UK Horse Racing Tips

I’ve read my latest batch of professional gambler books.

I’m not sure how quickly your average reader digests a book but my speedometer is about one a week. The last being Patrick Veitch’s Enemy Number One. It has a longer title but I’m too lazy to write it fully.

So what’s the next book you ask?

Ron Pollard’s Odds And Sods: My Life in the Betting Business. I’ve purchased it from Amazon via Goldstone books at a cost of £3.34 (free postage and packing). It’s second hand but in ‘good’ condition. The book displayed on Amazon doesn’t have a cover, just a navy blue background saying: ‘Cover coming soon!’ I hope the volume is more entertaining. In my imagination, which is vivid, I see Ronald standing in front his pitch on a windswept Folkestone, legs akimbo due to the weight of all the gold in his pockets, a Ferrari in the background and in the passenger seat some psychic lady smoking a cigar! This is a dust cover in the style of Wasgij where you have to use your imagination to put the jigsaw puzzle together.

In this case an imaginary dust jacket.

Some of you may say: ‘Who needs a book when you have an imagination like that!’

The only reference I have to Big Ron is from Harry Findlay’s publication Gambling For Life. He mentioned Ron Pollard, who is a bookmaker, with a half scathing ‘attack’ about something to do with William Hill.

One book leads to another, hey. I’m pretty sure at some point there will be a reference to Barbara Cartland and I will be consumed by Mills & Boon and consequently die a death of a thousand paper cuts.

She wrote A Hazard of Hearts published in 1949. It’s about a compulsive gambler who lost his house! Odds on there’s a romantic element, featuring the Lady in Pink.

Anyway, I will get stuck into this book when it arrives within the week.

The blurb says: ‘This is the story of Ron Pollard, the Ladbrokes bookmaker who set out by opening a ‘book’ on the contest for the Tory leadership following the Christine Keeler affair.’

Sounds interesting.

The book was published in 1991 by Hodder And Stoughton Ltd.

This hard cover has 195 pages of exuberance.

Customer reviews give 3.5 stars out of 5.

Ian McDonald says: ‘Interesting insight into bookmaker corruption…’

Paul W says: ‘Ron Pollard a true gentleman.’

It will be interesting to hear the views from a bookmaker contrasting with the professional gambler perspective. I get a feeling this will detail the funny but also the darker side of racing.

Who knows?

When the book arrives, pages watermarked by the tears of a losing punter, I will be giving you The Full Monty.

Looking forward to seeing the dust jacket let alone reading the book.

I will get some value out of my £3.34.

We should be able to get four or five decent articles out of this one.

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