At 11.45pm on Wednesday night, an innocuous Beginners Steeplechase was run at Sligo, Ireland.

Contested by a small field of six, the 3400m event was taken out by the starting favourite Elsie, with Sweet Sylvia – who SP’d at 33/1 – filling second place three-and-a-half lengths in arrears.

A couple of lucky Australian punters (and surely there couldn’t have been more than one or two!) who deigned to back Sweet Sylvia for the place with Tattsbet (Unitab) would have woken up to a nice little collect in the morning…



A $352.60 place dividend is perhaps not as surprising as it might seem, however, when you consider that a jumps race in the middle of the night is unlikely to attract any significant money in its various Australian tote pools. The experienced late-night punter would be well accustomed to the fact that small pools invariably equal quirky dividends, with at least one of the three totes often throwing up a bizarre result.

Upon closer inspection, however, there WAS significant money in the Unitab pool for the Siglo race – the place pool that is!

Though a decidedly moderate $1,157 was wagered on the win pool, a whopping $15,629 landed in the place pool. Compare that to the $408 bet into the place pool in the following race at Siglo, and it would seem that pool manipulation is still alive and well...



With both favoured runners paying $1.00 for the place and the rest of the field paying $279.20, $352.60, $176.30 and $279.20 respectively, it would appear that someone has had approximately $7,000 apiece on both favourites to place, thus forcing out the prices of all the other runners.

In days gone by, pool manipulation has been a very common occurrence, with punting syndicates launching huge money on runners in certain states in order to profit from ‘best tote’-type products from the corporate bookmakers.

Most bookies are firmly protected against pool manipulation now – especially in overseas and greyhound races – rarely offering anything better than a ‘middle tote’ product for place dividends (and often deferring to the dividend as declared by the official tote at the track where the race is held).

There may still have been a way to pull off the coup, however. Sportingbet, for example, are known to offer 'middle tote' or 'pick a tote' on Irish racing (though they do cap the dividend at $101).



All it would have taken is a few hundred dollar place bets (perhaps across a few accounts) on the four unfavoured runners - selecting Tatts Tab as the preferred tote, of course - to score a big payout (bearing in mind that the $7,000 the place bet on one of the favourites on the totes has already been returned to the punters, given that it placed).

Whilst its difficult to ascertain if in fact the Sweet Sylvia race resulted in a big collect, it’s heartening to think that some intrepid punters might still be scheming in the shadows trying to strike a blow against the bagmen!

Cheers.
Garyf.