John Arnold: A day at the races... but using AI to select bets lost me €60!
A warning of a possible Doomsday scenario in relation to AI came just last week from an unlikely source.
Two years ago, Geoffrey Hinton won a Nobel Prize for Physics for his pioneering work on ‘learning machines to think’. Indeed, many regard Hinton as the real ‘founder’ of AI. But lately he has come out basically regretting the ‘monster he has created’.
I know because after a recent day’s racing ‘guided’ by AI tips, I am €60 worse off!
Six races I backed - €2.50 each way on two horses in every race - so a nice even €10 a race, and absolutely nothing in return!
In fairness, I had a wonderful day out enjoying ‘the sport of kings’ in the company of the plain people of Ireland. My recent venture at a National Hunt meeting was in the picturesque setting of Kilbeggan in Co. Westmeath.
It all began long, long away from the little town where they started making whiskey in 1757 and started racing horses in 1840. What, you may well ask, have Kilbeggan races and Lourdes in common? The answer is one man - Dr Jerry O’Flynn.
A Kilworth native, Jerry was in school in Fermoy but a few years behind me. He followed in his father Sean’s footsteps in becoming a Medical Doctor - and a good one too.
I only met ‘The Doc’, Dr Sean O’Flynn, a few times but the stories I’ve heard about him are legendary. Back in the 1950s, he was one of the founders of the Cloyne Diocesan Pilgrimage to Lourdes. Thereafter, he travelled annually with the pilgrimage, serving the medical needs of the assisted pilgrims. For decades he excelled in this vital work - indeed, many would claim it was the vision and foresight of Dr Sean that made the pilgrimage the outstanding success it has become.
His own practise is based in that lovely Westmeath town of Kilbeggan - where, apparently, in ancient times St Beacan had his little ‘Cill’ or Church - Cill Beacan.
A very ecumenical sportsman, Dr Jerry has served for years as the Westmeath GAA doctor with the Lake County’s teams.
This year, when we were in Lourdes, the Westmeath team-Leinster champions - were playing an All Ireland series game. Dr Jerry travelled with us but was so nervous on the day of the big game - good job I didn’t need an injection that day!
Dr Jerry has been Honorary Medical Officer for the Kilbeggan races with years, and on several occasions has invited me to a day’s racing at his local track. Kilbeggan stages around ten meetings each year - from the end of April until early September.
I’m not a huge race-goer. but love the atmosphere and craic at meetings like Listowel, the Junction, or Thurles, and of course Mallow.
Well, about two weeks ago, Denis Burns, retired muinteoir and former Cork and St Finbarr’s hurler, rang and said would I travel to Kilbeggan with him! ‘Yes’, says I immediately, delighted at such a prospect.
He told me that at the Friday meeting in early September, a horse he had ‘an interest in’, Adaliz, was running. The first race wasn’t off ’til after 4pm but we headed off from Rathcormac at 11am.
Travelling to somewhere on time with good conversation shortens the journey. We were parked in the Midlands town by 1pm.
Looking for a coffee, we enquired in a drapery shop. The lady behind the counter, hearing our accents, declared she had two brothers-in-law ‘down South’ - both live only a few miles from me.
After imbibing the required sustenance in JuliMay’s, we headed the mile out to the racecourse. Talk about rural tranquillity and far from the madding crowd and all that - well, truly this was it.
Set virtually ‘in the middle of nowhere’, Kilbeggan racecourse has a lovely and apt motto, ‘The Heart of Ireland - The Soul of Racing’.
Dr Jerry’s generosity meant we didn’t have to put our hands in our pockets - except for the Tote and the bookies! Yes, on our day at Kilbeggan we were ‘fed and found’.
There was a fine crowd present with a kind of carnival atmosphere - a bit like a Munster Final, All Ireland Ploughing and a country meitheail.
Not long inside the course, I had a brief chaat ‘as Gaeilge’ with the TV traveller Hector Ó hEochagáin. My son Brian, working on the broadcasting on Kilbeggan, told me Hector might have a runner.
Fool that I was, I never latched onto the ‘We Win Farming Syndicate’ (Hector’s group). Their Minella Cyclone won the first race at a whopping 16-1.
My friend Denis had fed all the different newspapers’ tipsters, ‘Best Bets’ and ‘Should Win Today’ horses into the aforementioned AI. The new thinking brain of the world issued a list of ‘Most Likely To Win in Kilbeggan’ nags.
Being of a very scientific and calculating type, I followed this list assiduously for the six races we saw. My €60 investment on the Tote yielded a total of zilch.
I met heaps of lovely people - mad anxious to chat - and all were loud in praise of the way Kilbeggan has been continuously improving and upgrading its facilities.
I spotted former Agriculture Minister turned bookmaker turned radio presenter Ivan Yates. I had a chat with Colman Sweeney – my fourth cousin, who twice won the Cheltenham Foxhunter’s Chase on Salsify in 2012 and 2013. Colman now works with the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board.
Dr Jerry gave us a quick history of Kilbeggan and plans to utilise the facilities all year round. Denis’s horse Aldiz, trained by Henry de Bromhead, ran a superb race in the Sean Hughes Memorial Handicap Hurdle.
Leading over the last, Darragh O’Keeffe was brilliant in the saddle but in a tight finish Aldiz came in fourth.
A ‘pot’ of €1,250 for fourth is better than the prize money for winning a lot of races in England.
From my home parish, Eileen O’Connor’s Cappa Hill ran in the sixth race.
We had a really enjoyable day in Kilbeggan and as we headed southwards and Denis prepares for his 21st outing, I vowed I’d be back in the heart of Ireland again to experience the true soul of Irish racing.
App?
