THIS is the brilliant moment a CEO admits ‘I’m meant to be at work’ after being caught pulling a sickie to watch his horse run.
Punters were absolutely loving Martin Tedham’s honesty after he came clean about bunking off to celebrate a £6,500 winner.
Racing fanatic Tedham is boss at Wasdell Group, a Europe-wide business who supply packaging for goods in the pharmaceutical industry.
But he ducked out from his desk for a day to watch his runner Zabeel Champion win at Leicester under jockey Nick Scholfield.
Tedham said the four-year-old gelding’s trainer Jonjo O’Neill convinced him to ditch work because he knew the horse would win.
Zabeel Champion went onto score a decent cheque with a narrow victory over 4-5 favourite Lydford in the 1m7½f hurdle contest.
Blowing his cover on Racing TV, Tedham admitted: “I shouldn’t be on television today because I’m meant to be at work!
“I told them I was sick, and not going to the races to watch my horse!
“When Jonjo phoned me up on Sunday and said we need to go to the races on Monday, I said ‘I might be working, Jonjo’.
“He said, ‘Martin, we need to go to the races’.
“I told everybody we’d be on for a good day today, so I’m very, very pleased.
“Nick is the godfather to my children and he told them we need another horse – we bought it for him.”
Turns out smart Zabeel Champion has been a very decent horse for connections.
From 15 races he has brought in £112,182 in earnings.
And he was mightily impressive making his debut over obstacles on his first run for O’Neill after being moved from Mark Johnston’s yard.
But it seemed punters were more concerned with Tedham’s brilliant reaction to victory – and his honesty in admitted he had skived off.
One wrote on Twitter in reply to the clip: “What a lovely owner Martin is and Jonjo is a legend. Well done lads.”
Another commented: “We’re all Martin aren’t we?”
While a fellow punter commented: “Martin is a hero.”
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