Bookies loose £20 Million at Goodwood
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How likely is the following article to be accurate, and if it is, then bookies are likely to get even stricter with their gubbings aren’t they?
By Geoffrey Riddle at Goodwood via Racing UK
The bookmakers were bleating about how much money they had lost as soon as Franklin D crossed the line to become the shortest-priced favourite to have won the Betfred Mile at Goodwood on Friday.
The four-year-old, who was officially 10lbs well in, became the cornerstone of a 25/1 Ryan Moore treble that included Kings Fete, who was 100-30 in the morning with Boylesports, before he was smashed in to 5-2 ahead of winning the opening Betfred Glorious Stakes.
Poet’s Word, also trained by Sir Michael Stoute, bookended the day for punters in the Betfred Mobile Stakes, the concluding handicap, by landing a gamble from 9-2 in to 7-4.
Stoute’s Thikriyaat picked up the Bonhams Thoroughbred Stakes for Paul Hanagan at 9-4, having been 100-30 in the morning, before the Michael Bell’s Franklin D took full advantage of his inside draw to build on stablemate’s Big Orange’s Goodwood Cup win on Thursday.
Overall, five out of seven favorites came in here at the Sussex track, leading several bookmaker representatives to believe the industry hemorrhaged up to £20million on Fantastic Friday. With Ryan Mpore now sitting pretty at the summit of the Racing UK top jockey of the week standings there coild be further pain on Saturday with him primed to ride hot favourite Minding in the Qatar Nassau Stakes on Saturday.
“It has been a catastrophe,” Betfred’s Andrew Griffiths added. “Punters have totally cashed in today. The Betfred Mile is our race, sure, but we thought somebody would be at least 7-2 in the morning. They weren’t. Obviously we won’t know the true extent of the damage until tomorrow morning but we have surely done over a million.”
William Hills’ Jon Ivan-Duke agreed it had been a “horror show” for his employers and estimated that Franklin D cost his firm seven figures with an overall loss on the day of £2.5million.
“Overall, we are probably looking at an industry figure of something like £10million,” he said.
David Williams of Ladbrokes underlined that Friday simply had augmented a disastrous Goodwood meeting as a whole.
“Goodwood has been anything but glorious for the bookies,” he said. “The Gurkha and Big Orange were bad enough earlier in the week but Franklin D’s win was much the worse. We are reeling as we head into the weekend.”
Betfred laid Franklin D in the shops for 15 minutes for a maximum of £50 at 4-1 from 9am, and considering that on Betfair the impressive Newmarket winner was trading at around 2-1 that was some piece of business from punters.
The firm were not finished there, however. At midday they pushed out the big-race market leader to 5-2 as one of their “Fred’s Pushes offers”, and they incurred liabilities of several hundred thousand at that point, too.
Betfred are among a number of firms that offer Best Price Guarantee, too, which means that all of the accumulators placed on the day not only beat SP by some way but added considerable further pain to not only Befred, but the industry as a whole.
“Franklin D landed the biggest gamble of the season,” Griffiths added.
On the face of it Take Cover’s impressive front-running victory under David Allan in the Qatar King George Stakes at 8-1 may well have been a soothing balm to the layers but that does not tell the whole story.
At the start of morning trade Take Cover was a best-priced 14-1 and was tipped by the Racing Post’s Pricewise column, the Sporting Life’s Ben Linfoot and Racing UK’s Andy Stephens, who permed the two-time winner in to a Patent with Kings Fete and Franklin D.
Skybet were generous enough to offer five places at a fifth of the odds and with the popular Easton Angel filling fourth at 13-2 and 5-1 favourite Marsha finishing a head behind in fifth the Yorkshire firm will have suffered lean times.
“Usually bookmaker reps inflate these figures but I genuinely would not be surprised if across the industry the figure was something like £20million,” Tony Calvin, a Racing UK presenter and bookmaker representative said.
“Most punters would have beaten SP in every race and if you take William Hills’ figure of £2.5million then that adds up.”
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