Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Front Runner

If I went out to a bar on my own, I found that I resented the happy couples that surrounded me. And on the few occasions I’d been alone to the cinema, I missed the discussion about the film with a companion over a late-night drink or a pizza.

It was a catch-22 situation: I didn’t go out because I didn’t have anyone to go with, but I didn’t meet anyone because I didn’t go out.

I resolved to break free from this vicious circle of depression.

I would go out.

Maybe tomorrow, or the next day.

I spent Thursday cooped up in my office catching up on neglected paperwork but, on Friday, I escaped to Sandown Park for the first day of the Tingle Creek Christmas Festival meeting, named after the popular horse of the 1970s that had been a Sandown specialist.

These two days of racing were always very popular with the public and I was joined by many others as I walked the mile or so from Esher railway station to the racecourse entrance, some of them wearing bright red Christmas hats in true festive spirit.

I was there specifically to further a separate ongoing investigation into the conduct of a Mr Leslie Morris, who, according to an anonymous source, had been placing suspicious bets with racecourse bookmakers on behalf of a friend who was an excluded person. The source had also stated that Mr Morris would be at Sandown that afternoon to do it again.

An ‘excluded person’ was exactly that — excluded from any BHA licensed premises, which includes all racing stables, training gallops, equine pools and, in particular, anywhere on a British racecourse.

Sadly, there was nothing in the Rules of Racing that prevented an excluded person from placing bets, either on an internet betting site or in a high-street betting shop, but neither of those methods was very anonymous. The internet sites kept computer records and needed the account holder’s credit card details, while all betting shops were now equipped with closed-circuit television that recorded every transaction over the counter.

Until they also started introducing personal CCTV, only the racecourse bookmakers provided a suitable opportunity for someone to place untraceable bets. And it was not uncommon for a single bet of a thousand pounds or more to be made in cash with the racecourse bookies, especially at the big meetings like the Tingle Creek Festival.

Mr Leslie Morris was a BHA-registered racehorse owner and, as such, was subject to Rule (A)30.3, which states that a registered person must not associate with a person who is excluded in connection with horseracing in Great Britain unless he obtains the prior permission of the Authority.

Placing bets on behalf of an excluded person was definitely an association in connection with horseracing, and no such prior permission had been granted.

I waited for Leslie Morris near the entrance to the racecourse enclosures.

I knew what he looked like because I had studied the pictures of him in BHA files, but I was sure he wouldn’t recognize me even if he had known me beforehand. I had resurrected one of my favourite disguises, long dark wig under a brown beanie plus a goatee beard stuck to my face with latex-based glue. For good measure I had added a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles.

I also wore an unremarkable olive-green anorak over an open-necked blue shirt and khaki chinos, the perfect gear for spending time in the betting ring.

I was beginning to worry that I might have missed him when he appeared in a full-length dark grey overcoat, brown leather gloves and a blue felt fedora covering his white hair. I smiled to myself. He couldn’t have worn something easier for me to follow if he’d tried.

But I had to do more than simply follow him. I had to get close enough to observe which horses he backed and how much he staked.

I followed him in through the main entrance foyer, where he used his racehorse owners’ pass to gain entry.

He turned right and went into the gents, so I hung around outside until he reappeared. I suppose he might have gone in there to meet someone but I would have been taking too much of a chance to follow him into such a small space and then to be very close to him later in the betting ring.

I kept about ten to fifteen yards behind him as he made his way towards the owners and trainers’ facility next to the weighing room, where there was complimentary food on offer and a cash bar.

The first race was about to start and I walked over to lean on the white rail around the unsaddling enclosure in front of the weighing room, as if waiting for the horses to return, but all the while keeping an eye on the door to the bar.

Leslie Morris remained inside the owners and trainers’ bar throughout both the first and second races and appeared again only as the runners for the third were being saddled and taken to the parade ring.

By this stage, I had shifted my position over to the far side of the weighing room to be less conspicuous and, from there, I was able to observe as he made his way over to the paddock rail and stood close to the point where the horses would leave to go out to the track.

Once the horses had all passed him, he walked through the grandstand and out to the betting ring beyond, with me in close formation behind him.

There were more than fifty bookmakers located in three rows, with more on the rail between the ring and the premier enclosure.

‘Come on. Let’s be having you,’ shouted one of the bookies as I walked nearby. ‘Best value here. Six-to-four the field.’

I looked up at his board with the horse names and the odds brightly lit up in yellow and red lights. There were eight runners in the race and the prices varied from the favourite at six-to-four to a couple of rank outsiders quoted at fifty- and hundred-to-one respectively.

Leslie Morris walked quickly up and down the rows of boards looking at the offered prices and I acted as his shadow. Fortunately, he was too busy to notice me as he was concentrating on the odds boards and also on a red notebook and a small calculator that he held in his hands. He tapped in figures on the calculator and made notes in the book. Try as I might, I couldn’t get quite close enough to read what he was writing.

Suddenly, he began moving down the lines of bookmakers, stopping about every second one to make a single bet using high-value banknotes that he peeled from a large bundle of cash he had in his coat pocket. I pretended to make a call on my mobile phone while actually taking several photos and a short video of him making the bets.

Even though I wasn’t close enough to catch what Morris himself said, I could sometimes hear the bookmaker as he repeated the bet to his assistant, who then logged it into a computer and printed the ticket. Morris wasn’t putting money on the same horse on each occasion, that was for sure. As far as I could tell, he was backing most of the eight runners, some of them multiple times with different bookmakers.

It was a slick operation and, in all, he must have placed between thirty and thirty-five separate bets, each with a different bookmaker. He had timed his approach well, when most other punters had already made their selections and gone to watch the race from the grandstand. Hence making each of his bets took just a few seconds and, by the time the race began, the large bundle of cash in his pocket had reduced to nothing.

I followed him as he also climbed the grandstand steps to watch. With a tiny bit of pushing, I managed to position myself a few steps above and behind him.

The race was a two-and-a-half-mile novice hurdle for four-year-olds and, initially, it was a slow-run affair with none of the eight jockeys seemingly wanting to make the running from the start.

They popped over the early flight of hurdles at barely a gallop, and it was not until they turned into the home straight for the first time that a couple of them kicked on and decided to make a proper race of it. The others followed suit and all eight were fairly closely bunched as they passed the winning post with a complete circuit still to run.