Sale Of The Tote

You really can bet on just about anything these days!  I see that a book has now opened on who is going to buy the Tote and Betfred have been installed as the 7/4 favourites - it is a shame that the Tote aren't running a book as there may be some clues in the prices!  If the sale of the Tote does go through for £200,000,000 racing will get about £50,000,000 - the problem is that while it is a substantial sum, it will not go very far in a nationwide industry.  The other problem is of course, when the Tote has been sold and once the racing industry gets it's cut, that's the end of it, no more handouts, nothing more to sell.

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I couldn't believe it when I saw that it was photographer Gerry Cranham's 82nd birthday today.  When I wrote my first book about ping pong at the age of sixteen (forty eight years ago now), Gerry did much of the photography, including a few shots with a Mac Motion Analysis Camera.  These cameras were so cutting-edge at the time that they were used in space vehicles and had an asking price of around £6,000.  That was an absolute fortune back then, but it was an amazing piece of kit that would show you through the stroke with thousands of shots on one print.  We had to do the shot with a black background at midnight in the open air on Epsom Downs!  We still have a few laughs about me practising on the Downs at midnight.

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Down on the gallops I managed to take a shot of a couple of interesting new recruits, Grand Exit and Degenerate being put through their paces.

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We have been in good form on the Pipeline and if you listened in yesterday, you will have been pointed in the direction of no less than three winners.  Subscribers to our text tipping service were also rewarded with two winners from two selections - to benefit from this information, simply text PIPE to 84010 (texts cost £1.50 per message, to unsubscribe text PIPE STOP to 84010).