IF SHERLOCK HAD BEEN A TIPSTER

Rolf Johnson blasts ‘after thinkers’ - but sees the logic in Daryz Arc glory

- Rolf Johnson

Sherlock Holmes didn’t do ‘after timing’: the world’s most famous detective was always ahead of the game; the police plodded on. Observation, logic, science, deduction, Holmes sharpened his tools, courtesy of his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Surely Sherlock would have made money backing horses. Instead he exercised his over-sized brain sleuthing.

Indeed, racing was a gap in Holmes's cv. (The original 'Brigadier Gerard' was another Conan Doyle character). Holmes' verdict on horses: "Dangerous at both ends and crafty in the middle."

Yet Conan Doyle considered the mystery of abducted racehorse Silver Blaze (1892) among the best-loved of his 60 or so Holmes cases.

We're not talking Shergar here (where was Holmes when we needed him?) but from the Silver Blaze tale came the famous line, “The curious incident of the dog who didn’t bark in the night.” The missing horse is favourite for a big race; his trainer has been murdered. The supersleuth is on the case.

Hapless copper: "The dog did nothing."

Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

The plot of Silver Blaze had a betting angle - as if Holmes would leave anything to chance! More’s the pity Conan Doyle never got to grips with the betting world - “The Unlucky Gambler” was about boxing. He could have made Holmes “the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen” - the Barney Curley of the 19th century: “Elementary my dear Watson.” But when Sherlock says: “The clever forecast of coming events, the triumphant vindication of bold theories - are these not the pride and the justification of our life’s work?” he might have been referring to his betting account...but he wasn’t.