Paddy Orr

I'm from Blackrock, Co Dublin and my father was a bookmaker, so I started going racing with my dad when I was about 14 or 15. Watching racing with my dad, and coming home and getting the results on the radio sparked my interest in racing. I was on the box giving tickets to punters and helping to pay out if I could. I clerked for him from a very young age. I used to do a lot of point-to-pointing with my dad, which I absolutely loved, around the country especially around the south-east. That took me to working for several bookmakers along the way.

When I first started going racing with my dad, I was a boy scout near Blackrock. In those days, I went off with the scouts for two weeks to Riverstown, Co Cork and you obviously got your few pound from your father going off. At the end of the first week, my 'readies' had gone. There were no mobile phones, so on the old phone box I got through to my dad and I said he had to send me down some money for the second week. Lo and behold the next day outside the campsite in Riverstown, a chauffeur-driven car pulled up and a man got out and came into the field and said 'your dad sent that down to you'. It was Joe Donnelly (current owner of State Man) when he was an on-course bookmaker, and we had a good laugh about it on Sunday in Leopardstown (at the Dublin Racing Festival). Joe never forgets it to this day.

It wasn't just horse racing for me back in the day. I left school in 1978 and I went to the College of Commerce in Rathmines. I clerked six nights a week at the greyhounds - three nights at Harold's Cross and three at Shelbourne. The wages were £7. There were days where I was clerking at the horses in Phoenix Park or Leopardstown by day and straight down to Shelbourne in the evening. Fabulous times. You had unbelievable punters in Shelbourne Park in those days like Tim O'Toole. There were huge bets taken there. My father-in-law was the legendary greyhound trainer Gay McKenna, I married his daughter Gay. My best memory at the dogs when I was clerking there, was when we fancied ourselves as judges and we picked out Suir Miller for the Derby (in 1980). We kept backing it every week and got a right touch out of it! We backed it at 33/1 and other prices, but it finished up the outsider in trap six on the night of the final. I was working that night and we went out and celebrated.

I worked in a private suite at the Cheltenham Festival clerking for Brian Graham, the late Sean Graham's son, the first year that See You Then won the Champion Hurdle in 1985. It was Nicky Henderson's first winner at Cheltenham. The previous year See You Then had been second in the Triumph Hurdle to Northern Game and went on to win three Champion Hurdles. The favourite that year was a horse called Brownes Gazette and it whipped around at the start and See You Then won its first Champion Hurdle. John Francome got injured and Steve Smith Eccles came in for the ride which he kept for the next two Champion Hurdles. In the box that day, and the next few years, was Terry Ramsden, a big punter at the time.

Then the Sunday racing came in and that led me going to work for William Hill. There was no Sunday racing in England at the time and they wanted to see what was happening in Ireland. I was employed in that role for William Hill, for their head office, shortening horses for them if they wanted that done. Bear in mind there was no Betfair or exchanges around that time. They liked to know what was going on because they had a lot of punters who bet on Irish racing with them. I had to give up the point-to-points and started doing that on Sundays. I became full-time with them going around the country.

I had a spell with Mecca Bookmakers in betting shops and also had time with Stanley Racing. I worked for Sean Graham in Middle Abbey Street and Eden Quay in Dublin back in the day. I stood on course representing Sean Graham when he died (in 1986) until his sons Sean and Brian were old enough to take over. When I was standing for the Grahams at Punchestown, a horse called Carvill's Hill ran in the bumper in 1987. That particular day Jim Dreaper trained him to win the bumper and John Fowler rode him. He was 7/4 and on instruction from head office I laid a punter 70,000 to 40,000 which was an astronomical bet at the time. That was my memory of Carvills Hill winning his first race. It was on instruction, that was the most important thing! He went on to be trained in England by Martin Pipe and won the Welsh National at Chepstow.

I stopped the dogs in 1987, two years before I got married. I was married in 1989 and our first house was built by Bernie Carroll (owner of Numbersixvalverde who won the Grand National in 2006). My wife's favourite jockey was Mick Kinane and he was riding Carroll House in the Arc in 1989. I said to her about Carroll House because of Kinane and Bernie Carroll building our house. She asked me to put a fiver on at 25/1, which I didn't do. Of course, he won and I had to find £130 to keep the marriage going!

Then I started with SIS (Satellite Information Services) in 1990 and I'm the longest serving on-course representative of SIS (rebranded as Sports Information Services Ltd in 2017) throughout Ireland and the UK. Along the way there was fierce rivalry with the PA (Press Association). In the infancy of SIS, it became PA v SIS and I was at the Derby one Sunday and the favourite was returned at two different prices - one by the PA and one by SIS. That was the end of two starting prices. When I started, we had a notebook and pen in the betting ring. You would get the starting prices down the card and relay it on a walkie talkie to someone on the racecourse and then to head office. Now it is completely different because we have the computers doing it now. I had to go with the times and I enjoyed both ways. We got soaked back in the day, but we had great camaraderie. Sometimes you used two or three racecards because of the rain. Now we are spoiled with heaters! It has definitely changed since being behind closed doors (during Covid-19) as the off-course have a much bigger input into the SPs.

I remember my boss was over at Punchestown and when Kemboy went by the line (in the Punchestown Gold Cup, 2019) I said 'that's Ruby Walsh retiring' - I knew the way he behaved on the horse. My boss asked how I noticed that and I just said I knew by the way he reacted going by the line. When Ruby did it, nobody was expecting it.

When you are just over 45 years in racing, you have to like it! In all my years, I reckon I have seen the best of Irish racing from my perspective - I've seen the best bookmakers, the best jockeys, the best trainers, horses and strongest betting rings. My two favourite jockeys were Mick Kinane and Pat Eddery. It is a different game now as it is exchange driven. My brother Barry is the PR representative for Betfair and he has been for maybe more than 15 years. Betfair was a game changer.

I remember working in Tipperary in 1986 when the news came through that Dawn Run had been killed in the French Champion Hurdle. I was very upset that day as she was a great mare. I was devastated to say the least. The whole country loved her. The recent death of young Jack de Bromhead was the saddest time I encountered in all my years in racing. We don't appreciate the dangers in our end of the industry.

I love my job and I love meeting different people. I love the way I could have the chat with Joe Donnelly at the Dublin Racing Festival. The time in racing has flown by. It is a fantastic game - look at bookmaker Seamus Mulvaney into his eighties and he is going to every race meeting up and down the country. I hope I can go on that long! I'm very appreciative of the life I've had through racing and the nice people I've met along the way. The game has been very good to me.