Racing: Passionate punter loves the thrill of it

Damion Flower was changing a flat tyre on his car in Parramatta when we spoke to him on Thursday.

"I hope this isn't an omen," said the larger-than-life owner of today's A$3 million Golden Slipper Stakes favourite Snitzel.

You get the impression Flower takes only the minimum of life seriously and then he takes that bit very seriously. Like his punting.

But that attitude is perhaps typical of someone who was nearly killed in a car accident at age 17.

"I was run over by a car. I grazed my face on the road so badly one of my mates reckoned it looked like a snitzel, that's how I got my nickname and that's how I named this horse."

Flower, now 32, was told he'd be lucky to walk after the accident.

"I was Australian champion surfer at the time and I had to prove them wrong, so I worked hard in the gym and became a personal trainer, mainly to women and boxers."

But horse racing was his first love.

"I don't know any music because I never heard any when I was growing up. The radio was always on the races - my dad was a racing fanatic and loved a bet."

So does this generation of the Flower family. He admits to winning half a million dollars off the bookies nationwide when Snitzel made a winning debut in the Breeders Plate at Warwick Farm back in the spring.

Flower met Snitzel's Sydney trainer Gerald Ryan when the latter advertised shares in four yearlings. Flower inspected the quartet in the paddock, picked out a chestnut colt with a slightly dodgy leg and took a quarter share for not a lot of money.

The colt was Clangalang, who took an AJC Derby-Epsom Handicap double and banked A$2.2 million.

He went solo this time, outlaying A$260,000 for Snitzel. Gerald Ryan tried to steer Flower into another colt at the Queensland Magic Million sales, but Flower was adamant he wanted Snitzel. The other colt is Stratum, the horse Snitzel has to beat at Rosehill this afternoon.

Flower describes himself as a professional punter these days.

"My wife and I had been buying houses, renovating them, then selling them on. We still do a bit of that, but punting is my lurk. I've got all the software on my computer."

The Herald asked Gerald Ryan a month ago if there was any pressure aiming Snitzel towards the Slipper. "Yes," he said, "the owner - he's liable to have A$200,000 on him just for fun when he goes to the races."

Flower was totally unfazed when Snitzel drew a horror No 12 barrier at Tuesday's Slipper draw.

"The wider out he is, the better the price will be."

Mark Morrisey, chief odds setter for leading bookmaker Colin Tidy, believes rain in Sydney on Thursday and the prediction of continuing showers, has turned the disadvantage of a wide draw into an advantage.

"Jockeys will be getting away from the rail with the rain and the horses wider out will have the edge. Being when Snitzel is will be ideal."

Flower is unfazed by the rain. "His mother Snippet's Lass loved the mud - all Snippets horses do. But I wouldn't like to see a bog, anything could happen then. I think the track will be dead and he'll relish that."

When you are picking up a couple of million dollars if successful, most punters would not bother backing their own horse in a race like the Golden Slipper. Flower is not one of them.

He has already had two sizeable bets on his colt, the first each way at $5.50 and more recently he had A$50,000 on with Mark Morrisey at $4.

He tells people that might not understand that the bets are for his staff. He actually doesn't have staff.

It's satisfying an itch he just loves scratching.