A Punter is Born by Tom Schoeneman

On Saturday, February 24, 2007, Mary and I decided to add a new dimension to our experience of Great Britain by attending a sporting event. We live a stone’s throw away from Chelsea Football Club’s stadium. On weekends, we can hear the roar of the massive crowds drift over on the often considerable London breeze. But Chelsea Football was not to be our introduction to British sport. Chelsea are the New York Yankees of soccer: The owner is rich and has stocked the club with high priced talent (yet, as I write this, they are in second place in their league). Tickets cost £100 each and besides, you can’t get one anyway. So instead of football, we chose the second most popular sport in the UK: Horseracing.

In particular, we went to see the rugby of racing, the Steeple Chase. This choice was a natural one, although it took nearly five weeks in Britain for the light bulb to appear over our heads. I have read every novel Dick Francis ever wrote—there are about 30 of them—and Mary is a retired English rider and jumper. We had seen the Steeple Chase in movies such as Phar Lap, and as far as I know, most if not all American horseracing is “flats.” So we googled “steeplechase” and found the website for British Horseracing. Kempton Park Racecourse, the closest venue to London, was charging admission of £15 for the Paddock and £20 for the Premier Suite. What the heck: We paid our £40, received our tickets in the mail along with all sorts of informative brochures aimed at the novice, and went off to Waterloo Station to buy train tickets at £12 each.

On race day, we dressed in the required “smart casual” (which for me, was my usual uniform of button down shirt, jeans, and tweed sports jacket) and boarded the train at 12:12 pm. Our car was full of people quietly conversing while poring over the racing pullout sections of the local papers. Then and there I realized my first mistake: Lack of preparation. I intended to bet, you see. Mary had no interest in betting: She just wanted to look at the horses. But I had grandiose dreams of betting with enough success to break even, dreams that alternated in a kind of manic-depressive counterpoint with the suspicion that I was about to become the UK’s biggest idiot.

Post time for the first race was 2:05 pm. We arrived after a 45 minute train journey at around 1:00 so that we had time to orient ourselves. First, we needed to see what the extra £5 ticket price bought us. Our tickets were small white tags with the words “Premier Enclosure” printed on the front and the dress code on the back: “Smart Casual. No sports shorts. No ripped, cut or torn denim.” We first established that the Premiere Enclosure was upstairs and the Paddock level was on the ground floor. “Paddock” meant that you could watch the races from the lawn in front of the track or inside the building on the monitors. That indoor scene was a roiling, packed mass of people eating, drinking pints, and betting. Upstairs in Premiere, it was the same scene indoors, but with a slightly less dense crowd of better dressed people. Premiere also allowed access to the stands so that you could watch the races from an elevated viewpoint, either standing or, higher up, seated. If you were particularly rich and had the foreknowledge to book ahead, you could go upstairs even further to the Panoramic Bar and Restaurant, where you could sit at a table, eat a leisurely lunch, and watch the races from a spectacular vantage behind floor-to-ceiling glass. This would set you back £55-65, but that includes the price of admission.

Post time was approaching. A bet needed to be laid. I could choose to do this at the Tote, which is the racetrack’s betting operation inside the enclosure, or I could go down to the Paddock and bet at one of about a dozen stalls operated by independent bookies. OK, snap decision: the Tote. It’s closer, easier. What to bet on? I know better—or I thought I knew better—than to bet on the basis of a horse’s cool name or the jockey’s lovely colors. Odds! I needed odds. After a scramble and some inquiries of helpful racecourse personnel, we located a racing form (cost: £2.50).

The first race was a Novices’ Hurdle. Five horses, all inexperienced 4 year olds, would be going over shorter hurdles on a shorter course. The hurdles are shrubberies trimmed to a flattop. At this time of year, they are basically a bunch of densely packed sticks coming out of the ground. After quickly looking at the form, I somehow settled on a horse from France named Oslot. I went to place my bet and made my next mistake. I had decided to place “each way” bets on all of the races. “Each way” means that you bet on a horse to either win or place (come in second). I strode up to the betting window and announced “£5 each way on number 3.” The lady behind the window said “Ten pounds, please.” It turns out the £5 each way means £5 to win and £5 to place. Well, duh. But hey, there were only five horses and Oslot just needed to come in first or second. And he was the favorite.

We went up to the seats and watched the horses trot past to the starting point. The gate wasn’t a gate—it was a rope stretched across the track. The jockeys directed the horses into a semblance of a line, the rope dropped, and they were off. The race was for two miles, just over one circuit of the course. At that distance, what we could see on the far side of the course was a bunch of tiny specks with pinpoints of different colors. To compensate, there was a video feed on a big screen, but in my first timer’s excitement and confusion, I had no idea where my horse was until the pack came around the home stretch and took the final jump. First horse over: Not Oslot. Second horse: Not Oslot. Third: There he was, number 3. And that’s where Oslot stayed. I bet on a horse to come in first or second and he comes in third. One consolation was that I didn’t place a sentimental bet on the only American-owned horse entered in any of the 7 races: Cavallini came in last, about a minute behind everyone else.

OK, so: Lessons learned from the first race. First, steeple chasing is brutal. Mary, used to the stately pace and flow of English-style jumping shows, was amazed at the length of the course and at the form, or lack of it, of the horses at the end. They were exhausted. Those last few hurdles were very dicey affairs. The home stretch was a raggedy scramble of flailing crops and hooves. Lesson two: Don’t bet £5 each way. The minimum of £2 each way is sufficient to exhaust one’s treasury. Lesson 3: Study the damned racing form and figure out what the heck it is saying.

For race number two, I figured out where the probable odds were listed. I decided on a strategy of each way betting on the second or third favorite horse. Result: Yes Sir blew it. Another £4 in the hole.

The third race was the big race of the day, the Racing Post Steeple Chase. I had seen a newspaper article on the favorite, Lucifer Bleu, and perversely decided not to bet on him. I chose the second favorite, a German horse called Limerick Boy. This was a three mile race, the longest of the day, with 10 horses. Lucifer Bleu led the pack by many lengths for 2 1/2 miles, followed by Limerick Boy in front of packed group. So far so good. Then, coming around into the home stretch, a horse cleared a jump and surged past the favorite. Which horse? The crowd roared as down the home stretch came . . . Simon, the third favorite. Another £4 in the bin.

I was starting to re-evaluate my fantasies of breaking even. But what the heck, I had a budget of £4 per race—might as well stick to it. The fourth race was another novice’s hurdle with 6 horses. The #1 and 2 horses, Parrain and Poquelin, were first and second favorites. I chose horse #4, Punjabi, based on a statement in the racing form: “It would be no surprise to see him figure at the business end.” 20-20 hindsight reveals that comment as masterful weaselry indeed. Punjabi was a British horse; the favorites were French. The rider was a jockey named Mick Fitzgerald who wore a grey jersey with pink epaulets and a grey and pink quartered cap.

The horses lined up, if you can call a bunch of milling beasts a line-up. The rope dropped. The horses continued to mill about. Over the loudspeaker, the announcer said, “Do not adjust your sets, the race has begun.” After a few seconds of confusion, the novices got the hint and began running. And there was Punjabi out ahead of the pack. Oh no, I thought. Halfway through the 2 mile race, Punjabi was ahead by 20 lengths. No, no, no, this is going to end SO badly. At the three quarter mark, the lead was down to 10 lengths. Typical. Around the home stretch they came. Good grief! Still ahead by 10 lengths. The crowd cheers. “Go Punjabi, go!” And he did, winning by 10 lengths.

With no idea of the odds, I queued up to collect my winnings. My £4 each way bet paid £12.80. Not bad! I should have bet a tenner.

Race number five was reverting to form. My grey horse, Fork Lightning, was racing in third place ahead of a pack that was well behind the two front runners. Ho hum. Then, at the last hurdle, the second place horse pulled up and refused the jump. Great! Fork Lightning could now take second! More money in my pocket. Except that the balky horse, standing by the hurdle, skittered sideways into Fork Lightning as he went up over the hurdle. Using our clunky digital camera, Mary managed, against all odds, to get a perfect picture of horse and jockey each doing a face plant on the downside of the hurdle. The horse ran on, riderless. The jockey stayed in a ball on his knees for a minute, but eventually got up and walked away. So all ended well: Horse and rider were OK, an exciting finish. And another £4 gone.

In the sixth race I picked my horse, but then noticed another horse from Ireland named Portland Bill, named no doubt after our home town in Oregon. So what the heck, let’s bet on a horse based on its name. Portland Bill came in second: My £4 bet returned £4.40.

Final race: Sun setting, people leaving early. For the last three races, Mary and I had taken a position at the rail so that she could watch the horses from up close. We shared a pint of Fuller’s London Pride and took in the scene around us: Three boys playing horse race on the lawn, one reliably crashing to the ground every time, squirming and flailing like a fallen horse. Out on the track, a guy with a pitchfork flipping over the divots from the previous race. A professional photographer walking by inside the rail, asking if we got a picture of the fall. (“Maybe,” we said.) A sky of broken clouds lit sidewise by the setting sun. A good day, we concluded. And it was over. Race number 7 was an anticlimax featuring novices, no hurdles, There were twelve horses, 7 of them in their first race. My experienced choice came in 7th.

The train back to London was uproarious, a sardine tin full of people who had been drinking pints all afternoon. Not what we are used to in London mass transit: On the tube, everyone buries their nose in a book or newspaper to avoid conversation and eye contact. The 5:48 from Kempton Park to London was the anti-tube. The loudest conversations were about, of course, football.

So in the end, how did we do? Expenditures were £40 for admission, £25.70 for the train, £11.70 for food and drink, £2.50 for the racing form, and £34 in bets; winnings were £9.20. Bottom line: £113.90 spent, £9.20 earned. Do the math. In the end, I have to conclude that (a) economic theories featuring the rational man are bunkum, (b) our afternoon was cheaper than two tickets to Chelsea football, and (c) we should do this again!