Betfair Official Blog

Grand National 1937 Betting: Jack Houghton wants 100 to 6

Jack Houghton has been spending a lot of time at home recently. Something tells us he's feeling a little bit stir crazy. What's Weechers, Jack?

Inordinate amounts of time at home means watching innumerable antique programmes on television. One such programme is called Cash In The Attic. It finds an individual with a specific financial target - £1,000 for a trip to Australia to see a new grandchild is a regular aspiration - and programme presenter and accompanying antique expert are dispatched to the individual's house to ransack it for potential auction items that might generate the required cash.

It should be noted that the programme name is slightly misleading. Whilst the cash bit is accurate, the presenter and antique expert are not, regrettably, confined to the attic. Rather, they are allowed (or allow themselves) unfettered access to the entirety of said individual's property and seem happy to search anywhere; no matter how potentially incriminating the goods they find may be.

The latest episode starred an elderly lady who, quite bizarrely, wanted to raise £750 to buy a double-scull row-boat. And so the presenter and expert took off round her house to see what they could find. Sentimentality was put aside as dead-granddad's war-medals and dead-mother's walking-stick were thrown into the fundraising pile. Then came the programme's usual dénouement. With sentimentality now back on the agenda, the elderly lady is asked if she can bear to part with a Victorian dressing-table. But the viewer doesn't get to hear her answer immediately.

We are made to wait 15 minutes, the scene now an auction house, to see if the elderly lady brings said dressing-table to sell. I have to say, I was salivating with anticipation by this point. (I won't spoil the surprise - you might get to watch a repeat one day).

Oh, what the hell, she didn't bring it. It reminded her "of the pub" apparently, but it was not explained why the "pub" was significant. Did her family own it? Or is she just a lifelong drinker with a penchant for a particular boozer that she once stole a dressing-table from? Rather than clearing up this confusion, the presenter and expert prefer to express their disappointment; earnestly explaining that the dressing-table's absence makes the double-scull row-boat an all but impossible dream.

This cliff-hanger technique is rolled out every episode - presumably to prevent viewers being enticed cross-channel to Jeremy Kyle or Don't Get Done Get Dom (if you don't know, don't ask). And it got me thinking, is it really necessary to manufacture such excitement when the programme is so clearly compelling in the first place? When your viewers consist of a brain-dead multitude of new-mothers, unemployed losers, pensioners and freelance sports-betting journalists, why go to all the trouble? After all, racing doesn't start until 2pm, and the World Championship snooker is still a couple of days away, so what else have people got to do except watch this?

The elderly lady in this programme is selling a pair of Royal Dalton over-sized mugs, commemorating Royal Mail's win in the 1937 Grand National. The expert tells us the horse won at odds of 100/6.

"Isn't that interesting? Those odds don't exist any more!" he informs the audience.

Mmm, really? That's not quite true. It might not be used much these days, but I'm not sure a fraction can come, dodo-like, in and out of existence. Maths just doesn't work like that. To suggest 100/6 doesn't exist any more is to suggest that ¼, three or pi might one day face a similar extinction. (I have a nostalgic love of 100/6 by the way. Following my dad up and down the rails as a kid, I would look on with awe as he cheekily asked for £6 to 100 about a horse chalked up at 16/1. Ah, happy days).

Unfortunately, the mugs only fetch £28, a fair bit short of the expert's prediction. The expert - a dapper, public-school looking chap called Jonty - doesn't look too embarrassed at his almighty pricing rick. But then, for someone so much at ease with the preposterous premise of the programme, this should come as no surprise.

Jonty announces: "Ouch! We fell at the last hurdle there."

I start shouting that horses don't jump hurdles in the Grand National, they jump fences, at which point the presenter joins in: "YES! We fell at Weechers!"

Weechers! WEECHERS! What the hell is Weechers?

But my protestations seem to make no difference. The presenter, who I think is Angela Rippon, but may be Judith Chalmers, simply chortles on, sharing a joke with Jonty about what a pair of mugs they are. Trust me, if you two are mugs, then what does that make us lot watching you? At least you get paid for promulgating this crap.

The auction over and the elderly lady has reached a stunning £821, well over her target. Jonty and Rippon/Chalmers feel no need to apologise for their earlier admonishment at the absence of the dressing-table. Instead, all is jolly. The programme ends with the elderly lady sculling along a river with her rowing partner.

The programme has got me thinking. They should run a racing special where punters aim to raise a get-out-of-jail stake for a 6/4 shot running in a Folkestone bumper. I'd definitely tune in for that. But come to think of it, I'll tune in whatever they show.

Must go, Bargain Hunt's on.