The big-punting Mike Futter believes Saturday’s Grand National is between four horses — Hedgehunter, Clan Royal, Amberleigh House and his own Monty’s Pass — and such is his record in the race that each of them will have a huge following on the day.
Two years ago the bingo hall proprietor, who lives in Northern Ireland, became Mr Grand National in the eyes of many punters when he landed one of the biggest gambles in the long history of the race, collecting more than £800,000 in a series of bets at long odds. Last year he recommended three horses — Hedgehunter, Monty’s Pass and Spot Thedifference — to his friends and told them to back the trio each-way. Two were placed at 20-1 and 50-1 to show another handsome profit.
Futter has made a fortune by basing his gambling on equal measures of logic, mathematical probability and sheer bravado. In the past few weeks he has been whittling down the 40-runner field. “Seven-year-olds don’t win the National and nor do French horses. At least a third of the field will be carrying more than 11st and no winner of the race has carried that much in the past 20 years. I don’t give an earthly to any horse that ran at Cheltenham and the race is suited to horses that have run well over the track. I recommend taking those four horses and mixing some tricasts with the bets.”
Futter cuts an unmistakeable figure on the racecourse with a beard and flowing white hair. His hefty flutters have made him a headline writer’s dream but he actually pronounces his name “footer”. Brought up in Blackpool where his father sold electrical fittings and worked in the jewellery trade, he reckons he inherited his gambling instincts from his grandfather, who was the star turn on the snooker tables at the town’s Lung Club, a basement establishment where the members bet on the games.
Futter frequently skipped school to watch and when he finished his education, instead of taking a job, he spent three years playing roulette. He devised a modest staking plan that would guarantee him an income of £20 a day.
An SOS from a friend running a short-staffed bingo club in Manchester jolted him out of his comfortable, if unambitious, existence. It was the first of two life-changing moments. “I was asked to give a hand and the moment I walked through the door and took in the atmosphere I thought, ‘This is for me.’ I was soon running my own club in Bootle and I expanded from there.”
Expansion took him to Belfast in the late 1960s at the height of the Troubles. “All my friends said I was mad, and that they wouldn’t go there for any money.” He opened a small club in Smithfield Square and knew he had made the right move when he took £1,000 on the first day. The only problem was that bingo was illegal. Eventually he met Chris Patten, sat down with him in Stormont and persuaded the politician, a parliamentary under-secretary in the Northern Ireland Office from 1983-85, that the gambling laws should be changed.
Today Futter’s Planet Bingo Group has seven clubs in the province and three in Dublin. The latter were in rented accommodation until recently when he paid €10.5m to buy the freeholds, borrowing much of the money. “It’s the biggest gamble I’ve ever taken but I’m now going to roll out more clubs in the Republic.”
A chance visit to a point-to-point in Tyrella in Co Down not long after moving to Ulster sparked off his racing activities. “It was just like going into that bingo hall for the first time. I loved it and I was immediately bitten by the bug.”
He spent three years perfecting a system that was to earn him £30,000 a year, paying for the many holidays he takes. Fundamental to the system is that most point-to-points are run over the same distance and most of the horses carry the same weight. Futter gives them ratings based on the type of races they have won, then backs the highest rated.
More recently he has switched his attentions to the racecourse proper, not least because he owns a dozen horses, usually in partnerships. The Monty’s Pass gamble of 2003 began five months before the race when Sunderlands offered him 66-1 but refused to accept more than a tenth of his £2,000 each-way. When the weights were issued he backed the horse with all the big firms and his total stake was £40,000.
What struck television viewers was his serenity. Whereas the rest of the Dee Racing Syndicate were noisily raising their arms in triumph, Futter strolled into the hallowed Aintree winners’ enclosure as if he had been there all his life and said only: “A plan well executed, worked to perfection, a dream come true. That’s about it.”
Two years on, he says: “I never get very excited but there is an immense feeling of satisfaction, particularly that time because I had told all the people in my bingo halls to back the horse.” Futter maintains he is almost as phlegmatic when he loses and denies that his wife, Janet, and their three daughters find him difficult to live with, although he sometimes refuses to talk to anybody.
He doesn’t always win. On Monday he backed his own What Odds to win £500,000 in the Irish National. The horse finished eighth.
Cheltenham was even worse. “I did everything wrong and I left the place crying. In the Kim Muir I backed Pearly Jack to win over £150,000 and he was brought down at the third-last fence. Missed That in the next was my bet of the meeting but I was so annoyed that I didn’t go into the ring. I was even more annoyed when the horse won.”
A key to his success is his belief in making the most of things when luck is on his side. “What I do is the exact reverse of the way professional gamblers operate but my philosophy is to push on when you are winning. If you collect on the first two races, make sure you go home with 10 per cent of that but play up the other 90 per cent. If you are losing, reduce your stakes. Never try to chase your losses. I used to have a golden rule that if I was ever down £5,000 in a day I would walk away. Two years ago I increased that to 20 grand.”
He has backed Monty’s Pass — “I was going to wait until the day but Boylesports offered me 40-1 and I just had to play” — but the 3lb rise in the weights worries Futter. “The horse is probably in the best shape he has been in since he won two years ago but 11st 6lb is going to make it very hard. Also he has to have the ground on top and the sun on his back. If it comes up soft, I make the race between Clan Royal and Hedgehunter. I’m leaning more towards the latter now that Ruby Walsh is on him.”
It could be another famous flutter for the man who has rewritten the rules of gambling and made them pay.
