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While advocating that owners should be able to lay their own horses Peter recalls being rang by Vincent O’Brien a few days before the 1968 Derby to say that Sir Ivors owner Raymond Guest wanted to lay off his £500 bet on Sir Ivor at 100/1 to save his stake.
While you may be puzzled why any owner of a Derby hopeful would want to back their horse for the race in the first place, Peter adds that if that happened today , Raymond Guest, the owner of one of the best Derby winners, would have been warned off.I wasn’t aware punters and owners were freely able to lay horses in 1968, were they?
Technically they weren’t Eddie!
Where did you read that article, I’d like to have a read of it?
Page 3 of yesterdays Racing Post cormack, may still be on the online version if you haven’t got the paper. Will copy it on here if not although it will take me some time
Sir Ivors owner Raymond Guest wanted to lay off his £500 bet on Sir Ivor at 100/1 to save his stake.
Peter adds that if that happened today , Raymond Guest, the owner of one of the best Derby winners, would have been warned off.
I wasn’t aware punters and owners were freely able to lay horses in 1968, were they?
Sounds like nothing more sinister than a ‘side bet’ struck between ‘friends’ which has gone on ever since Bentinck, Derby and illustrious chums formed their fledgling ‘ring’
"Peter, Raymond here. I’ll lay you 10 monkeys Sir Ivor" (or summat like)
"Okay Raymond"
Smiles all round. Guest has a hedged bet and O’Sullevan has a value bet
Side bets illegal then and/or now? Dunno but we’ve all done it haven’t we? Tenners, monkeys, large – it makes no difference
And I rather doubt O’Sullevan’s claim that an owner laying such a ‘private’ transparent bet (both parties cognisant of the facts ) would mean he’s infringing the BHA’s ‘no laying’ rule as that’s designed to prevent laying a ‘public’ opaque bet (one party cognisant of the facts)
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Any owner with a good relationship with a bookmaker has always been able to lay their horse. It was happening 100 years ago, 30 years ago and for anyone wanting to avoid the Betfair paper trail it can still happen.
Laying your horse to save your stake of £500 in 1968 is at least the same value as laying to save your £25,000 ( av house price in ’67 was £4,344 ) stake now. Transparent or otherwise it’s illegal for owners to lay horses under the current rules of racing and everyone knows it. It doesn’t matter whether you lay off via an exchange, a friendly bookmaker or your best mate.
Transparent or otherwise it’s illegal for owners to lay horses under the current rules of racing and everyone knows it. It doesn’t matter whether you lay off via an exchange, a friendly bookmaker or your best mate.
I’ll take your word for that though would welcome official confirmation that an owner’s friendly lays with his ‘best mate’ are illegal and carry the same penalties as exchange laying
How on earth it could be policed let alone proven I don’t know
Anyone?
Transparent or otherwise it’s illegal for owners to lay horses under the current rules of racing and everyone knows it. It doesn’t matter whether you lay off via an exchange, a friendly bookmaker or your best mate.
I’ll take your word for that though would welcome official confirmation that an owner’s friendly lays with his ‘best mate’ are illegal and carry the same penalties as exchange laying
How on earth it could be policed let alone proven I don’t know
Anyone?
Drone,
Schedule 3 – Integrity codes of conduct: owners
1. This integrity code of conduct applies to any Person whose name is registered in the register of owners under Part 3.
2. Refrain from laying any horse in your ownership to lose a race.
3. Avoid imparting any information to anyone about your horse’s non-participation in a race with a view to the horse being layed until such time as the non-participation has been distributed by The Racing Calendar Office.
4. Refrain from laying any horse from a yard where you have a horse in training.
5. Refrain from causing any Person who holds a licence or permit granted by the Authority and with whom you have dealings to contravene any requirement imposed on that Person by or under these Rules.These things are not really actively policed. The authorities rely on someone tipping them off through MOU, jealousy, slight, welshing, bad losers or other bad feeling.
Yes, if not with a friend you have always been able to lay a horse with a bookmaker as well as back the odds.
Yes, if not with a friend you have always been able to lay a horse with a bookmaker as well as back the odds.
Have you? Was this facility freely available in all betting shops to every punter in the land or just a select few who happened to be close friends with a bookie? It stinks.
Laying a horse to lose and laying off a bet are two entirely different things.
Laying off a bet is selling the bet or part of the bet to someone else.
Small independent bookmakers have been doing it since the year dot. A customer wants £200 at 3/1. The bookmaker obliges then takes £150 of that bet and backs, (lays it off), with a another bookmaker for 3/1, reducing his liability to £50 at 3/1 but keeping his customer happy.
Laying a horse to lose and laying off a bet are two entirely different things.
Laying off a bet is selling the bet or part of the bet to someone else.
Small independent bookmakers have been doing it since the year dot.
Absolutely Dolus, all not just small. Laying off liability (hedging) at or ideally at shorter odds is a cornerstone of balancing a field book and is of course a wholly legal practice providing you’re a licensed bookmaker
And it is not a nefarious practice, simply a wise business move and one that in many ways sorts the men from the boys: to hedge or not, stand or fall by your decision
What I’m still not clear about, despite the BHA spiel provided by Robert99, is whether the private hedging that R Guest (owner) apparently wanted to conduct with P O’Sullevan – a friendly side bet – is now forbidden under the above Schedule 3; it makes no mention of hedging, laying off or side bets other than paragraph 2 which in my view is ambiguous and open to interpretation.
Hedging is patently not "laying any horse in your ownership
to lose a race
" as you point out
In addition were the Guest/O’Sullevan type private wagers actually always forbidden but the authorities turned a blind eye to them for decades and centuries until Schedule 3 appeared
Drone
Laying a horse in ownership is banned. Full stop.
Whether you also back it is irrelevant as far as the rules go. The offence is the laying part.
It is an integrity matter (not a bet risk management matter) for racing’s image that became more obvious when Betfair started and people questioned the whole integrity of racing if owners were allowed to lay their own horses. Betfair made a fuss about it in that they would shop anyone who did it, with their MOU. Betfair wanted to expand in countries where there was opposition to exchanges and laying by the public eg Australia and they had to make exchanges appear whiter than white.When owner laying was kept confidential there was no wider integrity issue for racing as no one knew much about it except owners, friends and bookmakers – who still won’t shop anyone, good or bad.
Laying a horse in ownership is banned. Full stop.
Whether you also back it is irrelevant as far as the rules go. The offence is the laying part.When owner laying was kept confidential there was no wider integrity issue for racing as no one knew much about it except owners, friends and bookmakers – who still won’t shop anyone, good or bad.
Fair enough Robert. If owner laying is to be banned I suppose it has to be across-the-board in all its shapes and forms, corrupt, dubious or innocent
I do believe it’s all a bit of a mess though and would more or less side with Greg Wood’s thoughts, reported by Pompete on the ‘Big Ban’ thread
Regarding Schedule 3: ‘refrain’ and ‘avoid’ sound woefully noncommital words to use in a document supposedly designed to ‘ban’ something. More a rough guide than a legally binding document
Yep, the pompous hypocritical supercilious pseudo-moralising that emanates from two-faced puce-faced bookmakers when they climb onto their anti-exchange soapbox is…well let’s just call it laughable
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Yep, the pompous hypocritical supercilious pseudo-moralising that emanates from two-faced puce-faced bookmakers when they climb onto their anti-exchange soapbox is…well let’s just call it laughable
It sure is. The stuff that was rolling out of their mouths in Australia during the great anti Betfair campaign was legendary in its self serving ignorance. There was an internet poster with a nic like "rouge homme" who was discovered to be a media adviser to the bookmaking fraternity. May have even headed the NSW bookmakers advisory group. He was howled down for two years as he continually posted a panglossian view of licensed bookmakers. I nicknamed him Rumplestiltskin ……. he really believed his "spin" was golden. He was not my #1 fan.
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deleted – duplicate
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Duplication … how’d that happen?
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