A FEW years ago before the Cambridgeshire and Arc weekend — which starts today— my ex-bookie friend Walter and I agreed to become partners in a few bets. I was going abroad so I wouldn't be there for the races.

We picked out three each-way shots for the Cambridgeshire and, for the Arc, a filly called My Emma, with whom I had conducted something of a love affair all season even if Walter's interest in her was, as usual, purely a matter of commercial ruthlessness.

I went away, came back, looked up the results and saw that we had been destroyed on all fronts. Nowhere. All of them. I met Walter and began commiserating with him as a fellow loser only for him to say: “Yeah, shame about your bets, Jon. I won on both of them actually.”

It turned out there had been a humungous gamble on a horse called Pasternak and that Walter had happily joined in while still placing my bets on the longshots. It also turned out that there had been warnings that My Emma might not even have run in the Arc because of injury concerns, and that Walter had switched his bet to the winner while keeping my bet on.

In other words, it was a total betrayal and I told him that I would exact a severe level of revenge at some future point when he least expected it. This still holds true, if only I knew where he was.

In this year’s Cambridgeshire, the horses being backed are Ashkal Way, the 8-1 favourite, Blue Monday and Pedrillo, last year’s favourite who then ran no sort of race. I can’t back Pedrillo because he shares the same trainer as Pasternak and it brings back too many bad memories.

Ashkal Way is an interesting horse — relatively unexposed and with peripheral connections known to like a betting tilt. The money is on. Ashkal Way is one case where it might pay to follow it.

In the Arc everything seems set up for the favourite, Hurricane Run, including having Kieren Fallon as a pilot (as does Ashkal Way). The bookies fear a Hurricane Run victory as there has been steady money for him for several months, although the improving filly, Shawanda, has been backed.

I will wait to see how these two are behaving in the paddock. In the meantime, a couple of quid on Norse Dancer to place. I don’t think it overly likely, but it is more likely than the 66-1 on offer.

It is a big weekend for boxing in Las Vegas, with the Roy Jones Jr versus Antonio Tarver light-heavyweight bout. Tarver is the favourite, having crushed Jones in two rounds the last time.

Jones Jr is not so junior any more, being in his late thirties. There are too many boxers going on that long and it will only increase injuries.

Last week Leavander Johnson, an American boxer aged 35, died defending his lightweight title for his first big purse, of $150,000. I will not be betting on the Jones bout even though there is a possible scenario in which he rekindles the glory days by cordoning off the chin department.

A better boxing bet, if some time off, is the Jermain Taylor versus Bernard Hopkins world middleweight title rematch on December 4. Taylor tired badly on his way to a controversial decision last time, but that may have been down to the emotion of taking a massive step up in class. He survived it, however, and the relish with which he has accepted a rematch suggests he thinks he has Hopkins’s number. Taylor is the outsider with Stan James at 11-10, and that price may not last.

Years ago, when I was haunting some Ladbrokes with Walter and also scuffling ineptly as an amateur boxer, he used to urge me to turn pro, with him as my manager.

Remembering this ludicrous proposition, I have often joked that he would have got me killed. In light of Leavander Johnson, I don’t think I’ll say that any more as, thinking about it, even $150,000 is not much for a life.

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