Last month I wrote a review of Jamie Reid's book Doped about the doping of racehorses in the 1960s. In the review I said the book would have benefited from more references and notes because some of the details would only have been known to the participants. Now the retired rails bookmakers Michael Wallis has written an article in the July/August 2014 edition of BOS magazine to set the record straight about some of the facts in the book.
Wallis is in a good position to express his opinion because he was a rails bookmaker in the 1950s and 60s when the events were taking place.
He points out that Reid accuses various bookmakers of being in the know about the doping "without a shred of evidence". Also, if a bookmaker tried to offer "over the odds" about a horse that was subsequently found to have been got at, then that bookmaker "would have been a marked man" in the betting ring.
Wallis says, "we racecourse bookmakers were at the sharp end of the market i.e. at the receiving end of hot money for horses backed to beat the ones that had been doped. It was in our interests for the dopers to be found out .."
The article also highlights that Bill Roper was a 'runner' for bookmakers at the racecourse rather than a bookmaker in his own right and that he was never known as "Mr Racing".
BOS magazine - if you are interested in the history of bookmaking in the UK and the various firms and bookmaking dynasties of previous decades then BOS magazine is a must read.
There are fascinating articles about the characters of the betting industry - past and present, the lost racecourses, as well as interviews with current independent bookmakers.
