revenue from bookmaking advertisers it is designed to make punters lose
Click to expand...

So why would the RP set up a free comprehansive and frankly quite wonderful website?


and dont you realise that punters are to a very large extent betting against each other and the more lazy mug punters there are around, the better it is for those who make an effort.

You seem to be almost suggesting Socialist Betting :eek:
 
Clivex, I dont happen to agree with that particluar conspiracy theory, I was simply drawing people's attention to it.

Yes, you are right the RP site is as good a free information source as any. However the whole thrust of the thread is about the information available in the betting shops, not online.

I remember visitng a Corals in Central London a few years back and they had computer terminals which allowed access to the RP site. Didn't catch on though!

Anyway, shouldn't you be on TRF stirring it up and taking quotes from me on here and accusing me of all sorts?
 
My point was an example of the "socialist betting" that Clive described just above Useful.

I'd also question which bookmakers you visit - I know all Coral and Hills shops have at least ONE hard copy of the Racing Post that you or I can buy from the paper shop.
 
you have it all wrong Irish :)

Socialist betting is helping lazy thick divs who cannot be arsed to spend more than five seconds thinking about a race and then squeal that the world is a conspiracy against them when it all goes horribly wrong
 
Irish I can only comment on the betting shops I frequent of course.

The Ladbrokes, Corals, and two independents in my area do not have full tabloid copies of the post, only betting shop broadsheets.

Your views are better kept to a certain other forum I think, as neither of you have anything particlarly illuminating to add to the discussion, regurgitating the tired old prejudices people of your advancing years are known for!
 
Off you go Clivex, run away to your other little chat room and tell all your mates you have undearthed kravitz/mansun/dessie/chateauonline!

I think you are the one hung up on conspiracy theories my friend! And reading some of the old posts on here most people are wise to you on here!
 
Thank You for your input Useful - I suggest that you take the issue up with the manager of said Corals, just because it's not out in the shop it doesn't mean they don't have one.

As you'll no doubt have seen earlier in the topic my views on punters in betting shops have been formed from working in them in recent years.

If betting shop punters want guaranteed winners and to do the research it is all there for them Useful - as has been said before you only get out what you put in.

Martin
 
Martin, you are still straying from the main thrust of my point. Which is, some additional modifications to the broadsheet versions would not go amiss for a certain type of horse.

And if we go back to my initial posting, I was asking for the general well being of a yard to be commented upon in the spotlight section. At present this is not happening either in the tabloid paper or the broadsheet.
 
It is there though as Gareth has aluded to - it's there in the form of the RTF. Would you prefer a copy of the Hot/Cold list on one section of the paper?

Printed below a particular sheet of the wall display. Few betting shop punters seem to care about how long it is since a horse has run - you could replace that with a 2/25 ie. 2 wins in 25 runs for the past fortnight etc. if the RP wanted to change how they do things.

Either way it just looks like spoon feeding the punter - there's already RPR's available and various other stats for them.
 
Yeah, we have been over that. The RTR is not exactly provided in a meaningful contect though - its a number next to a name.

I would go back to my earlier suggestion where the Spotlight, which does appear on all Broadhseet versions, is extended to include stats about the recent form of a yard.

An example of this is when Nick Henderson sent out his last winner, the RUK commentator pointed out thet Henderson now had a 50% win strike rate since the beginning of the year I think, from 20 runners.

Now placing that under the Spotlight para is not rocket science.

I take the points that it is down to the individual to take responsibility for the amount of information they seek in determining a selection. My point remains that within the confines of the betting office more could be done to condense the key factors any punter may need to get a quick picture of the chances of a horse.

The ATR boys often talk about the American Cards which they download from a number of sites. Daryl and Enzo say the layout is very conducive to building a quick mental picture of how a race will unfold and who is the best value bet.

I dont follow this medium at all (although i confess to sometimes having a punt when I'm bored, following Enzo when he is on) but it does seem a better way of presenting the facts compared with the RPs Spotlight service.
 
Well, you are assuming that you know what people are, with regard to Headstrong, and how old they are, re. Irish Stamp who I believe is in his early 20s.

Instead of posting continuously (or should that be continually???) sit back read and learn a little about the people who are established members on a forum which you have just joined.

Again just my opinion.
 
Back
Top