UK Horse Racing Tips

Success in any sphere of life isn’t always easy to come by. In the world of racing, the entry level to even get into a position where you can experience success is very high. It’s not a total ‘closed shop’, but at the same time the pool of knowledge and experience as well as the finances needed to make an impact is notable. Of course there are sometimes exceptions to the rule; the kind of stories we hear about with syndicates defeating the odds and getting a win of a lifetime, but they can often be filed under ‘one offs’. Much like when playing online slot machines for real money, if your luck is in you might come away with the jackpot.

So, to be successful in ‘your own backyard’ is certainly tricky enough, as such we really need to ‘tip our collective hats’ to those who not only achieve that but also take their success into other peoples’. In racing, there can be no better example of that than in 2018 when the Melbourne Cup winged its way to England courtesy of British horse Cross Counter being first past the post. The horse was trained by (also) British trainer Charlie Appleby, so was elated to have a momentous win on the other side of the world. Indeed this was the very first time the cup had ended up on UK soil . While some Aussies were no doubt playing the best australian online casinos, millions were watching the event live, and I’m sure they too appreciated the achievement, even if begrudgingly so. The race was worth a cool $7.3 million and Appleby had this to say about it:

“Internationally we have campaigned over here the last three years now and have been competitive but we have always learnt each trip what horse we felt was going to be needed on the big day.”

Cross Counter actually battled past fellow British horse, Marmelo to claim the prize, so it was certainly a good night for the Brits. It’s thought that the all too familiar heavy rainfall didn’t hurt their chances. Appleby looked to get the best of the best onside in order to win, and for that reason Kerrin McEvoy, an Australian, was brought in as jockey. He had pedigree in the event, with this being his third Melbourne Cup victory. As the saying goes, there’s no need to change a winning formula!

Not to be confused with his namesake, who is a trainer based in Chiddingfold, Surrey, George Baker is a former Classic-winning jockey. Despite being exceptionally tall for a a Flat jockey, at 5’11”, Baker rode 1,364 winners in an 18-year career, but was forced to retire from the saddle in November, 2017, at the age of 35, after sustaining serious head injuries in a fall at the so-called ‘White Turf’ in St. Moritz the previous February. His mount, Boomerang Bob, lost his footing on the frozen, snow-covered lake, fell fatally and landed on his jockey, who suffered bleeding in the brain as a result. Baker was finally discharged from hospital in April, 2017 and at the time of his retirement said, ‘Although I will not be able to race-ride again, I consider myself extremely fortunate to be where I am now.’

While many more carefree individuals will have been playing on https://www.jackpotjill.com/en, Baker became apprenticed to Upper Lambourn trainer Mark Usher straight from school in 1999 and rode his first winner, Beauchamp Magic, at Wolverhampton in December that year, at the age of 17. His debut season yielded just two winners, but subsequent seasonal totals of 55, 23 and 23 in 2000, 2001 and 2002, respectively, were more than enough for him to ride out his claim and become a fully-fledged professional jockey.

Baker recorded his first Group race victory aboard Wake Up Maggie, trained by Christian Wall, in the Group Three Oak Tree Stakes at Goodwood in 2007. He also formed a successful partnership with stable stalwart Premio Loco, on whom he won nine Listed and Pattern races, including the Group Two Celebration Mile at Goodwood, between 2009 and 2012. He rode his first Group One winner, Seal Of Victory, trained by James Fanshawe, in the Qipco British Champions Fillies & Mares Stakes at Ascot in 2013 and his one and only Classic winner, Harbour Law, trained by Laura Mongan, in the St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster in 2016. Like a high roller casino patron who couldn’t go wrong, Baker rode a hundred winners in a season six times, but his best season numerically was 2014, when he rode 162 winners from 826 rides, at a strike rate of 20%.

The so-called Flockton Grey Affair was a notorious racing scandal, in which a modestly-bred, unraced two-year-old, trained by an unfashionable trainer, was replaced by an experienced three-year-old in the Knighton Auction Stakes at Leicester on March 29, 1982. Pre-internet age, and long before todays top online casino betting environment. The horse purporting to be Flockton Grey was, in fact, Good Hand, who had been claimed on behalf of the owner of Flockton Grey, Ken Richardson, after a series of decent performances for Nigel Tinkler the previous season.

Unsurprisingly, Good Hand won easily, in fact, by an extraordinary twenty lengths, at odds of 10/1 and, in so doing, landed bets reportedly worth £200,000 placed all over Yorkshire. In this day and age we’d no doubt be taking that money to new casinos. However, bookmakers refused to pay out and the Jockey Club launched an investigation. A visit to winning trainer Stephen Wiles at Langley Holmes Stables in Flockton, West Yorkshire revealed a two-year-old with the same pedigree as Flockton Grey, but missing a conspicuous scar on its left fore, as described in his equine passport. Meanwhile, the Jockey Club examined blown-up photographs taken, purely by chance, by the official racecourse photographer, of the Leicester winner with his mouth open. They concluded that the horse was, unquestionably, a three-year-old and, after an exhaustive search of naming documentation, identified Good Hand.

Richardson was subsequently charged with conspiracy to defraud bookmakers and appeared, with co-defendants Colin Mathison and Peter Boddy, at York Crown Court in May, 1984. All three were found guilty, by majority decision, and Richardson was given a nine-month prison sentence and fined £20,000, plus costs. Two years later, his appeal was rejected and he was ‘warned off’ by the Jockey Club. For his part, Stephen Wiles also appeared before the Jockey Club Disciplinary Committee and had his licence revoked for five years.

Ironically, the horse at the centre of the Flockton Grey Affair never raced. He was kept in police custody until 1986 and, in 1989, sold to Sharon Dick; he lived at her stables near Worksop, Nottinghamshire until his death, from a heart attack, in November, 2008, at the age of 29.