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Equinties - supremely good
BGP Capital
December 04, 2025
Gm Equinauts
In todays newsletter we dissect a Times article on Tony Bloom, where the reporter apparently only just found out Tony Bloom likes to gamble.
Let’s dive in!
HEADLINE ROUNDUP
SUPREMELY GOOD, OURDADDYPADDY
Us Brits seem to have a good one on our hands, and if you didn’t know it until now, surely you have to agree with the majority that think MYDADDYPADDY is a serious animal - check this out:
As we wrote in the newsletter after his first run of the season, we were quite shocked that he was already joint-favourite for the Supreme on the back of a late-season Huntingdon bumper win, as much as it was impressive. Then to be outright favourite for the Supreme after Carlisle was some statement by the bookies, and then was trimmed even further yesterday to sit strong 5/1 for the Supreme, a full seven points shorter than BAMBINO FEVER and 15 points shorter than LOVE ME TENDER and ACT OF INNOCENCE.
We’ll start talking about his Supreme price first before we delve into his performance.
Yes, he’s short, but please go find a mirror, look at yourself in it, and ask two pretty simple questions. If Willie Mullins had the horse (or a horse who has won in similar ways so far this season), would that hypothetical horse be 5/1 or shorter? Yes.
Secondly, even if there are ‘Mullins-trained horses yet to come’, can an ante-post market seriously be formulated on imaginary horses that a very good trainer could possibly have? No.
So, there you go, 5/1 is a price that makes sense even if it’s not one that you’d want to steam into at this stage of the year.
We suppose the counter argument is we’re conditioned to receive terrible pricing from the bookmakers, beggars can’t be choosers, and we know really the field should be bigger. ISTABRAQ went off 3/1 for his first Champion Hurdle having been unbeaten after a wind op when joining Aidan O’Brien from John Gosden’s and picking up a Gr1 novice hurdle at Cheltenham along the way.
Stinks doesn’t it.
Back to MYDADDYPADDY. As for his performance itself, the run definitely passes the visuals. Of course, we could all sit here and poke holes in the horses he’s beaten (even though we think they’re no slouches), but the way he quickened-up before the last and winged it was super, super impressive, and it’s almost easy to forget that he is a four-year-old who has had just three starts ever.
He is the typical improver who will continue to get better the more they race, but he actually looks so professional for such an inexperienced horse. We may be gushing, but there is a lot to gush over, and we can all see that last season’s Champion Bumper form looked a touch suspect at the time. Yes, a few horses like HEADS UP, IDAHO SUN, and SORTUDO have come out and won impressively, but they were in races that they were more than entitled to bolt up in. What’s going to come out of last year’s bumper scene to challenge him?
Sadly, if you like him, his price probably won’t get any bigger. He’ll go to the Formby/Tolworth, which will be a fancier race, and he looks like a horse who could blow that race away, and then he could go to Prestbury Park and have an SP of 5/2.
You can thank the current state of bookmaking for that.
What is nice is Skelton’s demeanour around the horse. He knows he’s good, but he’s very professional in the interview not to get too carried away which would give the horse a bit too much to live up to. That’s a nice trait to have, and probably not one he learned from Paul Nicholls!
Anyway, post-race, he said: "It's been a nice experience for him. He was very quick and nimble-footed two out, which was very important and, in the end, he was authoritative.
“The jumping is the most important thing and you have to give them experience. It could be one of the most important races he ever runs in and I'm glad we've done that.
"We'll see how good he is in the rest of the season and he'll go to the Formby now at Aintree. Beyond that I don't know, but I want to run him in the Supreme.
"At the start of the season I thought he might want two and a half miles, but now I’m very confident he wants two."
Very, very smart horse.
VENETIA WONDERLAND
The gates to Venetia Wonderland have been firmly closed shut for a month or so now, and it could do with kicking on if the Herefordshire-based trainer is to land a few nice pots this winter.
Her three winners in November 2025 is her joint-lowest tally over the last 10 years alongside 2018, and it’s a stark difference to the 17 she had in 2023. That month did include a ROYALE PAGAILLE Betfair Chase win and VICTTORINO’s success in the valuable three-mile handicap chase at Ascot.
But right now, the yard could do with a small change in fortune, and ideally, it would be before this weekend as DJELO is going to attempt to retain his Peterborough Chase crown.
The lack of JONBON has to be a positive, so he is now odds-on for Huntingdon’s Grade 2 contest, and amazingly, he doesn’t have to give weight away to SAINT SAM or HITMAN as they’ve both won Grade 2s since September 30th, 2024. The only thing with DJELO is whether he’s had too hard a race in the Charlie Hall over three.
PIC D’ORHY probably showed signs of that in the Ascot Chase, and while he’s had two extra weeks, yet that was a fair effort. Still, it could be quite an interesting race against SAINT SAM.
Is he a King George horse? It’s hard to be confident in saying that, because he’d need to probably improve at least 7lbs, and maybe 10lbs to be safe. And then, what she does with L’HOMME PRESSE this season will be fascinating. He’s a horse that, in the last two seasons, has won just the Cotswold Chase and Fleur de Lys Chase, and because of that, his rating of 163 doesn’t look unreasonable at all. He did win a Rehearsal Chase off 164 in 2022, after all.
Williams is preparing to send him to Cheltenham next Friday (for the 3m2f handicap chase, we assume) and he could actually go very well in a handicap off that rating. He’s very classy, and he hasn’t yet shown that he is regressing at a rate of knotts.
Could he need it? Of course, but he was a fine third in the King George on his seasonal reappearance, and he bolted up in the Fleur de Lys after 391 days off, so he does go well fresh. We wonder what price he will open up next week.
BLOOMIN’ HELL
Tony Bloom is a remarkable man, and what he has done in sport(‘s gambling) in insane. In 2009, he became chairman of his boyhood club Brighton, and two years, after implementing a buying methodology akin to that featured in Michael Lewis book ‘Money Ball’, they were promoted to League 1. They then found their ways into the Premier League in 2016 (the same year he began his ownership of the club), and they’ve never looked back since.
In horse racing, he’s owned Grade/Group 1 winners with many trainers, and his top successes include PENHILL in 2018, WITHHOLD in 2017, ENERGUMENE countless times, LAKE FOREST down under in 2024, and PONIROS at this year’s Cheltenham Festival.
But, away from this, one thing he is definitely known for his love for betting, of that there is no doubt.
He’s a poker player and general sports gambler, and any time he is seen on ITV Racing, the questions invariably turn to ‘so, how much did you have on?’
Not enough on PONIROS anyway lmao.
Yesterday, an article was released by The Times that had the title: Nigel Farage aide fronted by Tony Bloom’s £600m betting syndicate, court told.
What is the crux of the story? Well, long story short, owed to a former colleague effectively chasing Bloom for A LOT of money, details about Blooms operations are finally being released having for a long time be concealed by a sort of gambling omerta between it’s shareholders.
Bloom owns the Tony Bloom Betting Syndicate, and the syndicate has been betting on football matches (we all knew this). But details as to how they get the bets on have been revealed. One man who has had dealings the Tony Bloom Betting Syndicate is George Cottrell, Farage’s former right-hand man, who was jailed for eight months in 2017 for money laundering in the US. ‘Posh George’ is also allegedly on the US blacklist of people not allowed back in the country, though this is not confirmed.
George’s background is interesting, his uncle is Lord Hesketh. You night recognise the name Hesketh if you’re a F1 fan - he owned the team James Hunt was driver for in thw 70’s. Coming from an aristocratic family, he attended Malvern College but was soon expelled for gambling…lol!
In a court claim filed at London’s High Court by Ryan Dudfield, a former employee of Starlizard (a betting advisory company owned by Bloom), the Brighton owner has apparently been using Cottrell and his offshore gaming accounts such as Stake (think Frankie Dettori) and Tether.bet “to place bets on sporting fixtures, predominantly football matches”.
According to the claim, Cottrell coordinates tether.bet, which is an offshore sports and casino betting business that has allegedly been the business that Bloom’s syndicate has placed bets with in the past.
It’s a long article on The Times full of detail we as gamblers king of already guessed would happen but to now know they all bet offshore. They can’t get that size on in this country. It’s the same for racing gambler Veitch (who funnily enough sources horse for Bloom) who has been forced to turn to the pools in Japan to get bets on.
We suppose the key takeaway is that most of his action is apparently, according to The Times, offshore through various guises. And the syndicate allegedly rakes in £600 million profit a year!
What could Bloom be in trouble for here? Well, it’s nothing that serious to our eye (as it’s not illegal to gamble offshore), but it would be surrounding the potential betting on Premier League games as that would breach the special dispensation that the FA allowed him in 2014. Of course, Bloom’s lawyers will decline this profusely when he decides to start his defence. But, yes, if you didn’t know already, Bloom likes a bet, and he does it on a large scale. With the amount of money that he gambles, he doesn’t exactly have a few bet365 accounts lying about that can accommodate his wagers.
RISK ON
A goo day yesterday with a couple landing and our standout stats section hitting 2 from 2.
Today we like the bumper horse plus the following:
12.20 BATHGATE
Short so not a single but add to another, maybe HARRY LOWES in the 13.20. Double these two. Standard stake.
13.40 LIMERICK LASS
Backing a drifter here but she looked good in her point. She has a lovely pedigree. Nicholls’ is fave (yard have won this before) but she looks one for chasing, making Honeyballs the bet. 3/1 standard single.
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