BETTING AND HORSE RACING.

​Even the great minds of science cannot say whether the egg came before the chicken or vice-versa. With horse racing and betting it is more clear-cut – betting provided the stimulus for the advent of horse racing.
Purists, who like myself love horse racing for the bravery of horses and the aesthetic uncertainty of every race and only enter the red-lightish portals of a betting shop on Grand National morning, might not like the truth of the situation but without men wagering money that their horse was faster and possessed greater stamina than another horse, life would be so different for us. It is not so far-fetched to claim that if those betting exchanges had not taken place many centuries ago so many of the people who feature in today’s racing papers and on the racecourse would not have been born. No Moore, No Piggott, no Walsh.
The truest saying in racing is that to win a small fortune on the turf it is advisable to begin with a large fortune. If there were more winners than losers when it comes to gambling there would be less bookmakers. You never see a bookmaker on a bicycle is another hackneyed saying that remains true today even if it is less true than in the days when the ‘coup’ was considered more a way of life than a crime against the sport.
In 1903 the five men who made-up the Druid’s Lodge Confederacy brought off possibly the greatest gamble of all time when Hackler’s Pride won the Cambridgeshire. It would be pure guesswork to say how much exactly they took from bookmakers but it was a lot. Jack Fallon, the trainer, who was not even one of the five conspirators, claimed to have won £32,000, which in today’s money would be a cool £1.4 million. Some estimate the Confederacy won over £11-million in today’s terms. But nobody can be sure as in those days only bad publicity could come from a bookmaker admitting to such huge losses. They were successful because of several factors; meticulous planning, right down to taking a second claim on young Jack Jarvis so they could be assured of having him ride Hackler’s Pride four months later when the money would be down; using numerous commissioning agents all round the country, and indeed around the world, to get their bets on in small enough amounts so as not to attract suspicion; and by not having Hackler’s Pride anywhere near fit for the first part of the season and running her in sprints when they knew she stayed a mile really well.
Yet not one member of the Druid’s Lodge Confederacy was in need of money. Percy Cunliffe, regarded as the mastermind of the operation, had interests in the City of London and owned large parts of Salisbury Plain. Wilfred Purefoy was a member of an Irish family that owned large estates in Ireland. He also bred horses on his own estate in Tipperary. He was responsible for spreading the bets wide and far. Holmer Peard was the top equine surgeon of his time. He had a hand in constructing Phoenix Park racecourse and was considered a fine judge of a horse. Captain Frank Forester was a great horseman, Master of Hounds, the great-nephew of the last Duke of Cleveland from whom he inherited a large fortune. Edward Wigan accumulated his wealth from hop growing and possessed an understanding of horse racing that was obviously useful to the other members of the Confederacy.
I suppose in the age in which they lived the ‘celebrities’ were not sportsman or musicians but the headline acts who took charge of battles and worked out strategies to win wars. To employ a similar mind-set to get one over on the bookmakers could be seen as living in mimicry of war heroes. Certainly, their motivation was not simply one of accumulating great wealth as in differing degrees all five members were financially independent. And though bookmakers, and no doubt the Jockey Club, called foul it could be said the Hackler’s Pride gamble was a work of genius.
But why should horse racing and betting be inexorably linked when human nature and the sport itself can be so easily corrupted? Why must every racing paper fixate on providing tips for readers who doubtless have their own idea of what might win? The Confederacy’s gamble may have been a work of genius but underpinning the operation was the corruption of Hackler’s Pride running beforehand unfit and untried-with.
This will come across as if I am opposed to betting. I am not. I am though opposed to those people who through addiction gamble more than they can afford to lose. These people give racing and the bookmaking industry a bad name. It is said a well-fed cat will catch more mice than a hungry one. The Druid’s Lodge Confederacy were all well-fed; they had the patience to wait the whole season for their big punt. What I do not understand is why ‘gambles’ are still lauded today? Is the instinct to wage war, to outflank the enemy, still so deeply embedded in the psyche of some people that they must risk all for that one life-saving victory?
I do not understand the need to bet and the need to truly gamble is entirely lost on me. Perhaps I am being disingenuous; when Neptune Collonges won the Grand National he helped me out of a financial hole that was not on my own doing.