SIMON NOTT Blog: It’s My Ball!

There’s sometimes a bit of ‘It’s my ball so I’m taking it home’, when it comes to racehorse owners and their relationship with horse racing, writes SIMON NOTT.

They are indisputably the ones that pay the bills, though talk to any trainer, some quicker than others, and keep the sport supplied with its core element, horses with which to race. Where there’s that attitude there’s not often very much sympathy towards punters or the betting industry in general.

That is arguably exacerbated if the owner likes a tilt at the ring. One owner who certainly did and was feared when that cash hit the betting market was the late great Barney Curley. Whilst several bookmakers called themselves friends of the scourge of the ring, I doubt they’d have been overly confident that they wouldn’t be collateral damage should he want to have it on. Star’s Ben Keith told me that he was only introduced to Barney once but that he looked at him as if he was prey, which is probably exactly what Barney thought. As an owner Barney was often vocal about bookmakers, ‘You can’t get two bananas to one banana’ being one of the most famous and wasn’t averse to withdrawing a horse late on should he not be able to get a price.

That ‘getting a price’ is something that anyone has ever frequented a betting shop will have heard about more than once. Whenever a gamble in the morning drifts then misses the break, runs poorly or is even withdrawn, it isn’t down to jockey error, having an off day or being too off colour to race. Nope a nose tapping know-all will tell you it’s because ‘The right people didn’t get their money on.’ The insinuation that the ‘right people’ are connections that would then vindictively ensure that if they couldn’t have a price nobody would profit. There are documented times when this is reported to have happened, Alex Bird says in his book that an owner withdrew his horse because Alex had nicked his price ante-post but if it’s a regular occurrence is dubious.

The nose-tappers’ ideas are perpetuated when they stumble upon a post similar to the one I did on twitter/X recently. I thought at first that it must have been a spoof, read it again and had second thoughts, then couldn’t find it when writing this. The crux of it was that an ‘owner’ posted to a prominent free tipster that he should let owners know in advance that he was going to tip one of their horses up.

I assumed that the tipster might have ‘ruined the price’ for this ‘owner’ at some point, or of course, this is social media the ‘owner’ could just have a fantasist that wanted a row. They still proliferate social platforms, sadly. Surely an owner’s horse just makes up a market, they can’t expect to own the betting patterns or the thought process of people that study form and those that tip horses?

Then there was a recent case of a horse being withdrawn from a race, nothing to do with betting but because the owner was stuck in traffic and couldn’t get to the races. As he wasn’t going to be able to watch his horse run, nobody else was going to either. I’m guessing that the ‘It’s my ball’ mentality was at work there which is of course his prerogative as it’s his horse and he pays the bills.

The only caveat to that way of thinking is that horseracing is a bit of a chicken and an egg scenario. Yes, the owner acquires the horse and pays the bills, but the prize money that horse races for and the sport itself is funded by punters who bet and lose money and contribute via bookmakers and the betting market.

There is an alternative for owners who feel that they should be able to do what they like with their horses and sod everyone else. There is a branch of the sport when there is no betting hours in advance of the race, so nobody can ruin their early prices. If they get caught in traffic, they are under no obligation to declare their horse until less than an hour before the race, though the traffic is likely to be a tractor or a queue of Land Rovers all heading to the same field, so they don’t have to. Yes, the Point-To-Point season is on the horizon, and they’d be sure to welcome some new owners even ones that can be a bit precious. The only drawback is that prize money isn’t quite what you’d expect under rules, the owners area might be a bit drafty and damp on occasion and trainers still want paying to get your horses fit but you’ll be in it for all the right sporting reasons.

There’s good news for those gambling conscious owners too, you can back your horse in cash, at the first price on the boards. Mind you, there are some shrewdies that lurk in point to point betting rings too so you’d better be quick or the right people might still not be on…

2024/2025 Point to Point Fixtures

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

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Simon Nott is author of: Skint Mob! Tales from the Betting Ring
available on Kindle CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS

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