URINE POPSICLES.

Betting Experts And Their Advice

Plainly Mad

The other morning while getting ready for the trek south as I sipped on the all-important first coffee of the day and flicking through suggested shows on TiVo, I stumbled upon a new show. 

The show was FOUR ROOMS which I will watch now and again simply on the basis that it is an interesting game of cat and mouse between a seller and four dealers in four rooms. 

I watched only one item due to time restraints which was a rocking chair made out of sardines (don't ask). 

The thing that interested me about the piece is that in the intro a reference was made to DAMIEN HIRST and a piece of his early work that eventually sold for half a million pounds. 

I am to be honest a little bewildered by modern art, in my opinion, it defies all sense and logic and seems to be creating something that anybody could create and selling it for thousands.

You're On Drugs

The Hirst piece used in the example was a medicine cabinet, on a wall, filled with (ahem) medicine. 

I simply don't get it, I would like to understand but I cannot, half a million pounds for a medicine cabinet? 

I'm not being deliberately ignorant and would desperately like to understand.

Maybe I lack the intellect and that is why I fail to understand the beauty of a medicine cabinet.. on a wall…full of pills, disgraceful when you consider my mother was a midwife!!!

I am a great believer that people will believe whatever you can fool them into believing, 

I have on occasions in the past used the example of the emperor's new clothes and this again is a perfect example of the wonderful children's tail. 

Children tell the truth and while they have a certain naivety when faced with a problem I sometimes find it quite useful to strip away all I have been “taught” and go back to basics, at the business end of things 

If it waddles and it quacks and tends to live on the lake, there is a reasonably good chance it is in fact a duck.

I may be a Luddite in terms of art but I can appreciate a work of art that I could not achieve, 

I could not paint the MONA LISA for example, having reasonably good carpentry skills I could have achieved the medicine cabinet, 

As a matter of fact, so could my late father and my late grandfather, indeed my late uncle was a fully qualified carpenter and fitter, he may well have been able to make a better fist of it than Hirst!! 

To me if modern art were a retail product it would be sold on infomercials in the USA with people shouting “WOW” and “Oh my God look at that, the cheese isn't sticking to the pan! I have never seen anything like it !!”

I am fairly open-minded about most things but nobody, no matter how educated or “bohemian” they are will ever be able to convince me that “the unmade bed” or urine popsicles (seriously!!) are anywhere near creative, 

in fact, these two later works of “art” could technically be achieved by a chimpanzee.

In assessing modern art, I am reminded of an episode of SOUTH PARK in which CARTMAN enters San Francisco to discover that a favoured past time is to sniff one's own farts in a satisfyingly smug way.

We live in a sinister world when people are paying money for this stuff while millions of children are without even safe drinking water.

Modern Art and Coolmore

Bookmakers are experts when it comes to modern art or Let me put that another way, punters are extremely keen to devour countless works of modern art every day in terms of spending money and receiving the equivalent of urine popsicles in return.

I am of course talking about the horses that simply have to be backed, 

Bets that revolve around certain trainers, certain yards and certain jockeys,

I mean who the hell cares about a horse right? All those things do is run!!

I am not for one second underplaying the value of these other factors but I do think the fundamental requirement in backing a racehorse has to revolve around ability and then compared with what the market thinks of that ability in relation to the other factors.

Trainers and lads have a relationship with a horse that me and you do not,

Seemingly every a year since BRIAN BORU flopped in the Derby (taking £200 of mine along with him), Aiden O Brien has yet another “best I have ever trained” in the yard,

O Brien relies on different factors to me and you as punters. 

Never will you hear in the media of a trainer saying “this thing is useless” even though clearly some are,

Coolmore, in particular, spent in the region of $16 million on THE GREEN MONKEY a horse that would be retired after just three runs and $10,000 in prize money 

He eventually looked more suited to pulling a plough than competitive racing and surely everyone remembers the biggest talking horse of all KILLER INSTINCT?

Killer Instinct - Just Plain Killer

Killer Instinct was the son of top-class two-miler ZAFONIC and was the apple of trainer Henry Cecil's eye

He was beaten at 4/9 and 2/5 in his first two maidens finally justifying a 1/7 price to win at the third time of asking,

He would run three more times and go off as favourite in 2 of those runs, 

The St James Palace Stakes being the exception where he went off at 9/1 finishing 4th and 7 lengths behind SENDAWAR.

 Killer Instinct never showed anything on a racecourse yet started favourite in 5 of his 6 starts all because Henry Cecil thought and articulated what a special horse he was.

The average punter seems to hang on every word of successful trainers while ignoring the key factor of ability, with a newer trend emerging now in regard to “information”. 

Bookmakers are now everywhere offering betting advice, I can't actually understand how this can be legal in an industry that is supposed to be regulated.

Imagine a situation where you are a successful tipster, you have made your book and you have a bet which you are going to give to members and at the moment you are in hot form, the winners are piling in and your members are flush with cash thanks to your selections.

 Members hit bookmakers up and down Great Britain pile in filling up the bookies satchels with cash. 

The current climate of bookmakers being ultra-vigilant means that your members are at very least monitored customers or even restricted, 

As the bets keep coming most bookmakers will know on the M.O and profiling that this is your latest coup, 

You have already backed it so it matters little to you, laying now becomes an option as your price starts to tumble.

The shape of your book has now no doubt changed dramatically and you notice that another horse is on the drift as a result of the advice you have given, 

You now have the chance to get a second “value” selection from the book, now imagine the roles are reversed!

You are a bookmaker and have become more and more cynical towards punters as the years have passed, 

if you are honest you would prefer to abandon taking bets on horse racing altogether and concentrate on FOBTs, but unfortunately they are extremely bad from a PR point of view at the moment. 

Now supposing you have a slot on a popular radio or television show (which is now happening on a regular basis) and you are giving out “tips” to punters on one of the big races,

Let's say a race that has had a lot of ante-post interest like the CHELTENHAM festival main events. 

What is a bookmaker likely to do? 

The bookmaker would be a fool if he didn't have his book in front of him and looked to hand out information to try and “fill” that book,

After all why would he possibly tip a horse that was already a “loser” on the book, it would be madness even if he were confident of his assessment of that horse, a bookmaker isn't a gambler, they are the original “greening uppers”.

I have often wondered how the practice of bookmakers giving tips on radio and television doesn't consummate a conflict of interest.

Expert Betting Advice

Let's say you want to buy a football club and run it profitably, where would you get your advice? 

Richard Branson perhaps?

David Gill? 

You probably want a mixture of advice if you are not blessed with a lot of experience from a wide range of owners and possibly some of the more influential managers, 

Arsene Wenger for example. 

 You in effect want to devour some expert advice to drill down on what it takes to run a club successfully and exactly how much reward will come back for the risk involved.

The next time you walk into bookmakers and the speakers are on the go with “expert” advice, stop, take a step back and ask yourself:

"Is there ANY other situation in your life that you would actively seek out Ian Wright, Chris Kamara or Robbie Savage for investment advice?