James Kelman - Not Not While the Giro

This is all fair enough, but like anything else it applies only under normal circumstances. When somebody’s on a losing streak everything can go crazy. Odds-on shots run like 100/1 chances; all these stonewall racing certainties that should win in a canter, they all fall at the last fucking fence. The one thing they all have in common is that you’ve backed them. It reaches the stage where you feel guilty about choosing a favourite because of the disservice you’re doing to all the rest of the punters.

I was reminding John about that kind of stuff. He smiled briefly, then he sniffed and got up off his chair; he walked to the corner of the room and lifted a bunch of the old newspapers; he produced a quantity of various coloured pens. Jock, he said, I been wanting to have a go at this for years. While he was speaking he sorted through the back editions, opening out their respective dog-sections, spreading them along the floor. You got to play it wide, he said, that’s all; you just got to play it wide. What you do Jock, you cut out the fucking middle man. Yeh, he said, the fucking middle man — you know who that is? it’s you, you and me, we’re the fucking middle man. Yeh, he said, open another couple of bottles.

He halved the quantity of pens. That old guy he was telling me about had eventually gone skint for different reasons but the most important was his method of selection; he didnt really have one, he just chose the dogs from his own reading of the formbook. What you had to find was a genuine method, so that the four dogs would be chosen for you. And then there was another thing to consider, which races to work it on. It would be pointless using a system that forced you into hanging about the track all night with money in the pocket. At most greyhound meetings there are between 8 and 12 races. Probably the best way out of the bother is to work it on the first four races of the night; in that way you get in and get out — you arrive for the first race and make your bet, and leave as soon as you back the winner. And if you dont back a winner then you leave after the fourth race, and maybe try again the next night.

Yeh, said John, you got to screw the nut.

Plenty of selection methods were available. For the following couple of hours we set about testing as many as we could think of, using the old back editions, working on the past meetings at all the London tracks. Some useful information resulted. Many dog punters use methods and one of the most common — next to acting on the advice of racing journalists — is to bet on particular trap numbers. In every race there are six dogs and each goes from an individual trap numbered from 1 to 6. Over the period we tested Trap 6 was by far the most successful; on one occasion this draw had provided the winner of seven consecutive races. But for the stop-at-a-winner system that kind of consistency is irrelevant. All it required is one winner out of four.

It was me who came up with the right one. The time dog . We were both a bit surprised, and I was also a bit disappointed. The time dog is the greyhound to have recorded the fastest time of the six runners in their most recent races. To the non punter it may seem obvious to say that the dog who runs the fastest will race more quickly. Well it does seem obvious but it never works out that way as most punters know. Too many variables exist and, like everything else in the formbook, recent times are only a guide.

But the fact remains that many punters who reckon themselves expert on the subject will set more store on time than any other factor. And this is why I was disappointed, because our test seemed to prove them right. And if they were right then how come they were usually so fucking skint. John just shrugged. Well yeh, he said, but like I say Jock, most of them the cunts, they’re looking to back 8 winners out of 8 fucking races.

Aye I know but still and all.

Open a couple of bottles.

Aye but John. .

Look Jock, listen to me now; see I been watching this for years and I know what I’m fucking talking about. You got some important things here. Now what you got? you got a system, you got the stop-at-a-winner, right?

Aye.

So you know what you’re doing for a fucking kick off. Most of them the cunts, they dont even know that, they dont know what the fuck they’re doing! right? Now what else you got? yeh, the fucking dogs, you got them chose for you, you got them selected, right?

Aye but. .

Right?

Right, aye.

Okay, so what else you got?

The time dog .

Yeh yeh, the time dog , that’s how you got them chose — but what else you got?

Eh.

Come on Jock! He grinned and reached for the bottle I’d passed to him; he began pouring the brown ale into his cup. Then he sniffed, What else you got?

Well you need a lot of fucking luck.

No you dont! leave off! you dont need no fucking luck — why you think we got the fucking system! Jock, you got to play this wide.

Aye.

Now you take me, I’m a cunt. I’m a cunt Jock, no two ways about it. You go down the pub and ask any of them and they’ll tell you, I’m a cunt.

I snorted.

And you, he said, you’re a cunt. We’re both cunts — you know that — so what we got to do, we got to cut out the fucking middle man, right?

I shrugged.

Right?

Aye, right.

Okay. . John took a mouthful of the beer, refilled the cup. What we do Jock, we work it together. Now we both know the score, we got to make the same bet and we got to take the same dogs. I mean Jock. . he shrugged, look at this afternoon? Yeh, now I’m not criticizing, in your place I’d do the fucking same. But I lift a grand and you go skint. Yeh. John grinned suddenly. Fucking froggies, always did’ve a soft spot for the cunts.

First thing on Monday morning he disappeared from the college to open a bank account. The day before he spent out of the district, visiting his family but also repaying a few debts I think. He was allowing £400 for the system, that is, £200 apiece. Our initial bet was to be £10 so we needed £100 each for the stake; the extra £100 was for emergencies. I kept mine planked in my room; whether John did this or not I was never sure.

That first Monday went well although we saw little of each other till the late afternoon when we resumed chatting. Previous to this it seemed as if we werent chatting by some unspoken agreement, that it could have brought some bad luck on the system to continue discussing it all the time. He survived the day without a solitary bet. Even during his midday break he made a point of drinking less than he would normally have done. His dayshift started earlier than mine and so he clocked-off before me; we met in the pub for 7 p.m.; I just had time to swallow a pint and then the taxi was there and we were off.

An hour later we returned. The first runner had won a short head at 9/4, throwing us a profit of £22.50 apiece, less expenses. Next night to another track where the first two runners got beat but the third won a length at 7/2, giving us a profit of £75 each overall — almost twice the wage I was receiving weekly as a porter. It was very nice. And the obvious problem arose: how to continue going to work every day with all that cash in the pocket. Not that it bothered John. Put it this way, he said, at my fucking age what else I got to do.

During the next couple of weeks the time dog missed on two separate occasions; then came a losing sequence of three consecutive evenings. It was a bit of a bombshell. There’s a funny sense in which you expect one to be followed by two. Since it had failed on individual evenings the worst I expected was that it would fail twice in a row. We went along for that third evening and I doubt whether I truly thought about what would happen if it failed again. As it turns out we had enough in hand to attend for the fourth night and the time dog won the second race at 6/1; and gradually we recouped the losses without having touched the emergency fund. We werent winning a fortune but it was paying.