It's a game about people·Charlie's Racing Club·Thirty years on the phone to the yards
Betfan · Horse Racing

When two lads on two different phones tell me the same thing

I never rode, never trained, never owned one. What I've got is thirty years of phone numbers and the sense to ring them before the kettle's boiled.

— Charlie
Charlie Weaver, flat cap and waxed jacket, on the telephone with a rolled-up racing paper under his arm

One morning, the way it goes

Tuesday · a two-year-old at Nottingham

First call

Head lad at a Newmarket yard. The boss has a two-year-old going to Nottingham, first-time blinkers. He tells me quietly, the way they do.

Second call, different county

The horse this colt worked with at home — that trainer tells me, unprompted, that the Nottingham one has quite a lot to say for himself. Two phones, same story. That's a bet.

The email goes

Members get one line: Mick's very happy, take the 12s while they're there. I've already had mine. It was 20s at breakfast.

Hosed up by three

The morning price is a memory. Members had 12s. The fellow reading the paper on the train had 6s. That gap is the whole job.

What the price does while you're asleep

The same horse · the same Tuesday

Nobody's cheating you. It's just that the money knows before the newspaper does, and the price moves in the four hours you're not looking at it.

20/1Overnight price. Nobody's on yet.
12/1Where members got on
8/1The yard's money has landed
11/2Starting price. Off he goes.

Same horse. Same race. Nearly four times the money, for the price of reading an email with your breakfast.

The whisper board

What actually comes off the phone

NewmarketBoss is really happy with KILMOVEE — thinks he's the best he's been all year. Take the 3.75 before someone else does.
BallydoylePhoto of KYNANCE COVE working Sunday. You'll want to be on this evening's runner. Not a maybe.
LambournVAN DER MERWE — we've been aiming him at this since June. Take the 8s, honestly should be shorter.
YorkshireLARBERT spot on. Same conversation as always. He's ready, don't overthink it.

Come on in, lads

One to four bets a day · win or each way · nothing clever

Until the first race at Ascot
--days
--hrs
--mins
--secs

The main daily briefing lands every morning from my kitchen table with a mug of tea beside it. Sometimes one horse. Sometimes three. Sometimes an honest "phones are quiet today" — and that's a real answer, not a cop-out.

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Charlie's record starts today. Every bet is dated, priced and settled in the open — win or lose — from the first day. Nothing is hidden and nothing is added afterwards.

There's a fellow who thinks I'm being handled

Charlie Weaver v Vic Vyle

CharlieBacks a horse because two people he trusts fancy it, and one of them has been right since 1998.

v

Vic VyleTwenty-two years a bookmaker. Backs a horse only when the price is wrong, and says stable talk is how punters get relieved of money.

Two records, side by side, settled in public. At the big festivals they go head to head over the same meeting. Neither of them gets to win the argument for good — that's rather the point.