Epsom is the home to the Derby, one of our most prestigious and well-known races. It’s commemorated in lots of ways around the town and the eagle eyed of you will have noticed this statue acting as a ‘prop’ in an earlier PotD to a bunch of my colleagues who were posing for me after our pre-Christmas lunch. (Rather than the real Christmas lunch that we had last week.)

I’m not much of a racing fan really, nothing against it as such, it just doesn’t ‘rock my boat’ if you know what I mean. I have been to the Derby, as a little girl we lived on the other side of Epsom Downs and on race day we used to walk across the bridleways and onto the racecourse in our school holidays. The Derby then was on a Wednesday although these days it has been moved to Saturday.

My only EVER win on a horse race…..well in fact my only bet ever on a horse race I think, was in 1973-4 (I can’t remember which) when I asked my Mum to put my pocket money on a horse in the Derby for me (because I was too young to gamble). I’d seen a cartoon in the Daily Mail showing Morston as the winner and I asked her to back it for me, I’ve no real idea why it seemed like a good idea. My 50p was duly placed and would you believe Morston romped home a 40-1 outsider. I had more money than I’d ever seen before. I spent £2.99 of my winnings on The Partridge Family album ‘Shopping Bag’. I loved David Cassidy then as I do now in a dreamy rosy spec-ed way. His breathy voice is so utterly gorgeous.

The experience didn’t whet my appetite for betting at all. I only ever place bets of £1 and only ever on the outcome of the Spurs home games (which is more out of loyalty than a real belief I’ll win anything) so I reckon to add the princely sum of £20 or so each year into Ladbrokes profits. You don’t even have to go into a bookie’s to bet these days, apparently internet betting is one of the fastest growing e-businesses, so I’m told. I place my bet at the ground so I don’t ever see betting websites or go into betting shops.

I’ve only ever known one real winner at backing the horses, an old friend of mine, Charles. He is truly a champ at it but that comes from being a red-hot mathematician and statistician, for the rest of us it’s really a mug’s game I suspect.

Charles comes from a fishing village on the Lancashire coast, a bit north of Blackpool. His Dad, Granddad, Great-granddad and I suspect many generations of his family are all fishermen. Charles is the oldest of four brothers. There is something truly extraordinary about his family though. They are true ‘working class heroes’ of a kind you often hear about but rarely encounter. They are all gifted scholars.

Charles won a scholarship to Oxford University where he studied and graduated with a first class degree, the highest Batchelor level accolade it’s possible to achieve. His three brothers all did the same. All four have demonstrated the utmost intelligence.

Interestingly Charles is the only one to be using his education. The other three all went back to their fishing community and live ordinary lives. One sibling drives a baker’s van, one is a fisherman and the career of the third escapes me.

I met Charles on 1st August 1978 on my first day at work. I was seventeen and coming up to my eighteenth birthday, Charles too was starting his first job (remarkably the same training course I was on) and we got on like a house on fire. He really is my oldest friend, I keep in touch with no-one from school.

He always liked the horses and used to study form and place bets at lunchtime in the bookie next door.

He had a terrible car crash about twelve years ago and was off work for a year recuperating. In fact, he was so badly injured he was unconscious for three months while his body quietly went about the process of repairing some of his damage. When he woke up, he had absolutely no recollection of anything more recent than three days before his accident despite having been fully conscious while the fire crew cut him from the wreck of his car.

While he was in hospital, his company continued to pay his salary and he whiled away the time backing horses. He never touched a penny of his salary all the time he was recovering. All of his expenses (mortgage et al) were met by his winnings.

It is a remarkable story but absolutely true, not one of these urban myths that happen. Like I said though, don’t try this at home…..he is such a talented mathematician that he could work out how to win. For the rest of us the odds are stacked very much against us – I know that I’m a statistician too remember!