SIMON NOTT Blog: The Silly Season

Although the thought of going freelance back in 2021 was daunting, so far I haven’t regretted it, although just like putting your arm up before you’ve actually won, you’d be foolish to get complacent. With that in mind, you have to embrace the work when it is offered, writes SIMON NOTT.

It’s been full on since Epsom and the Derby and Oaks meeting, the big meetings just roll and roll keeping me busy and hardly at home, but with just York’s Ebor meeting to go, the ‘silly season’ or as I’m sure some would rather describe it, the ‘gravy train’ is almost over. Seeing my kids on a regular basis and sleeping in my own bed is something I’m very much looking forward to.

Silly season in racing really is quite tame compared to the madness that is going on around us at the moment. I’ve long since resisted having any public politics opinion and my life has been much better for it. Just having the odd say on the world of gambling has kept me in much better stead. I used to love a debate with total strangers online, evidently nobody ever said ‘oh I was set in my ways until I have the light shone by that Simon Nott’. Looking back on it, what a waste of time all those conversations were, but I suppose I enjoyed it at the time.

We aren’t blessed with a lot of sun in our fair land but it does seem as if the little we’ve enjoyed has gone to the heads of many, but I’ve been blessed to miss most of the madness. I was only a couple of streets away from the demo in Brighton was spent a peaceful night in blissful ignorance, just the way I like it.

Back in the days when I started working on course, I often used to look around and think that the inevitable part of being an on-course bookmaker is that you’d end up virtually insane. There were so many of the older on-course layers that became quirky beyond belief. I guessed it was the constant stresses of winning and losing making right and wrong decisions that did it to them. The plus side for the gentlemen of the turf that plied their trade in the ring is that the fresh air kept them in rude health, there were plenty of very old boys still standing when I’m sure their betting shop bound counterparts would have long turned it in or even their toes up.

A lot of my interaction online is with people I have never actually met, I hate to say it but on occasion I’m quite pleased about that. There are some that post on X formerly known as twitter who if I knew what they looked like would surely cross the street if I saw them coming in real life. I’m only really active on what people used to call ‘racing twitter’ so have no idea if other sporting communities harbour the sort of vile people that racing’s does.

I’m guessing that it’s the gambling when it’s going badly that brings out the absolute worse in people, I’d like to give some of what I’ve seen posted the benefit of the doubt. I just can’t think that the sort of person that uses four letter words beginning with c in such a liberal manner as some on the platform would never do it in real life, who does?

The amount of nasty, no not just nasty but vile negative comments in circles that follow horseracing is so prolific, I genuinely pity people whose heads are in such bad places, but I don’t want to interact with them. Sadly, for my work social media is a very necessary evil.

I’m so lucky that most of the time I’m not sat in a darkened room staring a computer screen, I’m out and about at the races. What a difference there is in the people that go racing and interact with you. I’m talking about proper racing folk that are regulars on course. At Brighton this month it was full of happy and contented people who get to fill their lungs with fresh racecourse on a regular basis interact with likeminded people and enjoy every day that they get to travel the turf, win or lose. I’ve lost count of the lovely people I had the joy of interacting with last week.

Maybe the vilest online, the ones that don’t even appear have any self-awareness as they spout obnoxious bile, should get out more. I was going to conclude that they should go racing, but maybe just start with a walk, and go from there. If while you are having that stroll and hopefully clearing your head of all that hate, you see a chap in daft coloured trousers cross the road to avoid you, that’ll probably still be me, no offence.

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

Simon Nott is author of: Skint Mob! Tales from the Betting Ring
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