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THE QUESTION OF CORRECT ODDS increased ii j ii IP V ii uia greatly Sydney of recent years and this of course has led to newspapers exercising more care than formerly in respect f their quotation in connection with minor events Still disputes as to the correctness of the returns are not uncommon and occasionally a deal of dillicnlty attaches to furnishing prices so absolutely correct as to be fair alike to bookmaker and backer If a horse shortens considerably at this last moment and wins some members ef tint ring 11 i i iroclaim it started at a slightly as really tin case while on the theother other hand many race goers who had not noted its sudden advance in the betting would be prepared to declare that the odds they heard offered seven or eight minutes before the running of the race con ¬ stituted the actual starting price Though they might honestly think so they would be entirely wrong and that is where the troubles of press men who attend to such matters come in inIn In England a couple of the lending sporting papers have highsalaried men who sole duty on a race ¬ course is to attend to market fluctuations and atrrt ing prices and yet it occasionally happens that they differ from half a point to a point in the case of a wellbckcd winner This is not ditlicult to under ¬ stand either for en the principal English race ¬ courses as at Kandwick and Flemingtoii it is prob ¬ able that at times the difference in quotations of various bookmakers is so marked as to nec ssitto the striking of an average Exception may be taken to this idea also to the suggestion that there are occasions en which it is unfair to accept the limita ¬ tions of say a couple of men as governing the starting price returns for the whole of the ring I can iiear someone say Thi longest odds offered at the close of business must be accepted as the starting price That sounds perfectly correct too but in equity is such the case caseIt It often happens that at the commencement of betting on a race some Ixxikmakers hang on to a horse and at the last moment decide to in ¬ crease their liability against it with the result that they may offer say 7 to as against a general quotation of Ts When tho horses wore at the post in a race at a suburban meeting re ¬ cently I beard two or three small mon offering half a point more than could be obtained in other quarters unl naturally it will bo contended their quotation was entitled to be accepted as the horses proxr starting price Hut was it in view of the fact that it would have been impossible to place more tlnin 2j would be nearer the mark witii each of those men without reducing the price to that offered by other members of the ring Possibly a total of between 100 and VJ5 could have been invested with the three at the longer price and I question whether that amount was suiiicient to govern the startingprice returns of the remainder of the ring It would hard to deciilt exactly where to draw the line but while one could readily accept the longer quotation where ten of sixty bcokiiiiikers were offering it the posi ¬ tion in my opinion would lie different with the proportion much smaller especially in view of tlie fact of a limited amount being available at tlie more llbernl ip atiim On the lher hand the contention IK sound that the longest price olfered though even by only on man at thf close of business is the one to which the startingprice backer is entitled but for the reasons given hard andfast adherence to this idea would at times be decidedly unfair to a majority of the members of the riuK Iilot in Sydney Referee
