GARY WILTSHIRE: FROM BROKEN KENNEL HAND TO LAYER

Most people know me as a bookie but they don’t realise that I was actually a kennelboy working for Jimmy Singleton at Harringay in the early 1970s.

Unfortunately, my stint only lasted around six months. Anybody who went to Northaw would remember the big dog transporters. I was putting dogs in the big yellow lorry when a kennel girl accidentally slammed the door on my hand.

I was off work for six months and never went back. I really got involved in the dogs again after moving to Milton Keynes. Me and my first wife were living in a council house in South Ockendon, in a real rough area, and we had the chance to relocate to one of the ‘new towns’, Milton Keynes.

But to go there you needed a local job and Milton Keynes bookie Del Burrows and agreed to vouch for me as his clerk.

I was working in the markets during the day and then clerking at the dog track at night earning £40 a night. And I can honestly say I was a bloody good clerk.

I learned everything I needed to know about being a bookie from Del Burrows.

He was an impressive bloke, wore a big long leather coat, drove a Jag and lived in a big house in Epsom.

There were a lot of shrewd punters at Milton Keynes in those days but Del would always say, ‘they’ll never beat the chalk’

It was a great lesson and basically meant if you were betting to 150% and could get three or four dogs in the book, you had to win in the long run.

He was very shrewd to. If a punter came in looking for £300 at 2-1, he’d have a quick chat with him, asking how he was keeping, how was his Mrs . . . . In the meantime his tic tac man was laying it off with the other bookies.

There were eight bookies at Milton Keynes in those days including some real characters: Aaron Kelly, ‘Roger’, I don’t know his last name, but he operated as Arthur Stanley.

There was John Henwood, who used to bet at some of the other London tracks and ‘JC’ who was also a cattle dealer. If he’d had a bad night, he’d often say, ‘I’ll be alright, I’ll rustle some cows on the way home’.

Then there was Peter O’Toole, the same name as the actor ‘JE’ who used to bet without the favourite and Brian Newberry who was also a mechanic. It was incredible, he would lay a dog to lose two grand, and if he had a bad night would be servicing cars for £30 the next morning.

They were great times and an absolute education.

 

I began my betting career at the Hinckley flapping track which was run by Tommy and Gloria Grant.

Every week they would stage an open for dogs with no local form and we had some top NGRC trainers and top dogs turn up, not that you ever knew who they were.

I remember John McGee was a regular visitor. He used to like to have a couple of hundred quid on at ‘best price’.

I eventually bought JE’s pitch at Milton Keynes and continued to bet without the favourite.

I used to try to lay all five runners, and even though I say so myself, I was pretty good at it.

‘JE’ was probably the shrewdest human being I ever met. He ended up moving to America and is very good friends and next door neighbour to Tiger Woods.

I loved Milton Keynes but really came into my own at Oxford, which I absolutely loved.

In the day, I was working on the market selling bunches of flowers for 10p and at night I might be laying a dog to lose £1,000, which was a lot of money back then.

I can remember turning over £67,000 on one Tuesday night meeting at Oxford 30 year ago. Apparently that would be around £84,000 in today’s money, and remember that was eight race cards.

I loved those days and met some fascinating people. I remember one night a guy walking up to me and saying ‘is it right, you are the only one who will take a decent bet?’. It was for the first round of the Pall Mall and I had his dog priced up at 10-1.

He asked if I would lay him £20,000 to £2,000 about his dog. I told him he was on, and said ‘but I thought you wanted a decent bet?’. I then laid him £50,000 to £5,000 which I didn’t really want but I couldn’t lose face. Thankfully the dog got beat in the final.

The punter was Trevor Cobbold who I got to know really well as an absolutely brilliant bloke. The last time I saw him was when he trained a winner for my son at Mildenhall, and apart from the trophy, we won a bag of potatoes. Trevor looked very ill and sadly died shortly afterwards. A lovely man.

 

I still have 80 horse racing pitches, from Brighton to Perth, but fear for the future of on-course bookies at the dogs.

The crowds simply aren’t there any more and with Betfair and RPGTV operating, I don’t see there is any way back. Don’t get me wrong, RPGTV provide a great service, but there is certainly no reason why anyone would want to go to the track to have a bet.

Most tracks now have two or three bookies who have to be paid to stand. When I first started, I was offering ten grand for a pitch and was told I was on a waiting list.

Now, all the track bookies are laying off with Betfair. If you do stand and take a chance on one, the other bookies will take the bigger odds with you and then immediately lay it off on their computers.

The problem is, there is an unwritten rule that you shouldn’t bet to less than 128%. You have to be bigger than Betfair and there is no value.

It seems absurd to me that there are probably only two people actually pricing up the odds for all the greyhound races in Britain.