Monday 16 March 2015

Beginner's luck


My taxi driver had been a mechanic at a garage in Newbury and told me the following story:

"One of the stable girls came in to get her car repaired. The car was on its last legs and she was on a shoestring so we gave the job to the YTS (Youth Training Scheme) lad who patched it all up nicely. We called the girl and said we'd fixed it on the house. She was well chuffed and the following week she called us and said, 'Thank you so much again for mending my car. I just wanted to let you know we've got a horse running tomorrow which is worth an each way bet if the going's heavy.'
So we took £5 out of the tips box and told the YTS lad to go down to the bookies and put it on £2.50 each way and blow me if it didn't come in at 35-1! We all had a good night out on the proceeds.
The next week she called again: 'That horse is running again tomorrow. It's worth another punt if the going's heavy.' We took out another £5 and gave it to the lad to put on. The odds were lower: 20-1 but again it came in and we had another night out. What we then found out was the YTS boy had put his entire life's savings of £1000 on it. He then became madly keen on the horses and was asking everybody who came to the garage with a bit of straw hanging off him for tips!
We decided this had better stop as it would ruin him and the foreman and I planned a trick to put an end to his addiction. We looked at the form and chose a three legged old horse which had used to pull a cart which was priced at 50-1. Then we told the lad that the stable girl had given us a new tip. This was the first time I'd ever studied the form and blow me if it didn't win the race!"

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