Underhorses always outrun the underdogs

13 April 2012

Punters would make excellent tall-tale fishermen. Above their TV at home hangs a display cabinet, empty apart from a small plaque that reads: "The one that got away." It is a large cabinet. The massive catch almost landed is as sweet as the belting bet that almost came off. "Stuff the winner, did you see what happened to mine in second?" we say. "Mullered, it was. In another stride, he'd have got there. Would have won half the track with a clear run. How unlucky was that?"

That the British love underdogs, underachievers and even second-raters is well known. But never is this inclination more habitually played out than on a racecourse, in betting shops and on computer terminals across the land, day in, day out. We punters prefer Ifs and Buts to Job Done, every time.

Take True Night, this year's leading candidate for the Throwing Good Money After Bad award (holder: Trace Clip). He's raced 10 times without winning but his fortune could change at any moment if he were to reproduce his form of 12 months ago. He is an unexploded bomb in the handicapper's carefully constructed reasoning.

The problem is, we all know it. The last three times he has run, including just two days ago at Ayr, he has been heavily gambled on. So if he does eventually pop up - and, despite the respect his managers inspire, he's starting to look like he's forgotten how - it's likely to be at too small a price to repay the money already lost.

But that doesn't stop us playing on him because there's nothing worse than result rage: reading that a horse you've been following all season has won on the only occasion you didn't have your hardearned cash on it. (Does it happen to you on bank holidays, too? When you thought you'd scoured every race at each of the 50million meetings?)

The cynical among you should already have spotted a money-making opportunity. Take Monday's True Night race. Uhoomagoo (yes, someone lucky enough to afford a magnificent racehorse called it that) had beaten him at York nine days earlier. No real reason to reverse that form, yet True Night was 2-1 favourite and Uhoomagoo 7-1.

That's because serial optimists who'd bet on True Night at York clearly remembered the traffic problems he encountered in the closing stages. They airbrushed out the fact he was niggled along early and lacked the pace at the business end either to challenge or keep out of trouble. Result? They lost again: True Night sixth, Uhoomagoo first.

Of course, some horses are genuinely unlucky in running and go on to win - Indian Haven avenged his rough ride in the 2,000 Guineas with victory in the Irish version, for example. But the more unfortunate the victim, the greater attention it will receive and the shorter price for next time. That's when ill luck becomes overemphasised.

Yet, perversely, a winner is frequently underestimated. Hence, "unlucky" Oaks runner-up Yesterday was expected to finish in front of her vanquisher, Casual Look, in the Irish version. Neither actually won, but Casual Look was third at 7-1 and Yesterday fourth at 11-8.

The message for punters is clear: give unto the winners their due and you will receive. With that in mind, you may wonder why Alamshar is 11-4 favourite for Saturday's King George VI and the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes and Kris Kin, who beat him into third in the Derby and is unbowed this season, is 5-1. Go figure.

Bard of the race track

Kids have been learning about racing as part of the national curriculum.

A total of 5,750 pupils, aged four to 19, have been to tracks and training centres and meeting the sport's key workers.

Tasks included measuring Tattenham Corner at Epsom, for a maths assignment. The kids' coursework was celebrated in the Levy Board's annual report, published this month. It proves that budding poet Christopher Waddle, aged 10, already has very little to learn about the psychology of punting:

Ready to go
Anxious to win
Catching up
Eleventh place
Slow Unaccountably, they didn't publish the following haiku (Christopher will tell you this is a three-line, 17-syllable Japanese poem):

A winner at last
Well clear, until the jockey
Drops his bloody hands
Lydia Hislop, aged 28.

Sven's new job ...not Chelsea

So Sven-Goran Eriksson will manage the Rest Of The World team against Great Britain & Ireland in Ascot's Blue Square Shergar Cup next month.

But the annual pretence that the position of manager means anything apart from using a famous sportsman to buy some cheap headlines is always entertaining. An email is doing the rounds, idly imagining what would happen if Sven was really in charge:

"After the first half of the card he'll replace the entire team of jockeys with a bunch of apprentices, watch them throw away a useful lead, say, 'It was a promising performance,' have an affair with Clare Balding and then take over at Godolphin!"

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