Celebrated Australian Jockey, Damien Oliver, has been chastised for being naughty and placing a $10,000 bet on another horse in a race in which he was a rider. He received a 8 month suspension. For his $10,000 bet he claimed to have won just $11,000 on the race winner. Short odds! Did our Damien ride a slow race?
Shock horror! Does anyone really believe that he is the only jockey, owner or trainer to do the same? Graft and corruption is rife in the industry.
My sister and husband owned a couple of racehorses and I recall Joan and I attending the Perth Cup with them to see one of their hopefuls race in one of the minor races on Cup Day. To me horses are brown and the jockeys wear colourful garb and that is all I know about it. On this occasion, Shirl and Don watching their nag streaking ahead of the field, suddenly yelled out a number of expletives as they saw their jockey stand up and grab a handful of reins and sit back down in the saddle. We later watched a re-run on a screen and even I could see what happened.
Our tax accountant recently told me that he was once a part owner of a not very good racehorse. Being a sort of insider he suggested that some races are setups for the jockeys to cash in on selected races and tracks. So, if you are going to bet on a nag you probably will have as much chance selecting a nag which has an appealing name or use a pin and blindfold to select your horse.
The car GPS I was so happy with, died on day two, so I bundled it up and posted it Parcel Postage to NSW for a return. I have been watching its journey east on Australia Post's tracking service. It has arrived at the retailer and I guess they will test it to see if I am not an old fart who doesn't understand electronics and post me a new one.
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