Skeptics often say to me, “If you can predict the future, why can’t you pick me a winning race horse?” The answer is that I can – but there’s more to the story…..

 

Lesson One: In Australasia, the Melbourne Cup is known as “the Race that Stops a Nation.” A couple of years ago, during the course of a day I gave out three “lucky numbers” to callers. It finally dawned on me that it was the first Tuesday in November, the day the Melbourne Cup is run. The numbers I had given out were 5, 2 and “2’s” which I took to be 22.

 

My son has always said to me, “Mum, if you give someone the winning Lotto numbers, let me know!” so I phoned him at work and gave him the information. He was quite excited, because his number in the office sweepstake was 5. But a few minutes later he rang me back laughing, saying, “Mum, it’s great you can do the past, but can you do the future? The guys say that 5 and 2 won last year!” I slunk away with my tail between my legs feeling very foolish.

 

A short while later the Big Race was run, so I watched out of interest, just to see what happened. 5 came in first, 2 was second, and 22 was third. It was the Trifecta and it paid $168,000. But not a soul had backed it, because they all thought I was mad.

 

Lesson Two: On New Year’s Day, the Auckland Cup is raced. One of my callers used to breed race horses, and often rang me for health and training advice. On this particular day she called me to pick a horse for her. The message I got was, “It’s something to do with Kings.” So I passed it on and left her to figure out what it meant.

 

When the call ended, out of curiosity I looked up the field for the race, and saw that a horse called Jezebel was racing. Jezebel was the wife of King Ahab, and the story is in the Bible in the Book of Kings, so I figured that had to be it. Sure enough, she won the race. She later went on to win the Melbourne Cup, but this was her first big win. She was a rank outsider and paid 80 to 1.

 

The next day when my caller rang me back I asked her how much money she had made. She laughed hollowly, and said, “I didn’t bet on her. My son told me not to waste my money and I listened to him instead of you. I’m kicking myself!”

 

So don’t ring me for race horses or Lotto numbers because you won’t be able to profit from it. I should know. I didn’t back them either!

 

Footnote: What happened to the callers whom I gave the other three numbers to? Well, I don’t know what happened to two of them, because they never called back to let me know, but the one I gave number 22 to didn’t make it to the betting shop. Her car wouldn’t start and she never got there….