Portrait of a diehard punter
It has been said that Hong Kong is run by the Jockey Club, the Hong Kong Bank and the Governor, in that order. Horse racing is serious business in Hong Kong. Consider the amount of money involved - some HK$770 million of punters' money every racing day, two days per week, nine months a year. Most of the astronomical profits made by the Jockey Club go back to the community in all kinds of charity. I ought to know; my contributions have probably covered the cost of two orphanages and three elderly health centres.
On racing days, half the male citizens of Hong Kong transform into a persona best described as the 'Marlboro man'. He is cool, moody, taciturn, and he chain-smokes. Don't mess with him. He studies the racing form with such intensity you can feel it from across the street. A favourite position is squatting on the roadside close to the Jockey Club betting centre, with the racing form on the ground, freeing his hands to hold a cigarette and explore his nostrils at the same time. Squatting also renders spitting easier and more accurate.
Inside the betting centre, the general attitude is: don't explain, don't complain. Pushing and shoving are acceptable behaviour - how else can you get through that crowd. Once in line at one of the windows to place your bets, don't let anyone jump the queue. Not even grandma on crutches. I personally will make an exception if the guy is bigger than I am, and has numerous tattoos on his biceps.
There are other circumstances under which we punters will allow queue-jumping. Just the other day, a man ran to one of the windows and asked for the special ticket that accommodated betting in excess of HK$50,000. To the chorus of 'oohs' and 'aahs', he was offered the opportunity to place his bets immediately. Realising his hero's status, he swaggered to the front. Don't complain, don't explain.
I have my own system of picking the winners. There are many factors to consider. To start with, I use a formula: winning per cent of horse times winning per cent of jockey times winning per cent of trainer equals winning score. Naturally, the higher the score, the higher the chance of winning. My formula would have done nicely if the Jockey Club did not have a habit of interfering - they call it handicapping. They promote winning horses to a higher 'class', and they make good jockeys carry more weight.
I suspect they also try to handicap good trainers too, by making them carry more weight, since most look as if they could lose a few pounds.
Always pick the horse whose name you can relate to. I have scientific proof. I have a friend who was born with a smile. We call her Smiley. She bet on a horse called 'Smiling' and won a bundle. There are many other pearls of wisdom in horse-racing: older horses handle longer distance better (unless they are not in form or injured, and unfortunately old horses tend to be both); positions 3, 4, and 5 win most of the time (but so do positions 1 and 2, and 6 to 14.); black horses are never dark horses; white horses don't do well on dirt while brown ones do wonderfully (remember the all-time champion Cigar); betting by numbers doesn't work; and last but not least, use common sense - in a cup race in honour of a cognac, you don't think a horse with a French name ridden by a French jockey and trained by a French trainer will do badly.
Punters like to wait for the last minute to place bets - so little time, so much to study - hence the helter-skelter five minutes before every race. I missed a bet once because the guy in front of me, the big guy with the tattoos, was not intelligent enough to fill in the betting tickets correctly, so the girl inside had to help him out with all 18 of them. Death threats were launched by the people behind me. For some unknown reason, some of the threats were directed at me. I sneaked out quickly. Sure didn't want to be around for the results of that race.
As soon as each race starts, there is total silence among the punters, all intently perking up their ears to hear the race announcer. Then, when the horses cross the finish line, even Marlboro men let their emotions run. Most grunt or swear, and some pump their fists. The classical Marlboro man would go back to the racing form right away. Don't complain, don't explain.
With a system and an attitude, you must wonder how I fare in terms of winnings. Put it this way, I am holding on to my day job.
