'Scotsman on Sunday'. re 090

AN ARTICLE BY THE 'SCOTSMAN ON SUNDAY'

AN EXCELLENT READ THAT SEZ IT ALL

BY TOM ENGLISH 16th March 2008

Note the amount of selections by Nevison!
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"Tom English: Here's a tip - hang up on the premium lines"

IT'S been many years since I first encountered a man called V.Wright with an address at Wyvern Cottage, Newmarket, Suffolk in Flann O'Brien's masterpiece At Swim-Two-Birds.
V.Wright was the turf accountant of the novel's hero, Stephen Dedalus, a layabout student whose life centred around smoking, dreaming and getting horseracing tips through the post from the "Backer's Friend" in Newmarket.

"Sensational news" was alADVERTISEMENTways reaching V.Wright's ear. "Information from the RIGHT QUARTER" was always shared with those willing to send him a bob in the mail. "Leaving me now because of bad luck would indeed be a 'puzzler'," he writes after his latest "GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY" comes in last. "It is very comforting to know that I have clients who are sportsmen who do not lose heart when the luck is 'the wrong way'." To get back in winning form he tells his customers to "GO IN FOR THE WIN OF YOUR LIFE" with his "treble nap CAST-IRON PLUNGER... Old friends will know that I do not send 'guessworks' but only STRICTLY OCCASIONAL advices over animals already as good as past the post... P.S. The above will be the business. Yours, Verney.'"

Good ol' Verney. I thought of him last week as the Cheltenham Festival unfolded. The real-life, modern-day equivalent of Verney are those characters who advertise their premium-rate telephone tipping lines in the Racing Post every day. It is extraordinary how similar they are to Verney. Almost 70 years after At Swim-Two-Birds was published, they use a lot of the same kind of language and display the same sense of certainty about their "good things" as he did. But are their tips any better? That's what I wanted to discover. Are they any more liable to make a profit or are they as much in the dark as the rest of us?

Where better to find out than at this year's Festival, the biggest week of gambling in the history of British sport?

I selected three Verneys on Thursday morning; Derek "Tommo" Thompson of C4 Racing who also operates Tommo's Tips (£1 per minute), Karl "The Colossus" Hedley (£1.50 per minute) and Dave "the man with an eye for the winners" Nevison (also £1.50 per minute). There were 19 races at the Festival to pick from across Thursday and Friday. I rang their phone lines and noted their information, having an imaginary £10 stake on each one.

Tommo is the smoothest of the three. That'll be his television experience, you see. He's not lacking in self-esteem is Tommo. "I had dinner with Jessica Harrington in Dublin a week last Monday," he mentioned in his Friday recording. "She said, 'Tommo, my horse Personal Column will win the Triumph Hurdle'. 'But, Jessie,' I said, 'that horse is 20-1!' 'It can't be, Tommo?' she gasped. 'It is,' I said. Remember folks, you heard it here first. Personal Column."

Needless to say, Personal Column didn't win the Triumph Hurdle (it was seventh) but Tommo had a very decent day on Thursday. He had three winners – well, two if you don't count Inglis Drever which a blind man could see was going to win the World Hurdle – and returned a profit of £41. Tommo couldn't be considered a Verney on that form. No chance. How about Dave Nevison? He also had three winners (including Inglis Drever), but gave us nine losers. Counting the price of the call, Dave made us a profit of £2.50. Still, no Verney there either.

The Colossus next. Could he beat three winners? Er, no. Two, then? Nope. Hmm, one? Wrong again. Eight tips, eight losers. On top of the price of the call (£7.50), he'd cost us £87.50. Definite Verney potential here.

Ten races down and nine to go on Friday. Plenty of time for cast-iron plungers and golden opportunities. Karl fancies Theatre Girl in the first race. "She'll relish the conditions." Theatre Girl is fifth. He likes Aigle D'Or in the second race. "Very smart sort, highly thought of." Aigle D'Or finishes last. The Colossus tips five losers (and no winners) to go with the eight that sank on Thursday. Had we gone with his advice we'd have finished the two-day marathon in a hole to the tune of £145. Verney lives!

What about Dave? He has a 7-1 winner to put himself in good shape but then tips a stream of losers, two and three in the same race on occasion. Nine in a row go south and Dave turns his profit from Thursday into a £60 deficit for the two days. The return of Vern!

Come on Tommo, you're the last hope. His seven-minute phone message on Friday morning brings fascinating information. He goes for a surprise in the opening race. "I like Silver Charmer here at a big price, 50-1. She's been laid out for this race." Silver Charmer runs well but ends up sixth. Tommo has a bit of each-way success in the second race to get himself back in gear but then, disastrously, he catches the losing bug. "What A Friend is owned by Sir Alex Ferguson and I can tell you now there's a very strong word coming out of Manchester United for this one." What A Friend runs like a dog and gives up before the finish.

Don't fail us now, Tommo.

"The Gold Cup next," he announces. "In the last 24 hours I've spoken with Sam Thomas, rider of Denman, and Ruby Walsh, rider of Kauto Star, and I have to say, Sam is very, very confident about Denman's chances. He thinks he'll win. I don't."

Tommo!

Two more losers follow (one of them finishes last) and we arrive at the County Hurdle, a charge of the light brigade that brings the curtain down on the Festival for another year. Tommo needs a winner to avoid Verney status. Mercifully, he has kept in reserve what he calls his "bet of the day", the 2008 equivalent of the CAST-IRON PLUNGER. "You don't want to miss out on this," he says. "He's trained by Red Rum's old jockey and ridden by the great Tony McCoy, it's No.9, Wanango."

Wanango staggers home in 11th place, dead to the world for all that money riding on its back. Tommo has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, ending £31 down for the two days, including the cost of the privileged information he let us in on. The third coming of Verney.

Maybe it's harsh on the three boys to judge their expertise on just two days in the racing calendar but perhaps not as harsh as charging through the nose for advice that ends up costing us money. Nothing much has changed since Wyvern Cottage was a magnet for all aspiring fortune-seekers, it seems. There will be those who'll tune in again for more next week and the week after and the week after that. On Friday, Tommo concluded his message with a taster of what was to come. "If you think this is good, wait until you hear what I've got for Saturday. Tune in tomorrow..."

Or as Verney put it: "You had the losers, why not 'row in' and make a packet over the winners that are now our due. SENSATIONAL NEWS has reached me that certain interests have planned a gigantic coup involving a certain animal..."