Mon Mome wins last years Grand National
(and €1,300 for my daughter Deirdre)
Just last week I wrote a piece about my betting career to date, a distinguished but extremely infrequent exercise.
To save you linking here is the piece in full;
I am not at all a natural backer of horses, the risk factor always fills me with disquiet but, every so often the old genetics kick in (I come from a long line of gamblers) and I cannot resist placing a bet.
My brother Ted is in Cheltenham for the races this week and I got a sackcloth and ashes text from him last night as he had done the unforgivable and forgotten my birthday.
For reparation I have commissioned him to back a horse at the festival for me and to this end have just spent the last half hour studying the names of the Gold Cup runners.
It is bizarre but two of them immediatly connect with me.
Mon Mome and I already share a marvellous history as anyone who has read my blog for the last year will know.
My only other brief successful excursion into betting was when I got a tip from the horses mouth, also in the Gold Cup many years ago, for a horse called Imperial Call.
With that success also in my mind I had to instruct Ted to put a tenner on Mon Mome (of course -and he is 150 to 1, my kind of odds ) but then I noticed that there is another horse, at much lower odds, called Imperial Commander, surely a relative of Imperial Call, so I got greedy and asked Ted to back them both.
I suppose a dead heat and a pay-out on both is unlikely ?
I got this email from my brother Ted the following day :
Martin,
As your older and more experienced brother particularly in the areas of horse racing and gambling I feel that I must give you a bit of advice.
You should never ever put this type of information on your blog about the horses you fancy before your bet is placed. Now if nobody was reading your blog it would not matter but with yours being so popular you effectively told the whole fecking world that you fancied Mon Mome and because of your success as a racing pundit (you might have to look that word up in your racing dictionary!) people out there are starting to take notice.
Anyway to cut a long story short I got on to my friend Paddy Power this morning to have your bet on Mon Mome at 150 to 1 and found to my dismay but not to my surprise that the 150 to 1 had dried up as naturally all of your astute readers had been on to their bookies over the weekend with a flood of fivers and tenners and the price is gone!!!!.
In future Martin a little bit of advice; give me some advance notice so that the bet can be placed before the word gets out. Your indiscretion at this time will likely cost you a not to be sniffed at €500 as I was only able to put your commission on at 100 to 1.
In future talk to me first. Your bet on Imperial Commander was done at a more unexciting 9 to 1.
I plan to travel to Cheltenham on Friday for the Gold Cup to keep an eye on things for you and to give the two jockeys in question some last minute advice.
Best wishes
Ted
In fact the same precious brother had the sense to back Imperial Commander to win and to split my tenner into a fiver each way on Mon Mome.
As a consequence I won €120 on Mon Mome being third and €90 on Imperial Commander. A nice €230 all together of winnings.
Ted also backed those same horses on my advice and so did my friend Petra.
I don’t know at all at all.
Maybe I should consider a career change to that of professional tipster .
Comments
Donal Moore
on March 26, 2010Yeah, and I lost a tenner on DENMAN in the same race!! Wonder which way Peter D took your advice!!
Martin
on March 26, 2010There you are Donal, you should (like Petra) have listened to the voice of experience. (And I think that the same Mr. Denman should, in all conscience, reimburse you the tenner.)
The comments are closed.