Harry Findlay: A Bad Day At The Races

Just over halfway through reading Harry Findlay: Gambling For Life, written by Neil Harman published Sport Media in 2017.

I’m surprised Mr. Findlay didn’t crack from the stress of gambling. There’s living on the edge and then comes the man himself. He doesn’t do things by halves and a few chapter of his tome have revealed bets that would terrify even a hardened gamblers. Here’s one day Harry would rather forget and it’s a killer of a day when gambling for all the wrong reasons hits him hard in the pocket.

In October 1989 he would have a day he would rather forget.

The day started off badly when the hotel he was staying didn’t give him his early-morning call. This led him to not only missing a flight to Newcastle to go to the dogs at Brough Park. It put him in a mood. After going to reception and almost scaring the life out of two receptionists who were apologetic about the missed call he went back to his room.

He said in his own words: ‘Picking up the Sporting Life was the worst thing I did in my life.’

Bored with the thought of not getting to the dog meeting with four sound chances he looked through the Sporting Life and noticed race meeting at Hexham. At that time, he was betting golf and snooker. In fact, he hadn’t even heard of Hexham. However, he decided he would go to the races to kill some time.

Harry said: ‘It almost killed me!’

In the first race he lumped on the 1/4f betting £1,600 to win £400. Ben Ledi cleared the water and its legs splayed and went down.

He started chasing his losses and backed the next four odds-on shots which all went by the way. With each loss he had lumped on more cash and by the final loser he detailed the bad news.

A major loss.

Reading the book I wasn’t sure how much a big loss.

It was £100,000.

In fact, he seemed to make some of these bets on credit and had to pay back the said bookmaker over a period of time.

It’s truly remarkable how chasing losses can lead to something quite terrifying.

In truth, this style of betting is par for the course for Findlay. It makes for a great read but, in ways, a truly tragic approach to gambling. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and if someone is winning money their approach cannot be viewed as wrong. He had both good and bad days so make of it what you will.

The moral of this story is to bet on what you know and never chase losses. By its very nature, it can’t end well and it never does. I think we have all been there. Even the best of gamblers have lost their discipline and got sucked into an emotional roller coaster which gnaws at their soul.

Imagine losing £100,000.

I know most people wouldn’t have the funds to lose that type of money but how Findlay could cope with such losses must take its toll on both body and mind. I guess it helped him cope with the £1M+ loss when betting on New Zealand to win the World Cup in 2007.

What a killer.

I take my hat off to Harry Findlay because he has lived life on the edge and pushed gambling to a point I wouldn’t want to imagine.

Good luck to him.