Favourite punting stories

the year 1980/81...not sure ..

my first day ever at racing..
my first day ever in Johannesburg..came from Potchefstroom by the mooi river..

turfontein...
my uncle working out the jackpot..no P6 yet those days..
gave the ticket to me..had to calculate the amount..50 cent per ticket..

so i wrote it down...
4 X 2 x 5 x 3 and made the sum..no calculators either those days..

he went off to play his jackpot..
took a look at the numbers.......
that was my jackpot...straight line 4 x 2 x 5 x 3
Played it for R1...twice at 50 cents...


KINGLY (at 50/1) no 5 in the jackpot..beat Zatopek (4/10) course record holder
the jackpot paid R3200 odd...
got it twice...

an entire years wages..at the time..

First day at races...luck...

No punt involved but a good story worth telling.

After seeing a 4 year old hurdler, small in statute but big in heart, called Katchit come up the hill at Cheltenham like a champ I told no2son that I had seen the winner of that year's Triumph Hurdle. He naturally disagreed but added that if Katchit won the Triumph Hurdle then he would stand in the shop window of Marks & Spencers and bare his arse to the world.

Well the rest is history, with Katchit storming up the hill winning going away. Must have been some sight at M&S.

... Early eighties was playing a club cricket match and at lunch time I popped into the tote with some of the senior players...I was about 19 back then.It was Guineas Day in the Cape and Terrence Millard had the hot favourite Prontisimo running. I believed like all of the others that the favourite would win but I really liked Ralph Rixon's grey Clean Break and a raider from Durban...an imposing black horse that I'd seen run during the Durban season called Shu Shine Boy.

The rest of my team mates would not know of him but I bankered Prontisimo and boxed three horses for the rest of the placings...the grey, the black and an Argentine import that I can't remember. This trifecta, I played five times...minimum bet at the time was R2.

Off we went to finish the game...with my team mates making fun of me all the way to the ground...later that evening stopping off at a pub for a few cold ones...we get the result...The favourite beats Clean Break by a nostril with Shu Shine Boy in third...the Trifecta pays R2 350 ...no quartet back then and I win it 5 times!!!

Adios Bookies Wrote:

---

> visited bruma lake in 1999 some time.... backed
> all nine winners on the vaal card, but never took
> one multiple. At then end of the day went to
> square with the bookie, as i was an out of towner,
> actually never lived in the country at the time,
> the bookie only had enough cash to settle less
> R5k.... so i took 147500/5000 united to win the
> treble.... watched the game versus bayern, fell
> asleep in the 89th minute quite distraught as i
> had come so close. Only found out two weeks later
> that i was actually a winner.... unfortunatly the
> cash went into slow, very slow horses....lol


Yeah right.

It was 1979, gee whiz it's 30 years ago!!!
Four of us, final year students, decided we are going down to the July. The Friday we "bunked" classes and headed off to Durbs. Packed just the necessities. During the week leading up to the July we all agreed that Beau Art was "it".
We arrived in Durbs with nowhere to crash. We decided to make it an all-nighter.

We parked the Peugot 404 (with a churchbell under the bonnet),and headed into the amusement park. There I (natural gambler) found the table with the red, blue and white holes. Roll the ball into your selected colour and win (red and blue = evens and white was 2/1). I stuck there while my mates meandered off. When they returned I had already made a packet.

They all joined in. We slaughtered the poor guy... the one in about 10 rolls that we lost, he would bellow "you can't win them all, thank God for that!!" a Huge crowd gathered around the table and everyone wanted to bet with us. The poor guy had to close hours before time.

I remember we ended up in a small bar, of the hotel, opposite the amusement park. It's entrance was in the side road. There we sang, and drank, and sang, and drank, for we have won far over a grand!! and that in 1979. In the bar everyone wanted to know what we were backing the next day, Beau Art....

We bought rounds, and everone else were buying rounds. a Journalist, can't remember his name, must be the altzheimers,kept on saying "you guys have the wrong one". We stuck to our guns. the journo wouldn't tell us his fancy. "Later" he would say. Every time we asked, he would say "later".

During the small hours of that night, the journo announced that he was leaving, he silenced the whole bar and proclaimed "Over the Air is pass the post" please believe me!! he ranted on for nearly a half hour. You know drunk students: ja what ever!!

We slept on benches near the beach for a couple of hours, showered there, and was at Greyville before nine. We "clubbed" all our money. We played our fancy, Beau Art,early the morning. Leading up to the July we played and lost, but small bets.

At last the July, we again met the journo, he again ranted about his choice of the previous night. He actually begged us to back his fancy.We conferred, decided to keep our fuel money, food etz, and the rest R500, at 14/1, we put onto Over the Air.

The following 3 weeks we lived in the Margate hotel!!

Great story Element, the horses whether punting or owning a horse always has a nice story somewhere.

My moment of glory was as a student with no money except lunch money. Walking (no rich daddy buying cars) to Lynnwood Road Tattersalls from the University of Pretoria to have a dabble. On the day in question I had my usual, an All To Come (which almost always is one leg out!) I can remember two of the horses in it, Wolf Whistle I think it was in the Colorado King Stakes and National Currency. My 5 horses worked out to a nice 110 to 1 and my last ten rands went on. I listened to the races on the 1485 AM and almost wet myself when the last one came in courtesy of Mr Strydom. Not a massive win but to a poor student with your last money it's a nice present. I also remember Pierre Strydom rode the Jackpot that day.

I fondly remember cashing that ticket seeing the clerk double checking the odds.

Worst punting memory should be a topic too. I once remember marking a quartet, noticing a mistake on the ticket and running back to correct it. That "wrong, cancelled" ticket would have won a carryover quartet enough to pay a big chunk of my studies! Hence if I make a mistake on a ticket that is not a big outlay I never cancel it, I re-take and keep the original.

Once flew from Heathrow to Cork, ticket cost 88 UKPounds.

Went to my first ever dog race at Cork, While i was standing at the rails, a kid stood next to me and said "me dog will win".

Which dog I asked somewhat sceptically.

"Da orange dog" he replied, referring to the coat colour of a rank ousider.

I Put 5 quid on, da dog shat in, I won just less than 90 pounds.

The luck of the Irish "doggie"

Remember

trap 1 red
2 blue
3 white
4 black
5 orange
6 black and white stripes

That's not the colour of the dogs in case we have any Irish posters.

THE YEAR 1990/1991
Mr Hawkins is the auctioneer...
and another one to "Castle corner"....

I woke up the next day..
saw a handfull of invoices next to my bed...
11 in total....

"motherless" last night...bought 11 mules...

now we need to find the mules..
I paid by cheque..and signed some papers...
Frikkie took 3 days to find the 11 horses...

Braam Malerbe got them..
Subletting somewhere near Newmarket..
He got appointed as my trainer last night...
Got the paperwork and my signator to prove it..

110 stories later...
333 days..as printed in the Computerform..
been paying keep for 11 horses for almost 12 months...
Danger Bay is going to run..
Pink silks..
Jason Jago up..
40/1...

Newmarket midweek..
Frikkie, Myself..and a few others..up at the bar in the members..
at least 14 doubles later...

In the ring..
Braam and Jason...we better punt the fav..dont know if we can win..
Me..3 times their size...
You jump..foot flat to the board.whip out..no stories..
If you dont win..carry on past the turn..
go to the back straight..by the trees..get off...and run...

Frikkie starts the rounds..
Punting...
Taking the 40/1..33/1..25/1...20/1...16/1..12/1..


Danger Bay wins...

won P6, Jacpots x 10, etc..
won all the money back I paid for the 11 mules, and the 12 month keep + profit

next day..
Sold all the horses to Braam for R3500....its all he had in his pocket..safe..office..foodstamps..empty bottles..etc..

We were sitting under the umbrellas inside the Gosforth Park track. A regular was in the last leg of the pa a few times and would win R40K, a handsome amount in the early nineties. Pierre was his banker in the last and was running fourth but stopping fast.
"Go Pierre, go!!" the punter screamed (climbing half over the barrier, his pants slipping down unnoticed). He screamed so loud Pierre looked up and directly at him. "Go Pierre, go!!" the punter screamed desperately. Pierre got to work on the horse as though it was the July handicap, and in the end the punter was lying on his back on the grass screaming in ecstacy.
Nice one Pierre.

1990/1991..not sure..
the late Eric Cash...
always scheming..for the good..
every race meeting he would bring me "Pierre's" P6..marked on a betting slip..
R2500..R4500...P6...
whow knows if it was "Pierre's" P6...Eric was good..but was he that good..

at the time, I was getting the P6's from 5 other top jockeys..
in no time I saw..they dont know either..better drinkers than tipsters..

spend R15k or so on their P6's for the first few weeks..but no return..
never said a word to the jockeys...received the P6's every race meeting....
missed a few..

allmost 18 months later..
Vaal racetrack...
Eric cash is still there by the last race..not normal..he used to duck after the 1st or 2nd race..

by now..we are far gone..
Frikkie..David..Myself..and a few of these lightweights that had no more rides
Eric came around..
Question.."Pierre's" wife wants to know how are we going to pay..cash..or cheq
The P6 was still running..
Three horses in the last..top three on the betting board..
worst for me..R310K..to be divided by 2...
We'll give a cheque....not the end of the world..
We winning or loosing R300K a week...madness..absolute madness..

we had a party that night...
top 3 horses in the betting..not in the first four...
close...very close.....no more Eric Cash P6's

My story:

in 86/87 travelling to Sun city in a honda ballade with a mate of mine and donavan habib. We going to watch Irene Kara (a crime in itself) every single kilometer we drive don tells us "boys next week dont forget " " boys next week dont forget"

What were we not to forget.

That he was riding the winner of the Sa nursery Goldmark

So we all ready to go that saturday afternoon and to the course we go. Its raining cats and dogs and word at the course is that Buddy nassif has promised Frikkie Vermaak an M3 if he wins the race with his horse (cant remember) but we stick to our guns and punt donovan. I also take a double Gold mark into Kadarko (stephen jupp /robbie sage) in the derby they both SHIT in. Its raining BIG time now , i "rent " an unbrella from a boltong salesman for R200 (5 mins) and collect plenty cahs. Us 2 boys frikkie and everysingle Habib under the sun go to a restaurant in glenvista for a massive all nighter.........