Almanac Punting: The Muse is musing on the modern-day tout

 

A bit cold in Melbourne today but January was a beautiful month of summer weather when it’s all said and done. Enjoyed a couple of Abbotts longnecks tonight, rolled a Capstan ready-rubbed and commenced to muse on the transformation of the formerly much maligned race course tout into a professional occupation well regarded by some. I suspect this muse was brought on by my Saturday afternoon activity which usually entails watching the Sport of Kings on TV whilst enjoying a punt.

 

The owner told Clarence the Clocker
The Clocker told Jockey McGee
The jockey of course
Passed it onto the horse
And the horse told me

 

Bing Crosby sang these words in 1949 at a time when Saturday race meetings in Melbourne and Sydney were jampacked with 50000 spectators all desperate to have a punt and find a winner. Flemington and Randwick and all tracks  around Australia were the haunt of touts otherwise known as urgers or coat-tuggers but we will stick to tout as it’s an easier word for me to type with one finger. Touts purported to have inside knowledge as a consequence of supposedly being well-connected with trainers and jockeys but usually their appearance belied there claims of credibility. Peaked caps, frayed overcoats, cigarette out the corner of the mouth and from the opposite side of the mouth they distilled in a whisper the inside oil to anyone stupid enough to listen. Touts were quick to identify mug punters and in particular mug punters with more money than sense. A  tout would tug the coat sleeve of a mug, whisper the name of a horse and move on to the next mug and perhaps tip a different horse in the same race. This service was free of course until the tout’s throw at the dart board landed a winner. All bets were cash with the bookmaker and paid in cash. When a winner landed the tout would patrol the betting ring like a seagull searching for a chip, tug the coat of a punter he recognised in the payout line and demand a sling for the ‘certainty’ he’d given his newly found mate. Conversely if his tip[s] ran down the track the tout would avoid those he’d given his mail to and look for new mugs to enlighten with a certainty.

 

Touts disappeared over time and in the 60s and 70s  a rudimentary sort of form analysis emerged on radio and television. Radio 3DB in Melbourne had an hour preview show on Saturday mornings Three Way Turf Talk and for those prepared to listen it featured the expertise of three race callers:

 

Bill Collins [the Accurate One ] did the Melbourne form, Des Hoysted was the Sydney man and Happy Bert Day [remember when Adelaide racing was strong]  was the Adelaide expert. I digress, but if anyone hasn’t heard a Bert Day race call see if you can get hold of one. It’s akin to listening to a blow fly trying to get through a fly wire door to eat the leg of lamb left out on the kitchen table.

 

Now they were all good race callers but I suspect not very good at tipping winners. Regardless, they were compulsory listening in those days or if  your preference was 3UZ you tuned into Bert Bryant and a couple of other callers from Sydney and Adelaide.

 

Complementing that we had the television channels ‘helping ‘ those  desperate for a winner. Channel 7 ran with Jack Elliott, Rollo Roylance the cheerful chestnut as he was known alongside Jack ‘Ayce’ Ayling. These blokes were all very good racing journalists, all had good heads for radio and rarely tipped a winner to the public. Elliott was genuinely in the know as his best mate was TJ Smith the champion trainer and his son in law was Mark Read who at the time was arguably Australia’s biggest bookmaker and punter rolled into one. Fat Jack knew loose lips sink ships and seemed to be always travelling well for a bloke who couldn’t find a winner for his audience. These guys, whether radio or TV, didn’t really take themselves seriously and the audience had no expectation in regard to winners rolling off their tongues.

 

For those of you who are bored with the history above I apologise, but for those in their dotage I know you appreciate that it’s comforting from time to time to indulge yourselves with memories of ancient times when Australia seemed a simpler and dare I say it a better place.

 

Let’s fast forward to today. Touts are long gone, race callers are asked for selections but ignored as it’s a given their job is to give us an accurate exciting race call. Hopefully Terry Bailey will read his job description one day. Print journalists regardless of their expertise are fast becoming redundant. We don’t need the aforementioned to help us beat the bookies as we have on tap professional form analysts.

 

These analysts are usually male and it helps if you are a good looking rooster dressed in a blue suit with a crisp white or blue shirt underneath. These guys stand up with a pointer and tell us about speed maps, sectional times, track bias, track ratings, whether horses have run faster or slower than their handicap rating at previous starts, race  tempo  etc etc etc . They pick this apart with their expertise and land us a winner every time. Their colleagues who are not so good looking roosters sit behind a desk with a computer thereon with a pen in hand and write unseen meaningful notes, take us through similar analysis and out pops the winner .

 

We then have further help from mounting yard expert analysts. Just to show racing is not sexist invariably these experts are female and make a case for four or five horses in the mounting yard but then narrow it down to one and bingo another winner is there for our taking. Apologies to Lizzie Jelfs for that comment as she did know her stuff.

 

In fact these people are so impressive in my quest to find meaningful employment I have been checking tertiary organisations in order to ascertain which fine organisations offer a Degree in Form Analysis. Thus far my search has proved fruitless but I have some optimism I when I find the University which offers a Degree in Social Media Influencing it will also provide a Form Analysts Degree and I will be able to make a meaningful choice between the two vocations and the world will be my oyster.

 

Despite the expertise of form analysts I am not sure if they achieve the results befitting their superior intellect and I am a little concerned that a good number of them might well be in the employ of Corporate Bookmakers which to my untrained eye would seem to constitute a conflict of interest. I often have nightmares pondering over the question are the form analysts trying to tip me a winner or a loser.  Now I have a mate and to protect his anonymity let’s call him Bluey. Bluey can be an indecisive chap at times and travels well in a financial sense. He likes a punt and in an effort to take decision making out of the process he subscribes to myriad form analysts. He even subscribes to Doctor Turf who insofar as I am aware charges $40 a week to watch him throw darts at a form guide. Every Saturday Bluey sends through more analysis than you see after a Federal Budget. In fact it’s enough analysis to enable a punter to find an analysts ‘certainty’ in every race on every racetrack in Australia and  Bluey claims victory when the occasional stab in the dark salutes. I have never bothered to ascertain what colour the bottom line on Bluey’s punting ledger is but I’m fairly confident it’s a different colour to the bottom line on his business ledger.

 

In my modest working life I did learn  to recognise that data should form the basis of any informed decision so on Sunday I revisited the results of the Saturday meetings at Moonee Valley and Randwick. A couple of longshots topped and tailed the MV meeting and the rest of the winners were well found in the market. At Randwick the longest priced winner was 10/1 and four short-priced favourites won. The punters bible the Winning Post has nine form analysts predicting the outcome of nine races in Melbourne and eight predicting the outcome of ten races in Sydney.

 

9 x 9 = 81

10 x 8 = 80

 

Our gurus collectively had 161 opportunities to line our pockets. Between them they tipped 32 winners which is an average of less than two winners per analyst on a not difficult day. The average price of the winners selected was $3.20.This is not a group of mates in a pub  having a social punt it is people who get paid to supposedly give the mates in the pub an edge.

 

My point is this: I reckon form analysts are nothing more than racecourse touts in better suits. Take my advice and back your own judgement as, from hereon in, whenever a form analyst commences to go through his or her patter I’m going to stoke the gramophone up put on a Bing 78rpm and listen to  ‘The Owner Told Clarence the Clocker’.

 

Cheers All
The Muse

 

Gamble Responsibly and, if you need a get-out bet, do as  I do, ring Gamblers Help and ask them for the winner of the next race.

 

 

Read more musings and some fine memoir from The Muse (Drizzle) HERE

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