SHARPE MIND: A Virtual Certainty…

In this week’s SHARPE MIND blog, where sports betting PR legend GRAHAM SHARPE aims to bring you a rundown of Sensational, Hard to believe, Amusing, Remarkable, Pertinent & Entertaining events which have happened over the years in the worlds of racing and betting during each specific week of the year, he digs out some of the golden moments from the week between 4 April and 10 April.

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APRIL 4, 2020… ……A VIRTUAL CERTAINTY…….. Announcing that in a small attempt to make up for the cancellation of the Grand National, there would be a ‘virtual’ CGI (computer generated imagery) version of the big race televised, BBC TV ‘Breakfast’ host, Charlie Stayt reacted to the news by quipping: ‘Are you sure that shouldn’t be ‘gee-gee i’ !’

The remark brought about a tumbleweed moment as fellow guests on the show just covered their faces and groaned.

But the race itself ended up gripping a good proportion of the punting population when it was screened, on April 4, 2020, created by a company called Inspired, which also produces virtual reality racing (once described to me by a good punting friend in all innocence, as ‘vertical racing’, straight up!) to Britain’s betting shops. 18/1 shot Potters Corner was the winner, with Tiger Roll 4th.

Bookmakers donated all profits from the event to the NHS. This seemed to outrage an All Party Parliamentary Group on ‘Gambling Related Harm’ which, bizarrely, described betting on the race, whose outcome was known by only some two dozen people beforehand – all of whom signed non-disclosure agreements – as ‘highly irresponsible.’

Apr 4, 2012….THE BEST OF HORSES, THE WORST OF HORSES….. Asked which was the best horse in his yard, trainer Richard Harper, whose Chapel House had just won at Hereford on April 4, 2012, replied: ‘I’ve just got the one horse, so he’s the best and the worst.’

APRIL 5, 1952… ‘WHAT DID I TEAL YOU?’…….The 47 runner Grand National was won by 100/7 second favourite Teal – which radio listeners had early in the live commentary been told fell at the first fence! That must have alarmed owner Mr Teal, had he been listening – as it was revealed after the race he had collected a five figure sum in winnings. A dispute between the course and the BBC meant a very amateur-sounding commentary was provided by a team hastily assembled by course owners Tophams Limited.

APRIL 5, 2021……..SHEILA HAD TO HAVE A BIT OF THAT……. Freewheelin’ Dylan became the longest odds winner of the Irish Grand National since it was first run in 1870, being returned at 150/1….Owner Sheila Mangan admitted she couldn’t believe the price of her horse:‘I backed him at 66-1 and I thought that was a hell of a price. Then he went out to 100-1 and I thought, ‘What is wrong with people?’ Then he went 150-1 and I said, ‘Ah for feck sake, I have to have a bit of that as well’

APRIL 6, 1992…..JUST FOR THE RECORD……….Longest ever racecourse odds of 5000/1 were laid at Kelso as two course bookmakers accepted bets at that price for Countess Crossett in the Sprouston Hurdle – the longest ever struck in Britain. The horse finished 9th .

APR 6, 2014……DOC DICK CHOPPED IT OFF……Trainer, Dr Richard Newland had two winners at Market Rasen, on April 6, 2014. The day before he’d only had one….but then that one did land the Grand National at 25/1! Realising in advance that even should his horse Pineau De Re somehow win the National he would want to attend racing at Market Rasen the next day, trainer Dr Newland made a provisional booking for a helicopter to take him, telling the company: ‘I’d like to book the helicopter – but only want it if my horse wins the Grand National.’

They took the booking, asking for the name of the horse in the process.
Pineau de Re duly obliged, Dr Newland contacted the chopper boss, telling him he wanted the helicopter: ‘Yes I know’ he was told, adding: ‘We all backed it.’

APRIL 7, 1993……THIRD TIME LUCKY FOR JOHNNY……On this date, amateur rider Johnny Greenall uniquely became the only jockey to lose a claim for the third time. Having first lost it when riding his 30th winner, only for the Jockey Club to change the rule to 40, he achieved that – and they increased it again, to 55.

APRIL 7,1967………..REDDY TO GO TO AINTREE, FOR 10 YEARS….….Red Rum’s first appearance at Liverpool came on Apr. 7, 1967, when his trainer Tim Molony ran him in a 2-year-old race there rather than in the Brocklesby at Lincoln. Aged 23 months and four days, he dead-heated for that race, the Thursby Plate, just three days shy of 10 years before his final success at the course, completing his unique Grand National winning treble.

APRIL 8, 1967……..DON AND ‘VON 605/1 DOUBLE….…Trainer John Kempton, who also rode a bit, was celebrating on this date as he won a novice hurdle race at Worcester on his 5/1 third favourite, Three Dons. Few paid much attention to that win – but John’s name was soon slightly better known, later that afternoon, when another horse he trained, but in which he’d had so little faith in it being remotely competitive that he’d preferred to be with Three Dons, also did quite well.

So well, in fact, that his unconsidered 100/1 outsider Foinavon only went and won the Grand National – helped out slightly when nearly every other horse fell or unseated or was hampered at the 23rd fence, leaving the no-hoper, ridden by John Buckingham, to take his time, jumping carefully on to win in splendid isolation by 15 lengths from much better fancied Honey End – and paying out at 444/1 to those who backed him on the Tote. Even the horse’s owner, Cyril Watkins, hadn’t bothered to go to Aintree.

APRIL 8, 2021……HAT-TRICK FOR SIR ALEX…….In an almost empty Aintree racecourse , which very few were permitted to enter, because of covid, owner Sir Alex Ferguson completed a rare hat trick as horses he owned won the first three races of the afternoon….Protektorat, 17/2, landed the opening novice chase before Monmiral, 10/11, took the Juvenile Hurdle, followed by 5/2 favourite Clan Des Obeaux scoring in the day’s feature race, the Betway Bowl. All three were Grade One races. Fergie called it ‘the best day I’ve had in my twenty years or so in racing.’

April 9, 1988…….MISS WHIPLASH WILLIAMS……Riding 200/1 outsider Marcolo in the 1988 Grand National, Venetia Williams suffered whiplash after taking a tumble at Bechers’s Brook. But, recalling that experience in a 2014 BBC Radio 4 interview she remembered the reaction to her subsequent arrival in hospital: ‘I fastened my whip with an elastic band to my middle finger so that I wouldn’t drop it. When I fell at Bechers I was carted off unconscious in the ambulance and arrived at the hospital with my whip still attached to my finger – I think they thought Lady Whiplash had arrived.’

A fortnight later Venetia was back in the saddle but, in another fall, broke the ‘hangman’s bone’ in her neck, resulting in three months in traction, which, unsurprisingly ended her riding career.But she had unfinished business with the Grand National and, now a trainer, won the race in 2009 with 100/1 shot Mon Mome.

APRIL 9, 2016……TAKE THAT, BOOKIES!….. Robbie Williams bet £20 each-way on Rule The World, 2016 Grand National winner, on 9 April 2016 winning some £700 – because that was also the name of a hit by his group, Take That. He tweeted after the race; ’20 quid each way ‘rule the world’ grand national. GET IN!!!!!!!!!!!!’

APRIL 10, 2010……WALSH AT HIS WORST…….‘I got hit from behind in the shoulder, driving my arm into the ground. My arm was flapping around, and I had to physically bring it in to my side.’….Ruby Walsh remembering his ‘worst’ injury, acquired when riding Celestial Halo at Aintree on Grand National day, April 10, 2010. Mind you, that was far from his only injury, and he recalled one of the others: ‘I was lying on the ground, thinking this is the fourth time I’ve broken this leg. I was thinking of the 4 months rehab, trying to work out whether I had time to get fit for Cheltenham. I worked my socks off to get back for Cheltenham in 2018 – and got one day out of it. One day. Benie Des Dieux won, then I fell in the RSA and broke my leg again. I was thinking ‘Holy f***’

APRIL 10, 1965…UNDER ORDERS FOR LAST TIME…..Bogside, near Ayr in Scotland, which is said to have first staged racing in 1808, although there are claims of racing there in 1636 – and Rothbury in Northumberland, where racing was recorded in 1739 – each staged their final meeting – the former with its richest ever day’s racing, the latter with under 3000 in attendance – although they did see future top trainer Jack ‘red shirt’ Berry riding a winner.

AND FINALLY…….APRIL 6, 1915…BY GEORGE!…….Apprentice jockey George Formby weighed just 3st 13lbs on his racecourse debut, aged, amazingly, just 10 years old, (he was born on May 26, 1904), partnering Eliza – a horse owned by his father and named after his mother, in an apprentice plate at Lingfield Park. They finished last. In 1919 he was apprenticed to Lord Derby’s Newmarket-based trainer, the Hon George Lambton.
George would become a massive star of the silver screen as he and his ukulele and comic songs became enormously popular, although his short-lived racing career’s highlight was finishing second at Phoenix Park and Baldoyle, on his father’s Philander in 1918.
In 1939, by which time he was a huge celebrity, he appeared in the comic movie, Come On George! In which he played a stable lad who rides a winner.

GRAHAM SHARPE

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