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Page 4 of today’s Racing Post has a story regarding bookmaker Freddie Williams, who was violently robbed at last year’s Cheltenham Festival. In a bid to thwart potential thieves Freddie has decided to take a helicopter from his hotel to the track. Unfortunately, he has revealed the location of his hotel – the beautiful village of Bibury (I recommend a visit to the trout farm – pate to die for) which, to my knowledge, has just the one hotel. He’s stopped short of revealing which room he’s in but I’d take evens it’s the biggest/most expensive one. If he gets back from breakfast on Gold Cup day to find his readies gone I won’t be surprised. Oh, and thanks for the following quote Freddie…."Don’t forget there are 40,000 Irishmen at the Festival and their pockets are full of money, and they are going back to their hotels and hiding it under their beds when they go to dinner." Better hide mine in the Corby trouser press this year. That’s if they have one in the Gloucester South Travel Tavern (room 129).
Not the sharpest tool in the box and craves publicity.
Unless, he has engaged Max Clifford and this is the smoke screen;)
What an idiot!
As you know Mounty, I tend to ‘dress down’ at the races whilst holding my massive wedge under the flab on my stomach. Thus I blend into the background.
After all, you meet all sorts of nutters at the racetrack nowadays.
Mike
Better hide mine in the Corby trouser press this year. That’s if they have one in the Gloucester South Travel Tavern (room 129).<br>
Or if Alan Partridge hasn’t been there before and taken it apart.<br>PR and nothing else that though it was horrible what happened to him last year – sadly it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Me thinks Freddie is having us on. You couldn’t land a chopper at the smart hotel in Bibury. You would have to come down some distance away from the Swan.
Cheltboy, I hope you’re right. I’ll ask him at Cheltenham tomorrow. If you’re ever going racing and Freddie is attending you MUST check his odds before placing a bet – it can be 13.5 on Betfair, 12-1 tight in the remiander of the ring but 16s with Freddie because he doesn’t fancy it – just don’t ask for the fractions!
I always take notice of when he is shorter on fancied horse or bigger than the rest of the ring.
On the PR situation Freddie isn’t the brightest, but on this prices he isn’t usually far out…….. overall he is a nice bloke on track, especially when at cheltenham. I don’t know too much about the scottish racing scene but when i was at Hamilton he rules the roost there, the other rails layers running scared of some of the prices he was laying.
I always check his board out first at the festival, and then either Greg Hughes, Chronical and Bar One Racing………. the later being my luckiest rail bookie there. But Freddie offers the most value, but as i said before he isn’t often wrong with the ones he doesn’t fancy.
A few years ago I went to Musselburgh to bet a horse being ridden by Carrie Ford. I spoke to Freddie at the pre-parade ring and told him what I was backing. His reply was, you can back that with me as she has already ridden a winner today and won’t be strong enough to ride another!!! Sure enough he was top price by a good margin but the horse only dead heated! Maybe he was right, but it was a stupid reason to oppose a horse.
I think his hobby of bookmaking is an expensive one but he can afford it.<br>
Wallace, if he drops £250,000 in a day at Cheltenham it’s just another 1p on a bottle of mineral water for the next few weeks.
Mounty, he is no longer in the water business. Sold it for £15M last year so going racing is a full time expensive hobby.
<br>Surely Freddie could have booked some former SAS guys to walk with him to and from his car and to assist him to and from the track each day.<br>All he has done is to remind others the kind of sums he and others carry around.
A few years ago now (pre exchange era) but 6 of us flew up from Gatwick to Musselburgh on the morning shuttle with Ashley Carr to lump on his ‘Stakis Casino Boy’. Trainer Brian Ellison had reportedly ‘got it ready'<br>The general idea was we were all to be sharing a 100k and move around the line lumping on at the same time. However a mole from Freddies saw Ash sharing out the wedges of £5k bags of £50s in the bar and end of story was Freddie stood the whole sum at 6/4 himself.<br>The horse won easily and Freddie even bought us a round of drinks at the end of the day.<br>Still the largest recorded cash bet in Scotland.
Compare that to another outing where we all went to Folkestone to back another Ashley horse named Goodbye Goldstone this was due to run in the last race but as either the layers there knew Ashley owned one in the last and was on course or it had been pouring down all day and there was just a few ‘needy and greedy’ bookies left as most went home early and the only bet on course we struck was £100 at 12/1. (It duly won).<br>Incidentally Freddies daughter owns one of the top restaurants in Glasgow.<br>
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