Present day horseracing has degenerated from the ‘king of sports’ or ‘sport of kings’ to a game of gambling, though most of old fashioned race-goers refuse to admit this transition. When thoroughbred racing started in real earnest in 19th century beginning, winning a race, which used to be 2 to 4 miles long( sometimes run in the form of ‘heats’) and not the value of the stakes, was the norm of the day. In 20th century the importance slowly shifted to stakes money and in the later half of the century a punter ( who was a non-entity at the beginning and still is) gained acceptance (not recognition) as a necessary evil – to be tolerated and seen – but not heard by the racing administrators. These punters –called commoner during kings and queens reign, are now known as public or a punter- a misnomer for a gambler! The lure of easy money has also created another professional called a tipster along-with a trainer , jockey, vet and other qualified professionals who may not like to be grouped with a tipster.
But the truth is, sometimes stranger than fiction! .Today all these professionals can not exist for long in the absence of this man(or these men) called- tipster(s).
These men(ignoring hi-fi computer savy experts) ,many of them have very limited facility available, try to predict the winner of a race (few crore rupees are lost or won or change hands in every race)- sometimes for a fee and most of the times for a pittance called – salary, compensation, commission.
Trainers go on strike, jockeys go on strike ,even syces casual workers strike whenever they want and owners also can withdraw their horses from racing but two racing aficionados – called punters and tipsters do not , rather dare not and thus are reduced to a group called ‘necessary evil’.
Let us consider a situation. We know there are 4 to 5 thousand diehard punters in Mumbai-Pune, same number in Bangalore- Mysore circuit and about 3000+ in Hyderabad and same number in Kolkata , Delhi, Ooty,Chennai combined , adding up to a number close to 15,000 . Come what may , these chronic(pardon my lingo) aficionados will go to a racecourse to bet or sometimes watch the races . some of them bet in ‘petis’ or ‘half’ or ‘quarter’ but most of them bet in tenners or hundreds. These tenner-betters called public, commoner ,gambler are the backbone of Indian racing, at present . Remove them from the racing scene, these racing clubs –in India ,will collapse !
Why these penny punters(in England) or tenner-punter (in India) come to racecourse. In the hope of making money, obviously! They buy a racebook costing Rs.10/- or a racing-sheet(Rs.5) or even a newspaper(Re.1).
Selections given by these experts forces them, if they follow them, to put their money on a runner who may win or lose. Most of the time , they lose because they can’t study seriously the past performance, pedigree, form, and other parameters of the race because they have no time for these finesse.
All of them (penny punter and ‘peti’ punter) blame the tipster who with limited resources, knowledge and info provides/offers his opinion which may be correct but more often is wrong because allover the world the percentage of public choice(fav) is not more than 30 percent.
Why is it so?
Because homo sapiens (called human beings) have a genetic trait to take calculated risk, face dangers- after ascertaining the chance of coming out of it unscathed and this trait has given them an ability of logical reasoning ,rationalizing and of course an ability of ‘deception’. This ability of deception is manifested by giving a track in the dead of night(mid 20th. century), in and out running, using incorrect equipment etc. The list is endless.
Before we delve deep in this rigmarole of excuses put forward by one or all for losing their hard earned money or the deception perfected by many professionals let us have a look at the perception of a punter/race-goer- including professionals on the performance of the ‘scapegoats’ – the tipsters in the Indian racing scenario. Out of 10,000 hardcore punters allover India ,some have access to internet and those persons surf various websites and blogs to ‘read or see’ what is new on their site/blog. I also visit these blogs and sites too. Shyam/Swamy/Golmaster have an average of 400 visitors and Prakash Gosavi says that his blog has been visited by more than 600 persons very recently. I‘ve no data about websites though the owner of one website has told me that on a race day 2000 to 3000 persons visit his site. Being pessimist we can say that at least 1000 persons try to find out the opinion/tips of some persons they think know better than them. If they (visitors/punters/opinion-makers etc.) succeed they try to take credit for their intelligent(borrowed?) selections and if they fail then of-course these few punching bags( called tipsters) are always available to share and accept the blame without a murmur.
If they dare to complain they are shouted down , ridiculed and insulted. Inspite of that these opportunists still visit these websites/blogs regularly for the free info and tips .
Why? They have no option. Punters and tipsters have a love-hate relationship, which changes race to race and race day to race day. A casual tipster may survive on his own by betting on his fancy –once in a while, but if they stop offering tips- what a punter will do? Imagine if all the race books give all other info except tips newspapers/sites/blogs stop giving free selections what these peti-punters or race clubs will do in the absence of penny punter?
Gamblers will switch over to another form of gambling and breeders will sell their produce to buggy-owners! Open spaces of race clubs will be used by joggers and real sports persons( boys and girls) than pseudo-sportsmen! If our politiciansand builders lobby permit that to happen!
But we are discussing punter –tipster relationship or dependence. Historically punters came first and tipsters came later in this game . An average punter has resources ( money, risk taking ability, backup) but insufficient knowledge of the game while a tipster has knowledge( acquired, borrowed, spurious, fake) and both need each other for sustenance in racing.
While resource can be unlimited ,knowledge has a boundary , a limit due to inadequacy of the provider. In the context of a horse race this inadequacy becomes unforgivable though in any other commercial activity loss and profit are accepted without any complaint. In a business activity a net profit of 15 to 25 % after a year is gladly accepted but in racing activity after 3 hrs a return of 20 to 30% is considered inadequate. This brings us to a remark by an Indian breeder who said ‘pay peanuts you get monkeys’. If this person ( he/she) can say this to another who has paid few lacs to buy a thoroughbred why can’t a tipster(who receives few tenners or few hundreds) be allowed to use the same words. In a study carried by me in 2004 when a cash prize of Rs. 100,000/- was offered by RWITC during Pune season I had proved( available in another article) that the performance of tipsters had improved appreciably – though only one of them could win that prize.
This brings us to Bangalore summer Derby where most of the punters lost and most of the tipsters failed. I’m not going to single out any group – punter/tipster/owner/trainer/jockey for a blameworthy/praiseworthy performance but will try to bring out some facts and data overlooked , ignored by many.
Let us start with some harsh, real, economic facts.
Economy first: an owner buys a horse , hands over to a trainer and expects a decent return on his investment. A trainer tries to win (or return) as much as is possible to retain the goodwill and the future retainer ship by the owner and a jockey(retained or hired) tries to help them. This is an ideal situation .One out of 100 thoroughbred only performs well, rather do perform true to ‘form’ and brings laurels to all connected with him. Not all- they show variable performance pattern. This brings us to dubious, deceptive, false runs of a horse which are noted down by professionals ,including tipsters, and a consensual opinion is generated about a runner’s future prospects- which can be deceptively wrong.
Let us examine all the points made and above observations in the context of recent Bangalore summer Derby.
18 horses, biggest field ever for Bangalore Derby, faces the starter. Aboline from draw no 18 –farthest draw took over lead at 1950m belying the age old theory of unfavorable draw and won start to finish on a slowly rising track – contradicting another theory that a horse can not win a route (>2000m) race start to finish in a competitive field.
But did he really destroy the age old beliefs held by some. Perhaps, no! why do I say that ?
I said it before the race was run , that his dam Super Fan has run 43 times –a record for an US runner ( they run maximum only 7-10 times before retirement) proving durability, strength in the bloodline and her winning distance gave him a mitochondrial advantage to run over longer distances.
How did he beat Jacqueline – trip handicappers will explain in detail why did she lose by short head as I’m not doing post race analysis here !
Why was he missed by almost ‘all’ the tipsters? Gypsy Magic’s past 2 runs, imported jockey, apparently better time clocked by colts, deceptive Colt’s trial run etc. did help run at lucrative odds –though he was third favorite in the bookie’s ring
I’m not a regular or a professional tipster but did short-list him in my selections on 8th. July and 10th. July on IR.com and my blog respectively.
Today , horse racing has become a game for thick-skinned ,strong heart ,calculative, clever and deceptive person or a group who has these qualities in a collective format.
The tipsters( few of them very sincere) and track reporters who watch the morning track, analyse the past performance and look for the clues from jockey change, shoe change, equipment change are likely to be fooled by subtly deceptive methods and should be wary and careful, because the intentions of the connections ,now must be given prime importance, before he can say with a cautious remark that horse A is likely to win . The aura built around Gypsy Magic, Icebreaker, Aboline (colts trial)and many others is to be viewed in this light.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)