There were no stories of dancing on tables or exclusive dining debauchery from the on-course team last night.
There were no bets of note from the Star Sports Hove office and just a few £1 to a row of houses multiples from the offices. It was all a bit too quiet really, especially for Glorious Goodwood Friday.
1:50 – Coral Goodwood Handicap (Class 2) (3YO plus) 2m 4½f
It soon warmed up though, a punter came into Steve, Kyle, Hannah and Ethan and bet Temporize in the first. He asked for and got £15,000 – £1800 each-way, that’s 8/1 with the fractions. Kyle messaged me with the bet and added ‘I don’t think we’ll bet up to it’. No, I think he was probably right.
At the off, the gamble horse was losing over £15,000 in what was best described as a one horse book. In contrast, Lofty over on the rails had a much bigger spread of bets with five hefty losers. A tale of two ledgers. The tale of the race was that despite the best efforts of the commentator, from a long way out it, Temporize getting betting looked very unlikely.
Having said that, quoting the late great punter Johnny Lights, a race looks different if you’ve had a lump on the one in front. Win it did though and looked like a gamble landed by the Syd Hosie team with Luke Morris on board. The Tatts team lost the aforementioned lump.
Lofty on the other hand had a much better race and won £2200 with the places going his way. Aye Aye, well, sort of, there’s always a positive to take out of everything.
💬 Syd Hosie said: “I was confident today. I thought the step up in trip would actually suit Temporize, so when he got to the front, I thought, ‘he’s not there too early today’. He stays. This was Temporize’s third run for me. We went to Newbury first up, but it didn’t happen, so we upped him in trip at Ascot and it nearly happened and today we upped him again and it’s happened”.
2:25 – Bonhams Thoroughbred Stakes (Group 3) (Class 1) (3YO only) 1m
Next up and the punters took aim at Lofty’s rails pitch. Fearsome as our loveable giant is, he didn’t frighten them off. The first bet was £2400 – £3300 Nostrum, the second £8400 – £2400 Docklands.
It was the rails pitches’ time to have a lopsided liability, Docklands losing £5308 at the off. The Tattersalls team had a good book this time, they had taken £3000 with just Docklands and Montesilvano losing, worst way bad for £260.
Kyle, somewhat negatively added ‘It’s a long way back from here’. Well, what can you say, ‘Houdini’ maybe apt, or at least partially, it was Frankie Dettori to the rescue winning on Epictetus copping just over £7000 back across both pitches in one hit.
It may have looked a long way from where you were sat before the race Kyle, but the rails pitch came out swinging.
The Office had a good race, maybe because of the clients involved they didn’t mention figures but told me ‘Second race was all about the fav and Frankie came to our rescue, not often I’ve said that over the years!’
The betting shops had seen plenty of decent bets, singles and multiples, which included Nostrum so they were happy to see him beaten.
💬 Winning co-trainer Thady Gosden said: “Epictetus showed plenty of speed over a mile at two, and we thought he was a horse who would progress to 10 furlongs this year, but obviously that did not pan out. He has run good races but not what we thought that he was capable of. It was a perfect ride from Frankie.
He broke well, sat him on the fence, followed Ryan and did a Houdini move, but being Frankie that worked out. Nostrum is a very smart horse, but Frankie gave our horse a brilliant ride. Epictetus ran a very good race last year at Doncaster when second to a future Derby winner on soft ground. He rolls his knee a little bit and is bred to like a little bit of give in the ground. It is slightly less tacky today and a bit more good to soft”
3:00 – Coral Golden Mile (Heritage Handicap) (Class 2) (3YO plus) 1m
The big handicap was a race where it was still early enough for the punters to want to get stuck into. Lofty laid a bet of £6000 – £500 each-way Rhoscolyn as well as decent bets for The Wizard Of Eye and Sonny Liston which made them all nasty losers in a £4500 book.
The Tatts team took less than £2000 and had three losers for over a monkey and two takers. 25/1 chance Johan making its seasonal debut and running from stall 18 wouldn’t have been many punters’ idea of the winner, but winner it was and virtual win book skinners for both books. Steve and co in Tatts won £1300 and Lofty on the rails £3800, another chunk back from the first race losses.
It wasn’t quite the bonanza for the guys in the office, their message was ‘ Very open race, big field, great for bet numbers but not sizeable ones, the heat was a small winner overall’
💬 Jack Channon said: “It has been a bit of a long road since the Lincoln last year. We unearthed a little bit of an issue Johan had in his back midway through last summer. We tried a few different things, but thanks to our brilliant vets at home, Charlie Schreiber in particular, we came up with a solution for it.
We got it done in the spring and all summer he has been absolutely starting to just show himself to be the old horse. Coming into this week we sort of pin-pointed this race and thought this was going to be the perfect place to start, then when we got 18 I thought, ‘Oh God, here we go’. He’s a very, very talented horse and I was delighted to see him do that”.
3:35 – King George Qatar Stakes (Group 2) (Class 1) (3YO plus) 5f
The race that would really swing back in the favour of the on-course team would be this one, getting hotpot Highfield Princess beaten. There was no shortage of takers. The Tatts team took £1600 at 4/6 and Lofty £5500 at 8/11, enough to get the firm back in the green.
That is unless one of the other well-backed horses in the race obliged, the Tatts team laid £750 Equality at 13/2. Now here’s a fractions lesson for everyone. The punter didn’t ask for the fractions. Had he asked for them 100/15 he’d have been laid £5000 – £750, but because he didn’t, he was laid £4875 – £750, that’s an extra potential £125 winnings just for saying ‘with the fractions’. Come racing.
The only drawback is, they do have to win, Equality didn’t win. Highfield Princess won. And she didn’t just win either, she won hands down, even dear old Johnny Lights wouldn’t have needed to lean into the telly watching her bolt up. That put the stopper into the fightback. The Tattersalls pitch lost £1662 and the rails £2700. The jolly returned 4/9, at the racecourse you could have had 8/11 to decent money as Lofty’s punter did.
The office had a bad race too, their message was ‘We had a one horse book, lots of bets for the winner including £4000 – £6000 and £7000 at 4/9.
The betting shops also saw plenty of money for the winner, all those £50 and £100 bets across the country added up.
💬 John Quinn said: “Highfield Princess ran really well in the Duke Of York and maybe got a bit tired. At Royal Ascot, she was beaten just a length in the King’s Stand and then four days later in the Jubilee, she ran another fantastic race. We decided to give her a break, which we did last summer, and we were pleased with her at home.
She is a six-year-old mare and fair dues to her, she has bounced back well. She is a top-class filly and we are delighted to have her. She was a backward filly at two but very likeable. All she has done is improve for racing and gone from being a top-class handicapper to being the best sprinting filly in Europe, if not the world”.
4:10 – L’Ormarins King’s Plate Glorious Stakes (Group 3) (Class 1) (4YO plus) 1m 4f
The next race boasted another odds-on favourite in William Haggas’ Hamish. Both rails and Tatts were 8/11. It was Lofty that the punters fancied, he laid a bag man £8000 – £11,000 then another punter £800 – £1100 the hotpot. Backers of Mimiku also found Lofty betting £2000 – £500, £1600 – £400 and £1200 – £300.
Meanwhile, over in Tatts the biggest bet Steve’s team took on the jolly was just a bottle, £200 in book where Kyle said they nearly bet overs. After giving the books a glimmer of hope for a few strides, Hamish broke their hearts by stamping his class in the closing stages drawing away to win cosily.
Lofty knocked out £7013 while Kyle just blew £150 despite being 4/5 hawking at the off.
The office didn’t fare any better, telling me: ‘This race was very similar to 15.35, we even had another £4000 – £6000 in the book we are now level on the day.’
The betting shop sent me slips showing carpet and bottle bets over the winner so no good for them but it was an odds-on favourite after all.
💬 William Haggas said: “I rang my father before the race and said the horse has been an absolute nightmare to saddle. Poor Maureen has been jumped on about eight times and has blood coming out the top of her head because the horse struck her, but she adores him and does everything with him. I can take no credit for this – all the credit and praise should go to her. “My father is a very proud Yorkshireman and I said the horse is being a bloody nightmare today, and when he’s like this he never runs his best, and he said ‘I think he likes the North’.
“I didn’t think this was a strong race for the grade and he was always travelling well. Tom said after the race this was the best the horse has felt this year. He scrambled home a bit at York last time and, while he likes a bit of cut in the ground, he likes it wet. He won and poor Candleford, who was cantering, got lost in the ground – it’s too tacky for him. He wants top of the ground. Candleford ran a good race, but Hamish was better. Hamish won’t run in the Ebor. He is hard to place and, while people said I should have run him in the King George [& Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot], I couldn’t do that on drying ground. You can run in a race like this on drying ground, but the King George is a different thing. My father quickly pointed out Hamish has only run against one of this year’s King George horses, and that was Hukum [who won] and he beat him. He was lambasting me for not running. The Irish St Leger is a possibility, but he wants soft ground. We have been lucky this summer – ha, ha, what summer? – that we’ve had some soft ground. Hamish has run twice in a fortnight, while last year we couldn’t get anything out of him at all.”
4:45 – Ire-Incentive It Pays To Buy Irish Nursery (Class 2) (2YO only) 6f
The penultimate looked like a very tricky nursery where they bet 3/1 the field. It didn’t stop the punters getting involved though. Lofty laid £6000 – £1000 each-way Loaded Gun, £3000 – £1000 Starlust and £5500 – £1000 Flag Of St George. Business was less lumpy in Tatts, the biggest bet that punters troubled Steve and co with was £3000 – £240 that’s 100/8 or 12/1 with the fractions Whoop Whoop.
When Kyle told me that I thought he was celebrating that the punters were still asking and getting the great value, but no, it’s the name of a horse. Had this been Royal Ascot, the King’s horse Serried Ranks winning at 8/1 might have been a bad result, but not today at Glorious Goodwood, the royalists left Star Sports alone.
Steve’s team copped a couple of grand while Lofty won £5000.
While the race was a good one for the on-course team, there was very little interest emanating from Hove. Their message read ‘Nothing major to report, small win for the firm.’
One of the reasons that Ben hires me to write this blogs, well one of the main reasons, is to let people know that if they go racing and they see Star Sports betting there, they know where to go for a decent bet if they want one. Neil Casey is representing the firm over at Galway in what would probably be considered a modest pitch.
But as yesterday the punters were finding him. He laid a bet of €5000 – €300 each-way Five One Five in the opener, he got it beaten in a race where they bet 7/1 the field but still manage to win €1200 on the race.
5:20 – Coral Handicap (Class 3) (3YO only) 1m 3f
Going into the last, Steve’s team were ruing the fact they did their cobblers in the first, they were still losing £16,000. Lofty’s rails team had performed much better and were winning £8000. Sadly, for the Tatts team they only managed to take £1500 in total on the concluding heat. Kyle suggested that the punters had retired to the bars which appeared busy.
Lofty was having a much more exciting time having laid £6000 – £1000 Intricacy, £7000 – £1000 Maso Bastie and £8000 – £1000 Dancing In Paris. I must be banging my head against a brick wall, no fractions laid, my work here isn’t done yet.
Balance Play, one of the 7/2 joint-favourites won the race for the Ralph Beckett team. You’d be excused for thinking that would have been no good for the firm, but they dodged it. Kyle reported that with the places considered the winner took the book. They ended the day £16,000 down. Lofty’s team performed miracles and copping almost £5000 on the race. They’d won over £12,000 on the day, a fact he sent over with the message, ‘Lucky someone was on the ball’.
I was expecting a big swinging dick emoji as a reply, but was none forthcoming. It’s teamwork after all, a disaster on the day averted by the rails team. Aye Aye, someone buy those guys a pint.
Surprisingly, they got away with it in the Hove office. They summed up the race and the day by telling me: ‘There was just light betting heat to end the day, but with most punters siding with the out the frame Ryan Moore mount, it was a winning fav on the book. Overall small advantage to us on the day.’
The betting shops spokesman was less buoyant, they said ‘Thank God for Nostrum, some bad results all meetings.’
That’s it from Glorious Goodwood, but if you are at Galway, go and find Neil Casey betting on the Star Sports team, he just lost a carpet on the second race there, spare a thought for Neil his work’s only just beginning!
SIMON NOTT
Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.
Simon Nott is author of: Skint Mob! Tales from the Betting Ring
available on Kindle CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS
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