LOOK SHARPE: Rocking at the Races

Sports betting PR legend GRAHAM SHARPE brings you his latest ‘LOOK SHARPE’ column…

ANYONE WHO has ever enjoyed listening to the great pop-ska-rock band, Madness, will not be that surprised that while enjoying their brilliant LP, ‘Can’t Touch Us Now’, I was not remotely shocked to notice, during the track ‘Pam The Hawk’, a lyric about, shall we say, a lady of relatively easy virtue, with the cautionary observation that ‘She’d be the richest woman in all of the West End, they say, if every single penny earned she didn’t spend, in the bookies, on the gee gees.’

Many references to racing and betting have turned up over the years in popular music lyrics – while one early rock n roll star, who is still amongst us at the age of 87, and now a ‘Sir’, Tommy Steele, might not have received his honour had those responsible for awarding it been aware of his part in a betting scam.

Tommy has revealed his role, which happened when his father took him to Goodwood races shortly after the end of World War 2.

Tommy’s Dad was a racecourse tipster who used his, er, wits, to convince gullible racegoers that he was privy to inside information about the outcome of the afternoon’s contests, which he would be prepared to share – well, on receipt of a modest fee, or in return for the recipient of the info ‘putting on a bit of silver for me.’

He set up a scam which involved the young Tommy, not even a teenager at this point, sneaking into the paddock and pretending to be a stable lad to one of the runners in the imminent race, as his Dad pointed him out to his latest ‘mug punter.’

The scam worked as planned – until Tommy got so close to one horse, that when he saw his Dad looking his way, ‘I raised my cap and gave an enormous wave’. This startled the runner so much, that he reared up, tossing his jockey into the air, and bolting, causing a chain reaction – ‘there were horses everywhere, and people dashing about all over the place’ recalled the rock n roller, later a film and stage star.

Tommy fled the chaotic scene and made himself scarce, fearing recriminations from his irate Dad and also the horse’s connections, but ‘in spite of the events of the day, our horse won by six lengths and we were going home with a bit of silver in our pockets.’

Tommy and his Dad could have ended up with the ‘Race Track Blues’ had that incident played out a little differently – and that is the title of an energetic song by one Lee Rocker, once a member of the Stray Cats, which is on his 2006 LP, ‘The Curse Of Rockabilly’. It romps along whilst Lee tells the tale of how he ‘knew I was in trouble’ after failing to land the Trifecta on a visit to the track. The lyrics suggest Lee is indeed a racing fan, albeit in the States and possibly with poor hearing, as he sings ‘I knew I was in trouble at the Sarasota (think he means Saratoga) Springs – never won Trifecta, never feelin’ like a king.’

Elbow’s track, ‘The Fix’, concerns itself with dodgy racecourse dealings at Epsom – ‘The Fix is in…..’ – even though: ‘the odds that I got were delicious.’ However, it appears that optimistic singer, Guy Garvey, was to discover, to his cost, that ‘the jockey is cocky and vicious.’

Caymanas Park is a racecourse in Kingston, Jamaica, and reggae star Dillinger, immortalised the venue with his 1976 track of the same name. The song also celebrated champion jockey, George HoSang, who reportedly rode 642 winners there.

Irish jockey Robbie Dolan decided to progress his career by moving to Australia in 2017. Things went quite well, but really took off for him when he entered TV singing contest programme, ‘The Voice’ – and won it. This resulted in the Group One winning rider singing at the racetrack on Cox Plate day at the Moonee Valley racecourse in 2022, performing the iconic Aussie ‘anthem’, ‘The Horses’. Explained Robbie, ‘ When I got the call up to perform it was a no-brainer – I couldn’t miss out on an opportunity like this – it’s the anthem for the whole sport of racing.’

A few future successful musicians have spent time working in betting shops. Folk ‘chanteuse’, Isobel Campbell who would go on to be nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in 2006, has never been embarrassed that she was once a worker behind the counter in a Glasgow bookie branch. After her album, ‘Ballad of the Broken Seas’, recorded with Queens of the Stone Age rocker, Mrk Lanegan, was a great success, she reflected about the ‘real characters’ she came across during her LBO days – ‘People’s wives used to drag them out of the betting shop by their hair. Having led a sheltered life, it was like being thrown in at the deep end. Working at the bookies was intense and hard going – but I loved it.’

Stop me if I’ve told you this before, but one of my favourite punk rockers worked in a betting shop, for the company I was with back in the day. She’d played bass guitar on a big hit of its day, ‘Gary Gilmore’s Eyes’ and I’d bought a copy of her band – the Adverts’ – LP, ‘Crossing The Red Sea’ – which I took with me when I visited her shop, Gaye was charming, and graciously signed the cover for me – and she remains one of my favourite rock and gambling icons to this day.

Racing Post journalist, Nick Godfrey also dabbles in rock music, running his own excellent record label, Precious Records,. He also likes to pay attention to the odd rock disc touching on our mutual double delights, and has drawn attention to some music which racing fans may find to their approval – such as ‘Jockey Full Of Bourbon’ by Tom Waits, while he notes that in The Band’s song, ‘Up On Cripple Creek’, ‘the narrator backs a 5/1 winner’, but Nick also points out that a single by US rock group The Hold Steady, from 2006, involves a $900 bet on a horse called ‘Chips Ahoy!’…..which wins by six lengths at 6/1…..

Nick might be interested to know that his own august organ gets a mention in a song by a slightly obscure but usually very tuneful group Saint Etienne, much of whose output I own – the track is called ‘Mario’s Cafe’, and is from the album, ‘So Tough’ , in which one of the people in a cafe in London’s Kentish Town is poring over a copy of the Racing Post before getting round to ordering coffee and toast…..

Unsurprisignly there have been a number of racechorses named in honour of rock musicians, and a 3 year old gelding, Rock Star Boy, bred in Kentucky, active in the US, has been winning races this season…..obviously been well tuned up…..sorry, I’ll get my coat and guitar.

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Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.

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