- This topic has 65 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 8 months ago by
.
- Posts
An excellent thread, especially considering it was started before the horse ………ran?<br>I remember Nimello being forecast to go off at a short price at Hamilton on April 28th, but in the end the bookies couldn’t give the horse away and it started at 5/1. I was convinced the horse would run a stinker and it duly ran like an elephant.<br>Next time out I was surprised to see plenty of money for the horse on Betfair and it could have pulled a cart and still won.<br>It was obvious that the horse wasn’t going to pick its feet up yesterday and that’s exactly what happened.<br>This needs investigating.
I’m not sure there was anything amiss today, Nimello is clearly not the horse he was and both his last two wins came in class (G) sellers which he ought to have won anyway, I’m sure he has "dodgy" legs and really needs soft ground – hence his big price, for the record I napped the winner Mamore Gap but had Nimello down as an alternative because this was such a bad race that he may even have placed by default even accounting for the wrong ground and trip. I’d have been more concerned had Nimello won this race! :scratchchin:
Jim,
that’s terribly naive ~ the horse did not have its ideal conditions but by your own admission could easily have been placed by default. Why then would anyone with a brain be laying him at such enormous odds for a place. The notion that this is some mug punter taking the money is fanciful in the extreme.
Sorry Jim I simply can’t buy that. Would you have laid over 20/1 to get a place based on the form book.
No you wouldn’t 1/100000<br>Yes you would 100000/1
Coming from a slightly different angle, on both occassions Nimello has been at the centre of a controversy like this (yesterday and at Musselburgh on 27 March) the horse has been reported as moving poorly and subsequently found to be lame.
Notoriously, Royal Insult had to be destroyed after breaking his shoulder when an equally staggering drifter on Betfair.
Apart from the implications for the punter of this farce, is there not a worrying trend developing here which concerns the broader issue of the welfare of the horses themselves?
I wonder if it was found to be lame by one of the same vets who seem to freely issue certificates when horses have a virtually impossible draw to overcome ?!?!
Two questions form me (great thread by the way – only just spotted it).
1. Do we think there would be an official enquiry like this – if those posting on here (and betfair) hadn’t alerted the authorities?
<br>2. How do we feel about the betfair/sportingoptions agreement to provide details of our betting activities? And of betdaq’s to refuse to play? <br>
Tooting,
according to the Jockey Club, the answer to (1) is yes. I believe Ian Davies has a particular opinion on (2) regarding who is actually responsible for policing the sport (see the thread he started).
Uhoomagoo finished 7/7 last night after pulling like a train. He was supported from 11/2 – 9/2. Any strange betting patterns ?
Tdk,
Oh come on – do you really believe that the trainer and lad responsible for the horse aren’t going to notice if the shoes have been fitted wrongly in the hours between it being done and the horse actually racing.
Do you know any lad that would happily allow a farrier to mistreat one of his horses?
Not to mention the fact that Nimello is trained in Yorkshire and I’m fairly sure there’s more than one farrier working in the north of England.
If this chap did lay Nimello, does it automatically mean he’s bent?
There seems to be an awful lot of fingers being pointed on the basis of very little hard evidence.
AP
Alan,
your replies to this and other similar threads seem to fall into three camps:
a) the request for a sense of perspective; let’s not be too quick to cast aspersions (as per above).<br>b) the worldy-wise shrug of the shoulders – being able to lay horses to lose is hardly new – etc.<br>c) the desire to be allowed to go about your business unfettered and unmonitored.
<br>Until a couple of years ago I treated racing as essentially straight, but with the odd stinker and of course the ‘handicaping conundrum’ – the latter something I believed clued up punters could cope with.
The other day when South Africa played England in the dead rubber at cricket my VERY FIRST thought was – here we go 4/7 – bound to throw it. I didn’t watch the match or anything and have no opinion on it, but in my mind their loss simply confirmed my prejudice.
A prejudice caused by past proof of misdemeanours. At least it’s a sport I don’t care tuppence about.
Over the last year or so I’ve felt myself viewing horse racing in an increasingly similar way.
Partly this will be caused by my greater professional involvement causing me to spend more time on the lower-grade meetings I used to avoid.
Partly it will have been caused by media exposure and hype.
And partly, it will have been caused by the debate about the exchanges, and by my own experiences of drifitng horses on exchanges -which certainly seem to throw new light on possibly age-old practices.
What I’d personally hate is for racing to go the same way as cricket in my own mind. Tdk’s worries are much more akin to my own, than your dismissals.
Though it would be nice if you were proven right….<br>
Oh my god, this is still going on… Would someone please lock this thread?!<br>Guys (tdk, ID, marling, NH, Ted, marling et al), if you’re so perturbed by the "bent" aspects of the game, why don’t you just give it up? And put your minds at ease.<br>I have to say I find it extremely annoying that people who register themselves as users of a Racing forum and consider themselves fans could be so taken up with this nonsense. Racing has enough enemies without.<br>The game will never be completely straight – live with it. It strikes me that only born losers, with their propensity for seeking excuses, are drawn to this stuff.
tdk,<br>my point is that if you loved the game you’d think the best of it and be willing to be blind to its bad points.
And I never said that I win – just when I lose I don’t moan that I have no chance cos the insiders have it all stitched up.
Nore
I feel that I simply must clarify my position on ‘bent’ racing in answer to your frankly patronising post. There is a big difference between playing the rule book cleverly, an aspect of the game I particularly enjoy, and outright thievery. If a horse is trying but is highly unlikely to win e.g. a Prescott 2yold running in a sprint who’s bred for a middle distance, then that’s fine in my book. Prescott and others work this kind of scam year in year out but they are technically doing nothing wrong. If someone ‘knows’ for certain however that a horse with some kind of laudible chance given the race conditions will not win and lays it massively then that is quite literally criminal. Every effort should be made to eliminate this kind of behaviour as it continually casts a dark shadow over the sport we all love. It’s one thing offering 20%-30% over the odds on a shortish price runner, but quite another offering many times the tissue price. Finally I wish to clarify that I didn’t have a bet in the race and as TDK has pointed out this thread started BEFORE the race.
And if you think I’m a born loser ……. fancy having an even £10K that my Betfair account isn’t showing a consistent profit ?
I’m game if you are.
Nick<br>
(Edited by Nick Hatton at 11:20 pm on July 14, 2003)
Nick,<br>Please accept my apology for the "born loser" comment, I didnt mean for it to be felt to be directed so personally. If you are a successful punter, good luck to you. But easy with the flash figures there – I might have a heart-attack! ;)
Ian (et al),<br>I stand by my original contribution to this thread. And I apologise again that I got sidetracked into mild abuse that might have been taken personally… I should have known that any serious punter’s P/L statement was his soft spot – it was a low blow!<br>But no, I don’t think anyone deserves credit for what might have ensued from this thread. Most especially someone who purports to be a supporter of the game. Its akin to vigilantism. Racing already has its law enforcers. <br>And I think stories like this are just fodder to the popular image of racing as corrupt. We know it is; they know it is – but they don’t need our help in backing up their case. Call it Omerta if you like; or call it the blind eye of love!
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.