“HERE … COMES …
SEND … IN … TANK”
ILOST a far greater sum when Zero Tolerance ran at Royal Ascot in 2003. Having performed to a high level in steadily run races at a mile and a quarter, Zero seemed likely to improve significantly over a strongly run mile and a half. His half-brother High Pitched had won a Group 3 over a mile and five and Zero Tolerance was by a much stronger influence for stamina in Nashwan. He seemed sure to stay a mile and a half easily and it would be no surprise if he stayed much further than that. There you go – sometimes I get it completely wrong.
I plunged heavily on Zero in the King George V Handicap, staking a little over £50,000 at morning and afternoon odds. By the time I had finished I stood to win not far short of half a million pounds, but by the time he finished the race had been over for some time. He didn’t come close to staying the trip and I had no-one to blame but myself.
Royal Ascot remained very much in my sights and Unscrupulous was my big chance in 2004. He was owned by Helena Springfield Ltd before I invested in him at the end of his four-year-old career. Although he was slow to progress in the spring, he had impressed when put into full work. He was still not fully wound up when appearing at Newmarket in late May under Frankie Dettori. Persuading Unscrupulous to relax in the early stages was the biggest problem by far and managing that in a seven-runner field with no early pace proved impossible, but he still ran well to finish third.
After that race Unscrupulous worked well, and James Fanshawe suspected that he was ahead of the handicapper. I felt that the recently introduced Buckingham Palace Handicap would suit him perfectly as a very strong pace was virtually guaranteed. However, a week before the meeting, James started to waver. He had warned me when I first came to the stable that he tended to get less confident as a race approached, and he was worried that our horse might need more experience, having only had seven races in his life. He suggested we might take in a small race first before going for bigger targets later in the season.
Entries for the Buckingham Palace closed Saturday lunchtime, so I sent James a detailed fax on the Friday evening, outlining why I felt we should go for a major handicap straight away. The fax did the trick and James was back on board with the Ascot plan. During the week, it was clear that a high draw was going to be important and I was delighted when we were drawn 23 of 30. On the day, the only issue for me was whether that stall would be high enough, as I knew that the quickest ground was close to the fair rail. I insisted that our jockey Oscar Urbina should switch behind the other runners to race tight against the far rail and stay there as long as he could. Oscar has had his critics, but he is very effective when riding a hold-up horse who needs to be settled and produced with a stealthy run late on.
I had taken the rare decision to add P Veitch to the partnership name. This was sure to attract plenty of attention on the day, but the odds would be out before then and, having dreamed of a Royal Ascot win for six years, I wanted to see my name in the racecard. My nightmare departure from Cambridge had happened only days after Royal Ascot in 1998, and I’d always thought a win at the meeting would be appropriate compensation.
I didn’t have a huge bet, because James felt he was not value as one of the market leaders in a tough 30-runner handicap. Still, I knew we would be taking the best possible advantage of the draw and had a few thousand on at around 10-1. Having confirmed the instructions in the paddock, I had several minutes to kill before the race, so I phoned my parents and told them to turn the television on, as I might be having a winner at Royal Ascot. Oscar followed my instructions to the letter. After a furlong he was sat tight on the far rail, taking advantage of the quickest ground. The race was run at a strong gallop so his position in rear was no problem. He made steady progress through the middle section of the race and drew right away on Unscrupulous in the final furlong to win by five lengths. I’d achieved an objective set at my lowest point in 1998.
I made my way to the winner’s enclosure and stood under the ‘First’ sign. I heard it said later that I was speechless at that point. That wasn’t quite true. There was plenty I could have said, but I wasn’t going to spoil the moment by babbling away with a few trite comments about how pleased I was. There would be plenty of time for celebrating later.
I was also pleased that the tactics we employed had contributed so much to the victory. That might sound ridiculous, as most racegoers seeing him win by five lengths would assume that he would have prevailed wherever he was drawn, but racing on that far-rail strip was worth more than five lengths. After Unscrupulous, who in effect raced from stall 30 of 30, the next five home from those racing on the far side were drawn 30, 29, 28, 26, 27. Their finishing positions were determined almost precisely by their stalls positions. Anyone still not convinced need only look at fifth-placed Peter Paul Rubens, drawn 20. Subsequent form proved that he was just as well handicapped as Unscrupulous that day, yet he was beaten eight lengths at Royal Ascot because he raced on slower ground. That’s why I had £40,000 on him at Sandown next time out, winning £92,480.
Unscrupulous was plagued by injury after that and managed only one more run a year later, when he won at Newmarket. He was always a fragile horse and James did a marvellous job in coaxing him to that Royal Ascot win. That was his day.
The other ownership highlight of 2004 came from Sendintank, whose name was taken from an article in Private Eye some years earlier at a time when a new Chinese leader was due to be elected. The Chinese government is extremely enlightened on its policy of dealing with career criminals – they don’t allow them at all. It is odd that most of their party are classed as moderates, despite an international reputation that is quite the opposite. The moderates are then divided into different factions, including the illogically named ‘hardline moderates’. The Private Eye article parodied a whole range of candidates, from the ‘moderate moderate’ to the ‘hardline no-nonsense whatsoever moderate’ who was called Mr Sen Din Tank.
Sendintank was a good example of the patience I was prepared to employ before backing my judgement with hard cash. He was very immature at two, but Stuart Williams always felt he had a lot of potential, particularly when upped in trip. At three, he was never quite right, but that winter Stuart was far more impressed with The Tank. He was working like a decent horse and, with a rating of only 50, we felt a serious bet was warranted. The Tank returned to action at Wolverhampton less than two weeks into 2004. Ridden by Stuart’s apprentice Brian Reilly and backed from 10-1 to 4-1, he sped home unchallenged, although the winning margin of 11 lengths left me flabbergasted at Reilly’s tactics. He might just as well have sent a telegram to the handicapper telling him to pitchfork him up the ratings. Ian Mongan was crossed off my ‘favoured jockeys’ list in similar fashion, after Mr Lear landed a touch at Southwell. I am still amazed that Mongan managed to win by 16 lengths in a one-mile handicap despite being told to come late, in doing so incurring a major penalty from the handicapper.
Reilly was later involved in controversy in connection with a horse of mine called BA Clubman. He was only moderate but was making his debut in a shocking contest on the all-weather and was fancied to win. Stuart had taken the unusual step of trusting the jockey with the instructions in advance, but had told no-one else. It was a nasty shock, then, when one of my agents rang me and repeated the exact instructions that the jockey had been given, even down to the phrase ‘don’t win too far’. The fact that people in the betting industry had this news was hardly helpful, although BA Clubman was withdrawn before the race. Stuart and Reilly parted company soon afterwards with Reilly protesting his innocence, despite there being no other possible suspect. The fact that Reilly was later to have his licence suspended for passing information to a bookmaker, in races that took place less than 12 months later, rather put his denial into context. Maybe some of us were perhaps a little sharper than Reilly gave us credit for.
The Tank’s victory was a few weeks before the BA Clubman incident, but it was an interesting warning sign that Reilly wanted to make extremely sure of victory. Perhaps coincidentally, when the betting shows had appeared, every move I made was a little too late. Maybe others were competing for my slice of the cake. My eventual winnings of £45,683 were much lower than I had been hoping for.
At that time it was still possible to win a succession of races within a period of up to 13 days, from Sunday to the following Friday, using the same handicap rating with only a single weight penalty of around 6lb for the first win. Sendintank won three times over the next 11 days, with each jockey under strict instructions to win cheekily and all three managing to win by less than two lengths, thus keeping the handicapper’s wrath within reasonable bounds. The Tank was then given a break. We were keen to make the best possible use of his handicap rating and he was now rated lower on turf than on the all-weather. He would be able to race off a rating of 60 in a turf race, only 10lb higher than the rating on which he had started the year.
The Tank reappeared in April. Stuart’s horses endured a miserable time in the first half of that turf season, so we picked the most competitive race we could find for Sendintank and just sent him out to do his best. We were delighted when he finished third at Pontefract, as Stuart felt he could improve radically once his horses came back to form. Again, I would point out that by clearly making a positive effort, we ensured that there wasn’t a whole string of pundits forecasting big things for him on turf.
Once Stuart’s horses found their sparkle on the racecourse, it was time to wheel The Tank back into battle. We chose a handicap at Yarmouth in late August, and it turned into one of those heady days when I just wanted to get on as much money as possible. This was going to be far from easy, as the bookmakers had taken a tremendous kicking from a whole array of other touches in the previous weeks. They were stampeding for cover at the first sign of Veitch activity – there go the wildebeest – but as long as they didn’t know which horse I was going to back, there were still some moves I could make.
Staying one step ahead of the bookmakers has often included the use of what I call ‘guile’ accounts. The firms like to place a ‘mark’ against successful accounts. They use the clues obtained from marked accounts to make rapid adjustments to their prices. However, making dramatic reactions to small bets comes with risks attached. I have long been in the habit of converting a series of marked accounts, giving them ‘guile’ status.
These accounts are then used purely to create a false trail, causing a market move for a horse I don’t fancy, while making it easier to place larger bets on the horse I actually want to back. The method is particularly effective with those bookmakers who seem keen to place large bets themselves when they believe that a horse is hot. Betting activity on a selection of guile accounts then leads to thousands of pounds changing hands as the greedy bookmakers in question try to place much larger bets than they have been willing to lay to their clients. Such horses frequently collapse in the betting, causing more interesting runners to drift out to very attractive prices. In recent years, one very well-known offshore firm have been particularly guilty of operating a ‘lay small, bet large’ policy, and have been regular recipients of guile business. As I write, their activities continue, and they can expect increasingly regular use of this method in the future.
It isn’t always necessary to actually place bets on a guile account. Back in the early days, I was all set for a huge bet at Kempton on Art Of War in the Listed Sirenia Stakes, as I was convinced he would easily take care of his chief market rival Princely Heir. I knew that plenty of others would be keen to back Art Of War, but felt there would be strength in the early-price market. Prices were not due out until 10.15, so right at the beginning of the trading day I arranged for all manner of guile-account-holders to request an ante-post price about Princely Heir for the following year’s 2,000 Guineas. It didn’t matter that most of the clients didn’t take the price they were offered. The mere fact that there was a flood of phone calls interested in Princely Heir’s chance of winning a race in the very top division was enough to ensure he was priced up very defensively.
Sure enough, when the betting came out, Princely Heir opened up too short in the betting with Art Of War, who should have been red-hot favourite, a similar price. Art Of War was the subject of huge support all day and eventually started even-money favourite. The support was justified as he won comfortably. I heard one report of a bookmaker cursing the clowns who had enquired about the Guineas price on Princely Heir. The willingness of bookmakers to get carried away with only the tiniest amount of business never fails to charm me, and by keeping note of those accounts that cause the greatest over-reaction it is often easy to start the ball rolling in the wrong direction.
Back to Sendintank. At Yarmouth, our supposed danger was the Sir Mark Prescott contender Lawrence Of Arabia. Sir Mark is a master trainer, but as his horse had been an unplaced favourite twice in the last month, I was confident he would discover that tanks operate very effectively in the desert. Nonetheless, a few carefully placed investments by the troops on Lawrence Of Arabia in the morning caused some sharp operators to wrongly believe that they knew which of the pair was fancied. The opening show of 2-1 Lawrence Of Arabia, 4-1 Sendintank was something to behold.
The SP of 2-1 Sendintank, 9-4 Lawrence Of Arabia perhaps offered some clues about the dangers of bookmakers over-reacting to small amounts of early money. Lawrence Of Arabia was never sighted as Sendintank stormed home by five lengths, with Neil Callan trying hard to prevent him from winning by any further. A profit of £63,604.18 was very satisfactory considering the run I’d been having, and the fact that the horse was viewed with caution by the industry after landing that earlier gamble.
We had remembered to start The Tank off at the beginning of a week, so he was able to run up three more wins over the next ten days at Newmarket, Newcastle and Haydock. The odds were inevitably much shorter by now, but in my view he was still a little overpriced each time and I collected small winnings totalling £38,824.58 over the three races. He was also becoming a really popular horse with punters as he had won eight out of nine for the year, seven of them as favourite, each time coming from off the pace.
Sendintank recorded his eighth win at Haydock on the Friday. He stayed overnight at the track and the next afternoon had the task of running in a much tougher race – the £50,000 Old Borough Cup – off a new rating of 82, a stone higher than before. We were hopeful rather than confident, yet he would have made it but for meeting with bad luck in the straight before failing by a length to catch the winner. It was a gritty display that showed he hadn’t finished winning for the season. Stuart had once again proved his skill as a trainer in having Sendintank in such terrific condition that he could race at his peak five times in 12 days. Now the horse needed another break before coming back for one further burst before the end of the Flat season. We wanted to make an assault on the record for the number of handicap wins in a season, which stood at 11. Sendintank could equal that record if he managed three more victories, so we mapped out a trio of targets over five days early in November.
The Tank duly won at Musselburgh on November 3 before heading to Doncaster on the final day of the turf season to attempt win number ten. Under a further penalty for Musselburgh he now had a rating of 91 to contend with, but proved equal to the task as he prevailed by half a length. To put together ten successes in a season, all in handicaps, you need a sound and resolute horse, a degree of good fortune, and jockeys who understand the necessity of winning their races by narrow margins. We had managed this apart from Reilly’s lapse at Wolverhampton at the start of the year.
One of the best parts of the day at Doncaster was watching Sendintank’s lad cheer him on in the closing stages. Tak was over from Japan for a year and spoke very little English, but he roared him home all the way up the straight with repeated cries of “KO-ON-TANK”. Commentator Mark Johnson was in raptures as he called the final furlong, the words “HERE … COMES … SEND … IN … TANK” shouted at maximum volume with pauses between each word. The punters’ favourite had won again and was now nine from nine when heading the betting.
After triumph, disaster. Sendintank was due to go for the record on the Monday, two days after Doncaster, and would have been able to race off the same rating as on the Saturday but in a slightly lower grade on the first day of the all-weather season. However, the authorities had chosen to change the declaration time to 48 hours instead of 24 from that very day, so we needed to declare on the Saturday instead of Sunday. Unfortunately, Stuart was away and a mistake was made, with the depressing result that The Tank was not declared for Monday. He would surely have started odds-on to win his 11th race of the season.
The record attempt was still on, but the two races that remained open to us allowed time for the handicapper to react to his latest successes, and Sendintank was raised a further 5lb to a mark of 96. Both races were over a mile and a half, sharper than ideal for him on the tight all-weather tracks, and Sendintank would run bravely to finish a close third – to the same horse, Hello It’s Me – each time. He had enjoyed a marvellous and profitable campaign but fate had conspired against him just as the record was within his grasp.
The following season, The Tank put up some fine efforts in higher grades, finishing third in a Listed handicap at York before returning to the Knavesmire for the Ebor. Martin Dwyer, who had won three times on The Tank, was back on board but I felt he rather overdid the waiting tactics that day and, after meeting trouble up the straight, looked unlucky not to go close, finishing seventh behind Sergeant Cecil, who was having his own annus mirabilis that season. Next time out, in a handicap at the St Leger meeting at Doncaster, Jamie Spencer got him home by three-quarters of a length from Cristoforo, trained by Barney Curley.
So to Newmarket two weeks later for a Listed race, the first non-handicap The Tank had run in since he was a two-year-old, and we felt he was a contender without being confident. He ran very creditably in third, but it proved to be the saddest of days as he never made it back to the unsaddling enclosure. Sendintank had broken down badly and stayed out on the racecourse, where he received attention from the racecourse vets. There was some doubt initially as to whether he would survive the next 24 hours, so it was a huge relief when he made it back home safely. The injury was too severe to keep him in training and soon it was time to find him a new home. He is now enjoying a happy retirement at my friend Lucy Watson’s family farm in Yorkshire, where he is very well cared for.
I can’t talk about most of my horses from very recent times as the bookmakers would no doubt be interested in up-to-date information of my activities. A second win at Royal Ascot, however, is enough for me to break cover given the special significance I’d attached to winning there. Pevensey, in 2007, was the horse to do it.
As mentioned earlier, I’d bought him the previous October, having been asked by Martin Green and a group of his golfing friends to include them in a syndicate to buy a dual-purpose horse. The Horses in Training Sale at Newmarket was clearly the place to look and I had studied the catalogue hard. Pevensey stood out, as he was very well treated on his win at Ascot a few weeks earlier. That had been one of the strongest handicaps of the season and the form certainly indicated that Pevensey’s rating of 90 was on the lenient side. Two subsequent defeats were easily explained, as he had not appreciated a very slow pace at Ascot on the first occasion and didn’t appear to relish the all-weather surface at Lingfield next time.
Those two efforts had taken the sting out of his value, but a few days before the sale I heard the disappointing news that he’d been withdrawn. However, I was so keen on the horse by this stage that I wasn’t prepared to give up the chase. One door had closed so I chose another route, putting Geoffrey Pooley on the case to make a private offer. His first bid of £70,000 was rejected by the Buckley family, who owned and trained him. When we upped the offer to £80,000, we had a deal. Pevensey won twice for us over hurdles during the winter, but I was already looking ahead with keen anticipation to the summer, aware that his very best form was at Ascot and that the Duke of Edinburgh Handicap at Royal Ascot was over his perfect distance of a mile and a half.
John Quinn has been a top trainer under both codes in recent years and had the job of getting Pevensey spot-on for Royal Ascot. The horse was not an exuberant worker at home, so John had to rely on his instinct rather than concrete gallop calculations to gauge his progress. By early June, he was reporting that the signs were positive. On the day, the bookmakers focused too closely on Pevensey’s finishing position at York on his reappearance the previous month rather than on his outstanding course form. At York, he’d made a poor start, an annoying habit that has spoiled his chance on a number of occasions. He’d also found the distance too short that day. To my surprise and delight (and eventual financial reward) he was 16-1 with most firms in the morning. It quickly became clear that many others fancied his chances, and we had to move swiftly to secure the best odds as the price tumbled to his eventual SP of 8-1.
Pevensey was drawn on the wide outside in stall two, a bad draw in the public’s eyes, but I knew it would not be a problem for him on slow ground at Ascot. If anything, it was an advantage. The only difficulty was having enough time to pass on my instructions to Graham Gibbons, as my co-owners were rather more concerned with taking photos in the paddock than allowing me to talk tactics with our jockey.
Pevensey was held up as usual in the early stages and stayed wide as planned. From there, Graham made stealthy progress mid-race before leading in the straight and just holding on in a desperate finish by a head and a short head from Solent and Hitchcock. A second Royal Ascot win was in the bag. The post-race celebrations lasted for many hours and we were among the last to leave the track. Sadly, two members of the syndicate, Martin and Doug, were unable to make it, as a potential winner at Royal Ascot was not deemed a sufficiently pressing engagement to allow a release from family commitments. At a subsequent celebration dinner, I made the light-hearted suggestion that the two might be slightly henpecked. My accusations were refuted at the next social gathering, with both parties reporting that they were to deny any such suggestions following strict instructions from their bosses back home.
Owning horses has provided me with the twin benefits of enormous entertainment and plenty of profit. I might not make money quite as quickly as when just studying the form, but it certainly adds much variety and spice to my daily jousts with the bookmakers. Finally, I’ve been asked whether I was anything to do with the gamble on Big Secret, who was backed from 33-1 to 7-1 when winning a bumper at Exeter in October 2006? I’m afraid that has to stay a big secret!