Racehorse Runs Entire Race Without a Jockey, Wins Anyway

The Tokay Stakes 2023 horse race at the Chukyo Racecourse in Nagoya, Japan was technically won by a racehorse that ran the entire race without a jockey.

While it’s true that a jockey can’t really help a slow horse win a race, their role in professional horse racing is undeniable. The jockey plays many roles during a race. They control the pace of the animal, either pushing it from the beginning in a race where setting the pace for the rest of the pack is important or conserving its energy for a final push. They are also responsible for how fast the horse comes out of the gates at the start and tactical movement during the race. At least that’s what most horseracing enthusiasts will tell you, but one animal recently proved that they are just dead weight…

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Meet Sumomomomomomomomo, the “Horse That Makes Race Commentators Cry”

Sumomomomomomomomo, a Japanese racehorse that recently claimed its maiden win, was dubbed “the horse that makes commentators cry” because of its tongue-twister name.

The three-year-old mare claimed victory at Tokyo’s Oi racecourse a couple of weeks ago and has since become somewhat of a celebrity on Japanese social media. Its name, which is based on a Japanese tongue-twister that means “plums and peaches are both peaches,” captured people’s imagination, and now everyone is rooting for her to win, just so they can hear race commentators struggling to say ‘Sumomomomomomomomo’. Just listen to NHK announcer Izumi Tanaka commentate the horse’s recent victory, and you’ll understand why people want to hear more of it.

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Former Math Teacher Banned by Bookmakers for Winning Too Much

A former math teacher from Camden Town, England, claims betting shops won’t take his bets anymore after he devised a system that guarantees he wins every time without any risk of loss.

Richard Saul, who calls himself the “wizard of odds”, claims that he has bet tens of thousands of pounds on horse races over the last three years, but in the last few weeks, all but one bookmakers in Camden Town have stopped taking his bets. “They should take the bet, but they don’t because I keep winning. I don’t think your average punter would be able to work out how to do it. In Camden Town, only Jennings will take my bet now – and they will only let me do it once, that’s all,” Saul complains. “[Elsewhere] the staff go on the phone, then after two minutes they come back and say, ‘we can’t take this bet’. I’ve gone on accounts online, but they won’t take it there either.”

The math expert believes that his recent ban by bookmakers has to do with his guaranteed-win system. He came up with it when betting shops started introducing higher payouts for “each-way” horse racing bets. Usually, an each-way bet means that the fourth-placed horse pays a quarter of the horse’s odds of winning, but some high street bookies  expanded the offer to include a fifth-place horse, in order to attract punters. That’s when Saul figured out that by betting on every horse with different stakes, he could guarantee himself a win.

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