GREAT MELBOURNE CUP COUP

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 330, 11 January 1937, Page 2

GREAT MELBOURNE CUP COUP

PRECAUTIONS TO KEEP WOTAN “DARK.”

SMITH BROTHERS’ CARE WHEN COLLECTING HUGE WINNINGS.

The lucky Smith brothers, owner of Wotan, were not taking any chances with Melbourne’s hold-up men when they collected their Melbourne Cup winnings. Two policemen were engaged to accompany the commissioner from the club at which he collected the money to th e bank, where it was deposited for transfer to New Zealand (reports a Melbourne journal).

According to authentic reports, the amount won by the Nqw Zealand party was £35,000. The policemen waited in a car while the commissioner converted his bundle of tickets into cash. This fascinating little task occupied the best part of an hour, and with his pockets bulging with notes the man returned to the car in perfect safety. There was no attempt to molest him or any one of the Smith brothers.

The commission was so quietly worked that scarcely anyone knew of it. Had the commissioner been recognised no doubt some of the thugs would have made an attempt to get the tickets or the money, but on Cup Day the crowd was very dense and it was extremely unlikely that anyone vouid have taken notice of a man placing a few £5 wagers.

So that all things considered, the commissioner really had no cause to fear a hold-up, particularly as he would be unknown to the men who might covet his money. At the same time it was a wise precaution to have protection. "Shrewdness.” There is evidence of shrewdness and cautiousness in every move the Smith brothers made in connection with Wotan’s Melbourne Cup engagement. .

They did not make the bets themselves, preferring to invoke the aid of someone who w r as unknown and whose activities in the ring would be least likely to attract attention.

The commissioner was an employee of a Melbourne bank. The brothers had approached a former New Zealander, now a resident of Melbourne, to whom they had a letter of introduction from a friend in the Dominion. This man was, however, inexperienced in commission work, and preferred not to take on the job, though he consented to help them by placing them in touch with a likely person.

“You might as well save your money, though,” he remarked, "for you haven’t got a hope of winning the Cup.’

This ex-New Zealander now resident in Melbourne is a member of one of Melbourne’s best clubs, and he invited one of the Smiths along to the club’s Cup-eve dinner, where he heard his horse sold in the Calcutta for £l5. It was bought by a well-known Bendigo racing man, who offered a half share to the ex-New Zealander. The ex-New Zealander declined the offer, even when it was repeated on the course on Cup day. "No, it hasn’t got a chance,” he said. As it turned out, it was a fortunate happening . for the Bendigonian, who walked off with over £BOO when Wotan scored. Not Discouraged. Mr Smith was not to be discouraged by his new-found} friend’s assurance that his horse hadn’t "the ghost of a chance.” He went quietly ahead with the arrangements for the placing of the commission; he duly met the man from the bank and all necessary details were fixed. On Cup morning the commissioner i was entrusted with about £3OO, some of which had to be placed on the tote, but the bulk of it with the bookmakers. In small sums, nothing less than £5, the amount was placed ; at an average of 110 to 1. I What with investments with the I bookmakers and on the tote, the I winnings panned out about £35,000. I To this must be added the Cup stake of £7,200 and a gold cup of the value of £2OO. Quite a nice haul. The day before the Cup the Smith brothers could have secured odds of 200 to 1. Why they did not take advantage of this has not been ex- ’ plained, but it is possible that they ! did not want the spotlight played on jthe horse. | If they had invested their £3OO at | that stage they would have had the I horse going for £6o,ooo—assuming | that they had obtained 200 to 1 for the whole of the amount—and this would have been an eleventh hour development which would not have escaped the newspaper writers or the rank and file of the racing fraternity.

Wotan would no longer have been an outsider in the race. The public would have followed the lead and the horse would have been very much in the public eye and mindFurther than that, he would have become a menace. "Despised.” As an outsider announced as an unlikely runner if the track were to be heavy, and regarded by the touts as an unlikely winner for the reason that he hadn't been seen to do a Cup preparation, Wotan was more or less despised. As a New Zealand horse made the medium of a £60,000 tilt at the Ring he would have been looked upon as a danger to highly fancied runners . . . and, well, something might have happened to him in the race. This may have been the reasoning of the Smith brothers, and if it were, who can blame them? After all, they were trying to capture the Australian Turf’s biggest prize, and if by going about the job in their own way they felt they were insuring themselves against / hazards they had a perfect right to do it. It was a clever piece of work.

The above story is reprinted from an Australian paper, which appears to have taken for granted that ail investments by Wotan’s connections were on a winning basis. A New Zealander who was in Melbourne for the Cup and is acquainted with the Smith Brothers, estimates that the latter made the bulk of their investments on the basis of Wotian getting a place, and that their coup netted about £lB,OOO apart from the stake.