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Trodmore Racecourse

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Trodmore Racecourse was the name of a fictitious racecourse, supposedly in Cornwall. On August 1, 1898, it was the subject of a punting scam.

It is said that a man named Mr. Martin contacted the offices of a leading newspaper, The Sportsman, to inform them of a horse racing meeting he was holding the following day in the village of Trodmore. They were so impressed with the quality of the racecard that they promised to publish the runners, riders and results. Punters placed bets with several bookmakers, and collected as usual as results came through.

Everything seemed to be going to plan until another leading newspaper, The Sporting Life, noticed that they had not been informed. They did not want to be left out, so they copied the results 24 hours later. However, there was a slight, but important, difference in the sets of results. One winning horse was given at 5-1 in the Sportsman, but at only 5-2 in the Sporting Life. This detail needed to be checked so they tried to contact the racecourse.

When they could not be contacted, a fraud investigation got under way. Trodmore was nowhere to be found on any map of Cornwall.

Nobody was ever caught for the scam and it remains a mystery to this day.

References

  • "Top 25 most outrageous gambles - 9. MINISTRY OF DISINFORMATION". TotalGambler.
  • Fixed? Horseracing.(Is racing corrupt?) Economist (US), The, March, 2004
  • Jon Henderson (8 July 2001). "The 10 greatest cheats in sporting history". The Observer.

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