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Race Night

Money raised = £1060

The Race Night organised for Team Graeme by Wickes was an extremely successful and enjoyable event and raised much more than we expected. Around 80 people came along and helped make it a great night.

A huge thank you goes to Rayl Hanson and Marian Swan of Wickes for their work in getting money out of sponsors and owners. They deservedly took a back seat on the night and spent their own money having a drink and betting on horses that sometimes actually won.

Martin Youngman the MC and his sidekick Paul Hudson did a great job running the show and kept things moving along nicely even when confronted by apparently insurmountable technical difficulties (See the Lowlights below).

A number of people who had not been to a Race Night before have said that they enjoyed it and would definitely go again.

Some Race Night Highlights

We showed 6 horse races and 2 greyhound races with 8 runners in each.

Details of the runners, owners, race sponsors and winners of each race are available by clicking here Race Card

You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view or print the Race Card. To download it for free click here.

Betting began at a sedate pace while people decided on the best strategy to employ.
It soon became clear that runners names were being picked rather than numbers.

In one race 27 out of 93 bets were placed on a horse called "My Wobbly Bits" owned by Cheryl Stares.
I do not know Cheryl so had better not say anything about the origins of the name.
The popularity of this horse meant that if it had won the payout would only have been £1.70.

In the last race of the night that was sponsored by Team Graeme, Anne's horse named "The Boy" was heavily backed with 32 out of 113 bets being placed. Clearly Graeme was in the minds of punters here but unfortunately "The Boy" did not win.
In the same race Lorraine Jeanes' "Jumpy Sausage" was also popular but we will not say anymore about it except it did not win.

One horse owned by Keith but named "Shy Bairns Get Nowt" by Rachel did win its race.
This was a phrase regularly used by Graeme to encourage bolshiness in people.

One person who soon decided what his betting strategy would be was Jonathan Stout.
He realised that the most money was won on the least fancied horse.
So he waited until near the end of the betting and chose a horse that had not been heavily backed.
He did this by using a scientific measuring approach.
He estimated which pad of tickets was the largest and therefore had sold fewest.
I know it worked at least once. Nice one Jonathan who I know does not like to lose

The highest price paid out on the night was for a horse called "Marc Coxon" owned by John Ryan.
5 people took a chance on this horse with an ordinary name and won £10 each.

Some Race Night Lowlights

Just before the end of the third race the picture on the screen started to jump and then just stopped.
We were all left hanging in mid-air wondering if we had won. Martin tried his best to restart the DVD but it would have none of it.
He concluded that the DVD was scratched and even changed his computer but to no avail.

By this time the pies and peas had arrived so we decided to have these and see if Martin and Paul could sort out the problem. It took an awful lot longer than expected but thankfully they did get it running again.

After we restarted there were still a few more races during which the film threatened to stop.
Luckily the DVD did continue and we finished all the races.
Martin obviously has a lot of patience and did not appear to be too flustered.
Perhaps this explains how he can deal with students at college. Well done Martin.

Raffle Prizes and Winners

We had a good selection of raffle prizes and sold about 400 tickets. Fortunately the major prize of the signed football was won by someone who appreciated it and must have been a Boro fan.
Unfortunately we did not get his name and perhaps he wished to remain anonymous to avoid being mobbed.

Other raffle prizes are listed below with the winning numbers, sponsors and winners

PrizeSponsorWinning TicketWinner
Signed football Middlesbrough Football ClubOrange 298Anonymous
Electric drillWickes Blue 155 Amanda
Bottle of spiritsElm Tree Club Blue 49 Albert
Electric drillWickes Orange 99 Derek Nisbet
Bottle of spiritsElm Tree Club Blue 83 Ian
Bottle of Baileys Mint Chocolate Turner FamilyOrange 123 Emma Murphy
Bottle of champagne Rachel Turner Blue 51M Honeyman SBC
Bottle of red wineTeam Graeme Blue 45 Wishbone SBC
Bottle of white wineTeam Graeme Orange 171 Anne T
Box of Belgian ChocolatesJackie Wearn Blue 41 T Parnell
Bottle of ChampagneMike Readman Blue 158 Amanda
Orange holdall with wheels Anonymous Blue 116Doug 588816
4 cans of Stella Artois Team Graeme Orange 281Anonymous
Medium size torch Wickes Orange 116 Martin Murphy
6 pack of Orange Coke Team GraemeOrange 306Anonymous
Small size torch Wickes Orange 104Vicky Nisbet
Can of Orange Hair Spray Rachel TurnerBlue 34 Mick - Steward