Has anyone ever been given a real tip for a race?

Scally the Wag · October 31, 2006

Not someone's calculated guess or corroborated suspicion,

but an absolute out and out dead cert (bar earthquakes etc) cos a race had been fixed?

I have, once. Very important memory for me.

Dong Sing Sai Jow (trans: East & West), at Sha Tin, 1400m. Brought me a bucket full of dosh for a minuscule outlay and paid for the fares for me to fly to the UK and get married. Didn't realise the race was fixed until we watched it on the telly, that's why we only put a few dollars on it thinking it was just the usual run of the mill type of tip. Crazy race. When the horse jumped out of the gates last, the fiance absolutely laid into me for having wasted our money on such a stupid idea (HK$110)... Appropriate for a horse race, it was nag, nag, nag for the first 800 metres until the final bend and the long straight (if you know Sha Tin you'll be able to picture ths). Absolute last for a horse that had never done better that 13th or 14th in a race and had dropped three groups in the handicapping. It went well wide on that turn and proceeded to overtake everything and won by a clear 20 metres. The nagging very quickly switched to 'Why didn't you put more on it?' We won just over HK$20,000 (It came from picking the first and second horses, which I did by buying East & West against the field, so the actual bet on the winning combination was only HK$10 in a 12-horse race).

It was a truly astonishing day for me and the money was an absolute gift considering how broke we were. I realised that the man (a Mr Koh) had done it deliberately because he knew about our situation, but later began to wake up to the fact that this sort of thing must happen from time to time. It taught me not to gamble on horses - not the moral angle but the fact that it is a mug's game unless you know which races have been set up..

Never been given a real tip since and the man who gave this one was later found guilty of corruption concerning bribery and votes for the Legislative Council (think Parliament).

Edited October 31, 2006 by Scally the Wag

Andy Mac · October 31, 2006

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