Upon arrival at the racecourse, I set about filling out my Placepot bet. Chris wondered what I was doing, so I spent the next few minutes, explaining to him that you had to to pick a horse to get placed in every race.  If you were successful then you would win a share of the pool. He liked the sound of this, so then started choosing a list of horses with names he liked and entered them on to his ticket.

The afternoon passed by and at the end of the last race, I saw him checking his ticket. “I think I’ve won!” he said, with a quizzical look on his face.

“Let me check!” I replied, taking his ticket and going through his selections one by one. He was right. The dividend was declared and Chris made his way to the Tote booth to collect his £210. I stood on the spot in a state of shock, not believing what I had just witnessed.

A Tote betting window  image by russelljsmith

http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/2010/02/22/2485359551d6382f3fec_1.jpg

A week later, the phone rang. It was Chris wanting to come racing again. We again decided to go to Lingfield and unbelievably the same thing happened. It was only £80 this time but he had decided that this was his way to wealth and fortune. I tried to bring him back down to earth but he was convinced of it.

Our next trip was to Plumpton and this time I watched over his shoulder as he made his selections and then copied them onto my slip. I had decided that if he was going to win then so was I. The first race came and our horse got in the frame, and the 2nd, then the 3rd, 4th and 5th. He was doing it again. We were on the favourite in the last and over the penultimate fence he was cruising about 5 lengths in the lead. Up to the last and I think you can guess what happened, straight through the middle depositing its jockey on the turf. Chris was crestfallen.

He never asked to go racing again.

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