Race Day and Big Winnings

From the Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Luke Jones Well, I'm going to tell you a story that comes from horse racing And I know you probably have little or no interest in horse racing But horse racing is far more interesting than you imagine. because it's a sport founded on gambling. David Walsh is chief sports writer for the Sunday Times, and he has been buzzing about a wild ruse, a scheme which recently caused uproar in the horse racing world. There is an expression, which is you can't beat the booies But what happens when someone uses inside information Finer, who knows that his horse is much better than everybody thinks This is the story I want to tell you Could this man, this trainer, beat the bookmakers at their own game It's a David sus Goliad story. It's also a story about nuance. Is it right to do something that might be slightly questionable borderline unethical to beat the bookmakers because They would do everything to be true The story today, The Big coup, how a small time trainer Cook on the buckies. Whular horse racing? Wh where does that come from I don't come from a horse racing background. My parents grandparents weren't interested really But when I was a kid and I saw horse race on TV. and this is black and white TV now we're talking about. That dates here? Yes, it does I was drawn to it I just liked the sight of thoroughbreds racing against each other jumping fences, jumping hurdles, all that stuff I was lured in and I've never been able to. free myself of devotion to it Take us to the story at hand then, where does all of this start? I became aware of a small trainer in Ireland who had try to bring off a coup And I wondered what had motivated him How would he gone about it? ust one of those things where you think, I wonder what happened there And then you go in you you investigateated or you talk to people around it and it actually is evenven more interesting than you originally thought And this part of southeast Ireland, where your man is, is a particularly horse racy part of Ireland.. every part of Ireland, I would say. But in particular. I mean, this is kindind of the southeast of Ireland, County Waterford and Is that really horse country? Yes, it is, especially national hunt racing. National hunt racing is the branch of horse racing where they go over fences as opposed to flat racing where they don't I mean, I was part of an Irish generation that would have regarded A race horse as the greatest sporting hero The horse was the most loved horse there ever was whenin the horse got an injury that would end his career Honestly The nation went into mourning. I mean, as a kid, I was eleven years of age when Arkele got his injury and The only thing I could equate to it was the death of John F. Kennedy. This story isn't about Arkle, it is about Declin. Tell us about him, who's here Dickling Qigly is a young kind of amateur jockey stroke trainer. I say trainer The license that he kind of trains under is in his dad's name And his dad does lots of work know with the horses, feeding them, harrowing the gallops, But Decklin does the actual training in the preparation of the horses for races And he's a kind of a small trainer, you would say fighting to make a living having little successes, but not one of the sport's big people And so you went to go And speak to him mebers this, How'd you find him? I had heard about this story but never detail that I wanted. So I went to see Decklin to ask him what exactly had happened here He'd never spoken about it at Lnn until we spoke about it. I found them incredibly open Homest Horfulone. But there's also an element of gudlessness about him He tells you things that others wouldn't tell you I have a couple of big bets a year. I'm not afraid to bet. even though I'm not an addict gambler. What I do like the challenge of Making the bookies cry. Yeah yeah. and that is something that's on my mind a lot But I'm plotting and planning all the time, wing my chance to get them.. And if I get them You have to grace to mahogany. Yeah. I' going to explain Gris M Hogy means. If you played cards And you were playing poker or some game thatand you know where you put a pound all in to start and then you started baing on top of that. Somebody was slow to put their pound in. you would say, come on, you've got to grace theamogany. So Decklin trains horses. in twenty twenty four around the beginning of the story, what was his business like? How was it going I wouldn't say a failing business, but was it was a business struggling financially because What happens is Dicklland goes and buys a horse at the sales and then he will hope to train that horse and sell it on prophets But he hadn't been selling as many horses as he needed to That meant debts were creeping up. So I oed a few quid I had a good few halves and arses. O if you couldit Cattertersws, gooths to feed companies as well the debts that you needed to pay, how much would you have needed to just clear off all that and have a few quid to kind of be going forward again? If you're buying horses, halves and horses, like Hond grand wouldn't be a wouldn't be a huge amount of money. You know and then if if you a few more bills here and there should two under ground wouldn't wouldn't be hard to get up to two. It wouldn't be hard. Yeah So yeah So it was pressure. Yeah. So he needs to do something to sortce out a situation What does he decide He decides that he's going to organize a betting coup going to try to prepare you know, one or two or more horses for a particular day When their prices are going to be good and he's going to arrange to have money put on discreetly and he's going to try and make all of the money that he owes back in one day So you say coup, I might say scheme him yeah Chlooy planl. I I amm not a horse rising person, David, so you're going have to sort of just explain for me a few kind of things. You mentioned moments ago, we've got two typ of racing, so jump racing and flat racing, this type of racing that Deond's involved with is going to be acing We're also talking about here maiden hurdles. What are they Maiden hurdles are for young horses who have never won hard a race So If you have a really nice horse that horse in a maiden hurdle and once it wins a maiden hurdle can no longer run in maiden hurdle. If you have a horse that you think is going to struggle maybe to win a maiden hurdle you might decide this horse really is a kind of a horse for handicaps. Handicaps are races where a horse is given The amount of weight commensurate with his ability In other words bestest horse gets the highest weight The least talented horse gets a low weight and in that way, every horse in the race is meant to have a good chance of winning. Physical weight on the horses to make it more difficult for the best horse to race, but less weight on the least stable horse to help it make up a Exactly Let's say all jockeys, all jump jockeys are around ten stones in weight So you'll have the jockey and then you'll have You'll have little lead plates in the saddle to bring the weight up. to the required level, which for the good horse could be eleven stone ten, eleven stone nine the weaker horse enstill. And in all of this, what is the key dynamic here that might be exploited? The key dynamic is If you get a horse well handicapped. In other words, he's a better horse than the handicapper thinks You then have an advantage And you can say We're going to go for this particular race because we feel our horse is well handicapped. He'll be a decent prriice. We can have a bet and we can make money. So you know that that horse is going to run better in that race than anyone else would know. Exactly. And you could call it inside information because that's what it is. Instable information. Yes No the thing that Cin CQerly was thinking is Getting a horse handicapped. That's what everybody does I'm going to do it differently because I know When it comes to a particular point in the year, which is just before the end of the national hunt season comes in April at the Punches Down Festival, once the Punchesown Festival happens in late April to jump season is over If you have a horse that's running in a maiden hurdle And it wins at that time of year We say one week before punch is down, which is mid April. That horse then cannot run As a novice following season because He has won his maiden hurdle If he had won the maiden hurdle at the beginning of the year He could have had that whole season as an novice. Yeah But if he wins it at the end He doesn't have another season and he's got to go into kind of seningior open category against the best horses around. So There is a presumption in racing that nobody would be mad enough to try and win a maiden hurdle at that time of year. So in the kind of mid April, people are not really running their horses in novice races to win. They're running them, they're not running them to win mostly You know, some horars will have to win it. There will be a presumption that if you put in a horse that has no form of note, you're not putting them in try to win, you're putting them in to get a good handicap mark So for the following season, he'll be competitive in handics And Delin Clely thought that was a weakness in the system. The presumption that if he runs two horses that are maidens that have never won a hurdle race at the end of the season, there will be a presumption that he is just getting the horses handicapped for the following year, not really trying hard to win They thoughtught wrong. Right. I'd be prepared to sacrifice horses handandicap mark and maybe the rest of his career If I thought he was genuinely good by winning a weeak maen hurdle at the end of the year before the end of the novice campaign just before Punch' town It's like the bookies are going say O' definitely being handicapped Sure, he's not going to win a maiden hurdle a week before the Punown Festival because he won't be a novice for next year Right But I was prepared to sacrifice all that If I could get the money on add a hundred to one. So if you're thinking long term about your horse, there are all those reasons why at that late stage of the season, you'd want to just run your horses, I guess, maybe a kind of a gentle pace or a pace that would then get them a good handicap for the next year not to absolutely bomb it down and try and win But he has short term ambitions. He needs to make a bit of money soon Do you think that this plan at that point was just mad trying to take on the bookies like this No, I don't. I think he was trying to tilt the odds in his favor. And I think it was an intelligent response to the situation he found himself in. i. e, he was a trainer who had by his standards, a significant amount of debt He needed to get rid of that in order to keep his kind of show going on in the way that he wanted it to And I thought the plan had a lot going for it because What happens is now Pmakers use algorithms to determine the price forces. And the algorithm says Horses that are in maid in hurdles that have no form at the end of the year are there to be handicapped not to try and win Yeah, and there's an expression in racing that people use all the time horse he's having a quiet run That's the euphemism for he's not really being set up to win And the algorithm comes up with a crazy price for the horse. In other words, a horse that should be say have a one and twelve chance of winning is suddenly a hundred to one shot or an eighty to one shot, or in this case one of ours was one hundred and twenty five to one. Now Decklin saw this as a weakness that he could exploit So the bookies have gallone into the trap of Oh sure it's only a week before they're definitely going to be handicapped R. But surely if I set things up as small with the suit myself Yeah, I could get a be pay out of this You can h it You can hear the enthusiasm in his voice, but surely he must have been so nervous as well because you say he could win big or we could just lose massively Yes, he could. I mean, he was going to be investing quite a bit of money, money that he could not have afforded to lose There's still a nice twoquid right? Outlaid de If something went wrong, we're going to be You're crying to be onm again they Y comoming up Race dayay And its aftermath, we'll have more from David in a moment . David, you telling us about this single very risky gamble that this horse trainer Declan Queeeley hatched Take us to the day of the race itself. Where are we? and who is who is horses two principal horses in this story Our rock is Diamond and Diamond Nora The horses had turned the corner as we came out of the winter and we were heading to April then And Diamond Nora was starting to work really well. I actually got her wind on, it improved her a lot. and Rocky's Diamond had grown up a lot. He was a bit babish when he ran in Gorn and as I proceeded to work him forward. I said to myself, this is a good heorse. So G there right, kind of Tosh. Kidwin and going there I talk the Mor W. They must have been in separate races with two horses. so surely that's an issue. Yes. and in the sense that not only were they obviously in separate races, but they were at separate race courourses Diamond Nora was going to Ballon Rbe in County Mayo. And Rocky's Diamond was going to Limerick and they were running just twentyenty two minutes apart. So one race is that four hundred forty five and the other race is at five hundred seven So again, if the horses are being backed in doubles Backing the two horses together Don't have that much time to react Yeah this is only twenty two minutes apart and remind us the odds for each are what Bookmakers put up morning prices And we know that in one bookish shop, where Decklin had a friend of his a stable out strike a bit for thirty euros each way double on the two horses. The prices were eighty to one on Rock is Diamond and one hundred and twenty five to one on Diamond North In the build upp tourn of this. Who had Declland told? Who was in his confidence on this plan Decklland has an expression that Nobody means nobody You just have to play poker. Yeah You just have to just say nothing basically. Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeet, yeah, yeah. Nobody nobody knew about it only only my girlfriend A. She was the only person that knew about it. I Did't I tell anybody? Really I did not. I did not one person, Not one person, right What about the jockeys? sureurely they must know Citlin didn't tell the jockeys until the jockeys came into the parade ring basasically getet on the horses to go down to the start. And what he says to the jockeys is, think this horse can win today Write and confidently, be positive And don't worry if you have to make the running, make the running. He should be good enough So everything is ready. theseese horses are ready to go on these two races. Delin has spent a lot of money on this scheme which could Haralold absolutely massive returns which will help clear his debts What I don't understand is How can he bet on these horses that he's training? That's like a sort of football manager having a flutter on their team as they go out to play the Champions League final or whatever, knowing full well that they're in great form or so and so's got a dodgy ankle The first thing that needs to be said, it is legal for trainers to bet. that's absolutely the case And it's always been Racing to understand is founded on gambling. Once horses began racing however long ago three hundred years ago There was always this thing in racing, My horse is better than yours. I'll make you ten guineas. My horse will beat yours from one place to another. And that's how it started. And it's always been like that. and there was a time when gambling industry was basically the racing industry, when people were having a bet thirty years ago, it wasn't on football, it wasn't on NFL, it wasn't on anything other than horse racing So horse racing is inextricably linked to gambling and trainers have always been allowed to bet. Jockeys, on the other hand, are not allowed to bet because they're in a position to you know, affect the result by the way they ride. So they're not allowed to bet. It's illegal for them to bet So as we approach the race then, Deckca needs to actually place his bets. How does he do that? O does some want to do it for it This is the part of the plan that becomes like a military operation. Okay No, seriously. I mean, it's important for Decklin to get the money on in a way that maximizes his profit So there's different ways he sets about this the race course, there will be maybe Ballon Roban County Mayo, Limerick they will have Maybe fifteen to twenty bookmakers standing you know, individual bookmakers private operators, if you like, not the big firms, but ordinary individuals who've been bookmakers all their lives, they will stand and they will put up the prices Clynn gets Trusted lieutants if you like One of whom was like a serious Hunter who would back in big amounts at pretty much every Irish race meeting he goes to He's well known to all the bookmakers in Limberick had it hunter there I said if I brought him to the races The buookies would be obliged to take the bets of them because If he loses He loses twentyenty days, he wins twentyenty days. Right. So that's why I decided to bring him If I had to gone up with the money They would have turned me away. Becauseuse if I was there with massive waggers of cash, they might think, Who the hell is this randomer? Why is he putting lots of money on? I don't want actually anything to do with him. This is fishy. Where's your man? perfect. Exactly. They wouldn't take the money from you, or they would they would say if you wanted to have two hundred each way on this huge outsider at sixty to one They would say, lookook, we'll take not two hundred each way, we'll take twenty each way and that's it. That's all you'll get. But from the guy that Dicklin had employed, kind of honorbound almost to take whatever he's asking. because He bets with them a lot and there's a mutual respect. So this man got a lot of money on for Decklin on Rock's Diamond. the same situation at Balam Row And I had an ordermanding Gord to by the robe And He didn't know what he was going to Battor Ro for I just to all look and he justs go to Battor Ro. And I gave him a case and I just said, lookook his money does and did I told and then five minutes for rest said the money's all bundles. in four hundred, two hundred each way. I said go into the ring and get as much money as you can on the mayor. Right. And He just went at it He also sends a stable ad into Limerick City on the morning of the race Dylan Felan was his name and Dylan goes into a bookie shop. and he's totally to Decktlan about this, how they're going to approach this Dylan knows that the people in the shop who are will be managing the shop. they will recognize him as a stranger. That would put them on alert. I said, Just go in, I said Tooding around there for five minutes. I said back a dog So to reassure them He will go and he will put twenty euros on a greyhound because there' some televised Reyhond racing on and our under Braon will lose And the people behind the counter will be reassured This is a mug punter who doesn't know what he's doing probably may even have an issue and then he'll eventually do the bet he wants to do thirty euros each way. on Diamond Nora and Rocky's Diamond and each way double He said in the boil sports are right. yourour man looked at it. And he just kind of looked at Dylan and Dylan just smmileed and he said you just put it through. I'd say just t No And Dicklin asked his partner, Avro Go to Manchester And she was heavily pregnant at the time and strike a series of small bets in different Bookmakers shops Basically back the horse without arousing suspicion Yeah when I got a couple of balicans all right. when she was so heavily pregnant because We kind of misjudged Manchester and how big it was. rightight? So it was B bit of a nightmare or I but sure she survived anyh So all in all, Avverl, these two big punters at the different race courses, you've got like the stable lad going into and a normal bookie shop, how much are we talking about? basically accumulated eight thousand in cash to invest in all his bets So this is an extraordinary moment that he's gearing up for L in the planning. He's in massive amounts of debt, but he is leveraging the kind of quirks of the horse racing betting system to try and Hopefully win massive or lose How does each race go? He had always thought that Ruckage Diamond was a very good horse. He had thought Diamond Nora was a really nice mare and he prepared them to be at their best that day They'd run earlier in the year and they hadn't been at their best. All of his horses, he said, were under a cloud at the time, some virus possibly and basically The spring came, the horses got better. And these two were good. D can prepare them for the day Lags are up And they're off Rocky'siamond was first at Limerick and he dominated his race. And away from it, Rocky's Diamond, The clear leader, you know led for most of the way and always seemed in control and stayed on and won well. Yes a big upset here in the first, Rocky's Diamond has bounced out m all second start over hurdles and gets off the mark. And then twenty two minutes later, Diamond Nora is at Ballon Robe and it's Diamond Nora who's out in front and she does equally well. First race of the new season here at Ballon Roue goes the way of Diamond Nora. So from Decklin's point of view It was a Perfect execution of his plan Its like fllas getting out of jail, like it rarely happens, like you Soity very seldomly see something like this happening make us think of this makers, you know, on the course had no complaints. you know, from their point of view, they'd been done fair and square But makers reacted differently. Well another bookmaking chain reacted differently. That was Ladbrookks. When he went back into Limerick to collect his bet The girl was there in I think it was the Lad Brooks And she went mad She went mad. She goes, Jesus Christ onighty. She says, I'm going to lose my job over you Right She said to them. You never told me you were back in one hundred and fifty in a whatever one hundred and twenty five to one shot He said, No, no, he didn't. He said We found a half fancy. He just cleared her up We have fancicy them to run well all right, but sure. We didn't think in our wildest dreams they'd win Well I'm going to lose my job over you now. He's like, there's Upper over this suppoing PR, all that in the head office. is I like she sorry about that I said but that's the way it isn't it it look like they were not going to pay out Well, they tried not to I mean, a year passed and Ladbrooks still hadn't paid out. Everybody else had paid out, but not Ladbrooks Ladbrooks said They were acting according to their terms being if there's an investigation into the improvement the horses had shown from their previous runs and there was an investigation. They had the right not to pay The fact that Ladbrooks wouldn't pay out immediately. as other bookmakers had done upset Dickling greatly I thought it was very unprofessional. when feellas win big, They should be Gorifying it. Oh, glorifying it. Yeah, because you zck people in The investigation went on for a long time of wet nowhere because Slyln, in his mind, had done nothing wrong and the authorities weren't able to say he had done anything wrong. There was no sanction against the stable And Eventually got resolved by Decklan playing the bookmakers as the bookmakers would play you. In other words Dylan Feling the young stabiliz does an interview And he says I struck a bet with Ladbrooks They owe me a hundred thousand. This is life changing money for me C can't sleep at night cause I'm wondering if I'm ever going to get this money The public reacted wholly in support of Dylan and thought, how can they deprive a stable lad? After four days of excruciating kind of bad publicity Ladbrooks caved in and they caved in. let me tell you how they caved in. A year after the bets had been struck, a Ladbrook guy comes up to Decklen and says If we transferred a hundred thousand to your account with that sort it. And Dcklland said yes, I think that would sort us Gsh, that's a hundred thousand just one From one bookmaker. so in total, what were the winnings? About five hundred thousand Eururos. Yes. Wow. Which is you know It thought about his debts? Yes, it did So how does Decklin feel about all this now now it's all shaken down I would say it was an outstanding coup executed to perfection. And he feels good about that and kind of have a feeling with him that he'll be waiting until he gets he gets an nice horse And he sees an opportunity to do something similar in the future. There's no day that doesn't go by When I'm driving out to the yard in the morning that I don't think I'll do that again does this mark him out as a particularly amazing trainer and tactician and does that in the world of racing make people wary of him or think gosh he's fabulous. let's flop around him and give him what he wants I would say both It would make some people wary. It would make some people gravitate towards him. If a trainer gets a reputation for being kind of a gambling stable There will be owners who think don't really want my horse being prepared in that way. I want him, you know, having a more even gel type of preparation. And I'm as an owner, I'm not that interested in gambling, so therefore Deckland isn' going to be My type of trainer. One bookmaker said to me He said, you know, Decklan is a very talented trainer But he'd be a better trainer if he concentrated solely on training horses to win races rather than trying to set up gambling coups What does all of this tell us though about horse racing and betting Prze money is pitifully low in Britain and Ireland in horse racing for the ordinary races. If you've got an ordinary race horse Your racing may be far in England for four or five thousand is what you get after winning a race and it's costing you You know, maybe two thousand a month in training fees. S it cost is Oh yeah, yh The reason why Racing is not as strong as it should be in terms of the prize money in Britain and Ireland. is because for decades Big bookmaking firms have been taking a huge amount of money out of racing If you look at where racing works really well Places like France, Australia Singapore. ban generally That's where the betting is controlled. in a way that serves racing. In other words, the revenueues from betting into racing That has not happened in this country. It has not happened in Ireland And as a result, racing basically has been been raped of its riches by bookmakers. So when you tell people like me stories s A lot of racing people about bookmakers getting done over We think about time Now it's David Wsh, Chief sports writer at The Sunday Times, and David has written a big feature on this mad story in the paper today. Go and check it out or we can find it online thetimes. com is where to go That's it for us today The produc was Soophie McNulty, the executive producer was Kate Lambll. Sound desesign was by Dave Creasey, and Music composition was by Malis Sato. I'm Lick Jones See you soon