July 16
16/07/1953
On this day Santa Amaro was substituted for Francasal at Bath, the horse backed and telephone wires to the racecourse cut. Horse won at 10/1 but perpetrators discovered and 4 men jailed. Anyone there that day or remember it ?
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WalesOnline
By WalesOnline
Bookmaker was larger than life even in death
13 Oct 2009 00:00
IN the 1940s, farmer Gomer Charles worked hard on a small-holding he had taken over at Tonteg in Glamorgan.
IN the 1940s, farmer Gomer Charles worked hard on a small-holding he had taken over at Tonteg in Glamorgan. He was said to be a person who always believed in doing things in a big way.
He certainly did! Not only did he become one of the largest bookmakers in the country, who could boast of having the famed racing journalist and television commentator Sir Peter O’Sullevan as one of his clients, he was also one of the central figures in a horse racing ringer scandal that was to shock the horse racing world. And even in death he made the headlines.
On December 11, 1966, Charles, 59, who was then living at 22 Park Place opposite Gorsedd Gardens in Cardiff, went to his door around 9pm, after hearing the door bell ring, and was shot dead by two burglars. They panicked and ran, leaving £25,000 in cash in the house untouched.
Some 12 years earlier, in 1954, Charles had been jailed for two years for his part in the failed horse racing scam. With four other men he had been accused of conspiring to defraud the Bath Racecourse Company.
The court had heard that shortly before the start of the Spa Selling Hurdle Plate on July 16, 1953, the blower cable to the racecourse had been cut by a man from Merthyr they had paid just a few pounds and that the winner of the race, Francasal, a 10-1 chance, was really Santa Amaro a horse with much superior form.
When four of the five men were sentenced at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Byrne had told Charles: “You kept yourself in the background but I have not the slightest doubt you were in the conspiracy from the early days.”
Charles had earlier been “warned off” by the Jockey Club for running a horse he owned in someone else’s name but had been reinstated in July 1953.
A jolly looking man with a double chin, Charles was a well known racing character who attended all the big meetings and often chartered planes to the races. He also operated on the dog tracks and in the 1950s bought out the firm of Newport bookmaker Jimmy Jones of Newport.
Although Charles was the only one from Cardiff said to be involved in the plot, I know there was another Cardiff bookmaker who had prior knowledge of it.
