Meet the bookie who lost £2m at Cheltenham last year . . . but didn’t watch a race
IT sounds remarkable, but the bookmaker who will lay the biggest bets at next week’s Cheltenham Festival has not watched a race all season.
Ben Keith, owner of Star Sports, says that when he stands on his pitch in the frenetic festival betting ring on Tuesday, he will need his clerk to point out which horse is which as they charge into the home turn.
He believes he has no need to know how far 4/11 Champion Hurdle favourite Constitution Hill won his last race by, nor what sort of form trainer Nicky Henderson is in. It is not the way the man who says ‘my favourite fish are careless billionaires’ operates.
‘I bet to figures and faces, I don’t bet to races,’ says 43-year-old Keith. ‘Five minutes before the off at Cheltenham, if you want to prove to me that you know better than the market, I am willing to let anyone in the world try to find that out. I am playing the man.
‘I will lay what you want to bet. It is not my job to have opinions. I run my race. Three minutes before the off, if you want to back the favourite or second favourite, rock on baby.’
When the Willie Mullins-trained Energumene won last season’s Queen Mother Champion Chase, Keith had taken a £150,000 bet at 100/30 which cost his firm £500,000. But Keith is not interested in individual results.
In the build-up Energumene had been beaten at Ascot when Keith laid another bet to an unnamed client of £360,000.
And a big-staking punter placed £725,000 on the gelding when it could only finish third on Cheltenham Trials day this January. Keith did not watch the race, but was texted the result.
The next chapter of this intriguing sideshow to Energumene’s bid to retain his title will be played out on Wednesday.
Keith is unfazed. He says his edge comes from studying his human adversaries, learning their habits, strength and weaknesses.
Keith, who employs 300 people and is about to open his 24th betting shop in Mayfair, says: ‘I’ve won tens of millions of pounds off some punters.
‘But you would love to be as big a mug as them because they’ve made billions doing something else. Because they are used to getting what they want in business they think they can make what they want to happen in gambling. They are used to saying to bookmakers I want £50,000 and being told they can have £5,000 on. I go, that’s a bet, do you want it again?
‘A wealthy man takes longer to beat but when the fruit machine goes, it goes big.’
Keith fell in love with bookmaking when his solicitor father took him to a greyhound racing meeting aged 12. He has been captivated by the betting ring ever since. He says the only jockey he has ever feared was AP McCoy, the patron saint of all punters and rescuer of lost causes.
Significantly, he bemoans the continued erosion of competition at the Cheltenham Festival, with fewer stables able to threaten the domination of trainers such as Mullins and Gordon Elliott.
Keith says: ‘Cheltenham is very hard to win at now. I don’t like it. I would much rather be at Royal Ascot. It’s far more competitive.
‘The bookies had it their own way for a long time at Cheltenham but it has changed in the last five or six years.
‘I need it to go wrong and a couple of those short ones to get beaten! It’s a showcase. It’s not a place to be a bookie now.
‘I lost £2.2million at Cheltenham last year. In the Racing Post, they had a good laugh and said Ben Keith left early after the Gold Cup! But I only lent them £2.2m. My game is the end of the year. If I have won five or six per cent I have done it.
‘Punters are good at singing when they are winning. I love the silence of the betting ring when a 40-1 shot wins. It’s beautiful.’
For Keith, Cheltenham will be paradise next week if the famous festival roar becomes a whimper.
DEFENDING champion Energumene heads nine confirmations for the Betway Queen Mother Champion Chase at Cheltenham next Wednesday.
Willie Mullins’ nine-year-old claimed the prize with a bloodless victory on a wet second day of the Festival 12 months ago and followed that up with further easy triumphs at both the Punchestown Festival and on his reappearance at Cork in December.
However, although still disputing favouritism for the secondday feature, he returns to Prestbury Park with a point to prove having finished third when appearing at the track in the rearranged Clarence House Chase on Festival Trials Day.
It was Gary Moore’s Editeur Du Gite and last year’s Arkle hero Edwardstone that fought out a thrilling finish on that occasion, with the former making nearly all to give Niall Houlihan a first Grade One success as a jockey.
Both feature amongst the confirmations, with Alan King’s charge the general 7/4 joint- favourite with the bookmakers to turn the tables.
As well as Energumene, Mullins could be represented by Blue Lord and Gentleman De Mee who have both picked up Grade Ones over two miles this term.
Venetia Williams’ Funambule Sivola chased home Energumene 12 months ago and is due to reoppose, while Nube Negra (Dan Skelton) and Greaneteen (Paul Nicholls), second and fourth respectively in the 2021 race behind Put The Kettle On, return for another crack.
The list is completed by Henry de Bromhead’s Captain Guinness with stablemate Coeur Sublime and Mullins’ Chacun Pour Soi the only two not confirmed from the 11 left standing at the previous scratching stage.
WILLIE MULLINS has supplemented Adamantly Chosen for Wednesday’s Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase. Second to Gordon Elliott’s Mighty Potter in Grade One company at the Dublin Racing Festival over two miles and five furlongs, it appears connections are now keen to step him up to three miles.
He is one of six possibles for Mullins among 14 left in, although that does include Gaillard Du Mesnil, the red-hot favourite for the National Hunt Chase.
Bronn, I Am Maximus, Ramillies and Sir Gerhard complete his sextet. Elliott’s Gerri Colombe, Patrick Neville’s The Real Whacker and Thyme Hill from Philip Hobbs’ yard all stand their ground along with Dan Skelton’s mare Galia Des Liteaux.
A TOTAL of 22 horses remain in the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle, eight trained by Willie Mullins.
That does include Facile Vega and Il Etait Temps, both towards the head of the betting for the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle.
Stablemate Impaire Et Passe has been heavily backed in recent days, with Gaelic Warrior another with leading claims.
NIGHT AND DAY, a leading fancy for the Jack De Bromhead Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle next week, has been ruled out with injury.
TG4 will screen its annual preview of the Cheltenham Festival tonight (9.0). The 30-minute magazine-style preview, presented by Denis Kirwan, will be repeated tomorrow night on TG4 (11.25).