MOOLTAN MAKES 'EM MOO!

NZ Truth, Issue 122, 19 October 1907, Page 2

MOOLTAN MAKES 'EM MOO!

Epsom Handicap Sensation.

Bookies and Backers— Pulling the

Strings.

The Epsom Handicap, m this year of grace, will be long remembered by the speculating public, not as a racing spectacle, but because of the vast amount of finessing that has taken place m the betting culminating m the bookies banding themselves together to effect a coup, the like of which has rarely been heard of m Australia. In a GAME THAT IS ALL POINTS, they have shown backers a new point worth remembering. It is such a novel position that here, before the race is run, .Mooltan, the favorite, is one of the best horses m the race for the bookmakers, and practically "a skinner" to some of the fraternity. In other words, the Ring will lose less over the red-hot favorite, Mooltan, than they would lose over any other horse m the race, 'excepting, say, two or three of the very rankest outsiders. We refer more particularly, of course to the ! ANTE-POST BOOKMAKERS, who bet on these big events weeks beforehand. The whole thine has been worked with very little trouble and at no treat expense. The scheme is .simplicity itself. On his fine form m public, his brilliant track work, and his his pull m the wrio-hts, MnnUa.n was vorv properly favorite for the Metropolitan and Melbourne Gup. The public would

have no other, and they showed their "plain horse sense" by making such a selection. They could see nothing to beat Mooltan. They could find

NOTHING IN THE LISTS, so far as the Metropolitan was concerned, that looked like making • a race of it even. So the moneypoured m for Mooltan, and the sheer weight of it made the favorite's price a very short one, and held him there as firm as the Bank of ; England. In the meantime, lolstire was almost as solid for the Epsom Handicap. For days and weeks the money came m for this horse, until some of the bigger books "stood very bad" against him. Then comes another move. This time from the stable sheltering the English horse, Antonio, and the public, always eager to be m the swim, came at Antonio also. This result can be easily imagined. lolaire and Antonio are soon joint favorites, both very solid, and fairly MONOPOLISING THE MARKET. The noble army of backers is dividI ed, but they are all on cither one or the, other, and nothing else looks like having a chance. Good judges tip the pair to run first and second ; and no one realises the nositioii better than the bookie himself. Now,- for his master stroke. With a. bis possibility of b.eing "flattened out," either by lolaire or Antonio, he casts round for a way out of the difficulty. And the brains that have pulletl him- out of many a tight place suggest a. Wav of 'doing so again. Mooltan is the medium. Mooltan, the horse that everybody has backed for the Metropolitan, taking it for granted that he will not ; even accept for the Epsom. To these confiding mortals the very idea of Mooltan starting m the Epsom Handicap was preposterous. Hadn't |it been given out all along that his special mission was the long race ! To them the first big BOLT FROM THE BLUE . I was Mooltan's name figuring among | the final . acceptors. Their ' second shock came with the news that the fattest of the bookies had formed a combine to lav Mooltan's owner, it is alleged, £3000 to a trifling amount i about winning the Epsom Handicap ; and the third shock to find Mooltan a red-hot favorite for the race — three points shorter than cither lolaire or Antonio? It was a cartload of surprises all wrapped into one ; . and "the noble army of backers fairly gasped with astonishment. Yet the bookmakers growl about the decadence of ante-post betting They have raised the same cry for years. But the wonder is, when schemes of this kind can be worked so easily, that there is "any antepost betting at all, and that the public doesn't hang on to its money until the horses arq weighed out. Even then the average backer has enough to contend with. — Melbourne "Truth."