Don the Astrologer

Craig Shearer - 27 May 2024

Forgive me this short item, as it’s been a pretty busy weekend. I had good intentions, but today my wife and I decided that we needed some more shelving space in our garage. I’d mentioned putting in another shelf below one that I had already installed some time ago, but she managed to convince me that it would be better to extend the Elfa wire rack system that we already have in our garage. What was intended to be a half hour job turned into a couple of visits to Mitre 10, and several hours of moving stuff around and installing everything. Still, we’re very pleased with the result and we now have considerably more space to store various garage essentials.

While travelling to Mitre 10, I caught up on this weekend’s episode of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, and listened to Evan talking about financial astrology. This reminded me of our own local astrologer, Don Murray.

I don’t think we’ve covered Don before, but he’s certainly had some interaction with NZ Skeptics in the past, most notably posting onto our Facebook page promoting his horse racing system, and wanting to be involved in our $100,000 challenge.

Don’s been around for some time. He has his own website, which seems to be built in the style of Geocities, looking like it’s back from the late 90’s (and probably is). But, we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Don is a prolific astrologer, with a particular interest in the NZ horse racing industry. He claims to have a “Champion Racing System” that is very successful at making money at the TAB. A page on his website claims to show statistics of his success at the TAB over the years, with $100 deposited into a TAB account returning quite good results. Of course, there’s no actual proof that his numbers are real, but he is selling his system if you want to take him up on it - no price on his website, but you’re welcome to give him a call!

Interestingly, he’s claiming the following statistics:

_Since 2019: 22 investments, 8 wins

Average win div $12.42 on a 36% winning strike rate ( Investment $1=$4.51 )

Since 2011: 133 investments, 37 wins

Average win div $8.60 on a 27% winning strike rate ( Investment $1 = $2.39 )

Since 2000: 757 investments, 253 wins.

Average win $4.03 on a 33 % winning strike rate ( Investment $1 = $1.34 )_

Now, this puzzles me a bit. If his claims are real, it would seem that the bigger the time window for checking his results, the lower his average return is. Looking at his claim of a 34% return since 2000, you could have done better by simply putting your money into a savings account!

Anyway, according to Don:

“I am using a scientific, Astrological system which identifies pleasant surprises for horse trainers and jockeys on certain dates. If they line up, there’s frequently an unexpected success and a nice dividend. And I don’t make anything unless we get a winner.”

The biggest question anybody should have about Don’s horse racing system is if it’s so successful and predictable, why isn’t Don rich beyond his wildest dreams? Why is he selling the system to others instead of just using it to make a killing at the races?

This is a key characteristic of many a con - convincing others that you have a system that makes the money for you, and that it’s worth buying from them.

Don does seem to be a bit of a classic astrologer, with predictions based around the alignment of planets and their interactions with people’s birth dates, giving vague warnings of problems that may befall them.

Don’s system, without having reviewed it, but reading between the lines in his “about” page, seems to be based on predicting the success of horse jockeys based on their birth dates, and the current position of the sun and moon and the planets. Astrology, of course, is implausible, with the classic note that the gravitational pull of everything around us has much greater effect than any planetary position could possibly have!

Don’s been in trouble with the racing industry in the past, when he received a letter from lawyers for the New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing organisation back in 2010.

Don, as featured in the Stuff article back in 2010

If you visit Don’s site, he doesn’t just write about racing predictions, but also about the lives of people involved in the industry - airing their dirty laundry. His website reminds me of listening to a raconteur in a pub talking gossip, with a bit of name-dropping thrown in.

His latest post contains such tasteful gems such as:

“Also lesser-known Capricorn Cathy, formerly of Matamata. Her jockey husband suffered a career-ending injury, with wheelchair possibilities, so Capricorn Cathy left him and their 2 kids for a new life in Auckland’s sex worker industry.”

Now I have no idea who “Capricorn Cathy” is, but this does seem to be Don’s style, perhaps to keep up the interest in his site.

Don’s got a Facebook page, and a Twitter (X.com) profile. He seems to be most prolific on Facebook, but had a brief dalliance with Twitter early last year, posting various supposed “predictions” and linking back to his site’s News page. Unfortunately he seems to regularly update his News page, so old predictions have disappeared.

Don does seem to be quite a character, and feels like a small-time operator with a big ego. While his claims are big, there’s really no actual evidence of his success available. Apparently, he was a regular on Newstalk ZB for a number of years, and wrote for various newspapers, and also the Friday Flash - a favourite of people who like to bet on horses.

If you’re willing to part with $37, you can purchase his book: Astrology - The Proof. I get the feeling it’s likely to be a ramble filled with post-hoc retrodictions and justifications that try to shoehorn events in people’s lives into a framework of astrology - picking particular planetary movements that supposedly suit the event he’s trying to explain.

The bottom line is that Don claims to have made successful predictions, but really isn’t presenting any proof of that. Give us a single solid prediction - something that is not likely to happen - and then we’ll be impressed!

Finally, I struggle to understand the appeal of betting on horses. As W.C. Fields said: “Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.” 🙂