Aintree Ladies Day Friday 10 April - Letter Never Sent

We start with Thursday. I meant to mention it in that blog but forgot. In my (and my colleagues') defence, festival weeks are really hard. A new bed in digs meant 4 hours sleep, 12 hour days, upwards of 1300 bets, cash up, eat dinner, go to bed, repeat the process the next day. Don't get me wrong, we love them and it's a great job that we all love, but that doesn't stop you falling asleep on the couch about 6 times writing it, and waking up with a start and a page full of whatever key I'd leaned on when I nodded off.

I digress. There was quite the stir in the Twitterati world a week or two ago about a punter who'd lost his winning ticket and it was paid out to someone who found it. Some question also followed about the veracity of the claim it was paid. I wasn't there and I'm not weighing in on the argument either way but I would say that, if a bookmaker claims he's paid a lost ticket and said ticket is then found, that bookmaker ain't going to last long, from a reputational or regulatory point of view.

On Thursday we had a lovely punter called Tony. He had 500 quid on Jango Baie at 11/10 to pick up (SP Evens btw) but he'd lost his ticket. We knew he'd placed the bet, we hadn't paid it and a quick call to our other pitch confirmed they hadn't either. Mistakes happen on our side though, so we said to Tony we were happy it was his bet but we would like to cash up on the night to be 100% sure it hadn't been paid and we'd like to make sure nobody else tried to claim it over the weekend either. Tony was perfectly happy with this situation. The actual process should be that the punter has to wait a month to be paid in these circumstances - we said we'd pay him on Monday assuming no issues over the weekend. I'm writing this blog on Monday and we sent the £1050 today. I've spoken to Tony a number of times over the weekend as I would imagine it was a fairly stressful situation for him also and I wanted to put his mind at rest. This is how it should work and this is how it did. If it had been 50 quid we'd have paid him on the day but any reasonable person would understand we need to be happy before paying a grand out on a no ticket situation. Should that ticket subsequently be submitted, it would be a police matter.

This doesn't make us different or more noble - pretty much every on course bookmaker in the same position would do the identical thing. One dispute somewhere else on Twitter is not the normality in these situations.

We had a situation a few years ago at a Ladies Day with a particularly well lubricated and aggressive gentleman punter. He'd lost his winning ticket and we were happy that we'd struck the bet with him. I can't remember the exact amount but I think it was 40 or 50 quid. We paid him out on the day without requiring him to go through the lost ticket process. A week or so later the "lost" ticket was sent in for a late pay claim - we had kept details of what we'd paid as we thought this was a possible outcome - we advised the punter that we had paid the ticket on the day as lost and that we would be happy to put any subsequent dispute in the hands of the police if he would like to pursue it. We never heard back.

In exactly the same way as the situation above this does not mean that every punter is at it but it does show that this is still very much a trust business and this applies to both sides equally.

Our experience is that virtually everyone on both sides of the on course betting equation behaves fairly and one or two questionable situations does not change this fact.

We'd hacked into Simon's phone to fix his "no tolls" setting - a setting he'd argued "how was he to know" before getting the reply "it's your flipping phone" though, perhaps, with alternative expletives. Either way the trip from Runcorn to Aintree took place in the direct manner and not via Rhyl this time.

Ladies Day was cold. We had one pitch at the West Tip seats and one in the Chair Enclosure. It was cold in both of them. Bitterly at times. Peter next door told us it was because it was an easterly. Repeatedly. Either way it affected the betting and turnover was disappointing compared to the previous year though we believe the Ibiza re-creation round the back was doing a roaring trade. Matthew and Simon were set up on the dream pitch and I am delighted to report that the old stagers on the "quiet" pitch outperformed them by about 20%. No further mention made of this over fish and chips in the evening....

1) The worst possible start as we shoved 4 in for the max and the jolly (in our book at least) Wellington Arch was one of them. Places were kind but it was still a step backwards when we were still nowhere near covering expenses for the week and it was another race ticked off towards that aim. As a footnote, we do constantly get asked why we can't do BOG/5 places etc and, apropos of nothing, Jazzy Matty who we think attracted the biggest off course money, went off 5/1 SP. We were 7s on the off. Therein lieth your answer to the above conundrum

2) Plenty written about what happened here in the race with the sad loss of Gold Dancer. I can offer nothing regarding the circumstances of what happened. For the record, another max loss for us which hardly seemed relevant and thoughts with connections.

3) Finally some respite - we stuck in Sober Glory and Sinnatra and got full reward with a win jackpot on Storming George who stormed, ach, I can't even write that - even my cheese level has limits. Places were absolutely rotten but after the early losses we were relieved that we were back in the game. We even skinned the forecast for 35 quid.

4) Two went miles clear. The two we didn't want. The 3rd loss out of 4 races and we were miles away from covering costs with half the meeting already in the ledger. Spirits were as cold as Pete's constant easterly wind.

5) Top 4 in the betting were top 4 in the race but we managed to eke out a decent win on Will The Wise who beat the inevitable bogey, Madara, who'd killed us at Cheltenham. Places were an absolute dream and more than doubled our win profit. Onwards!

6) Back to earth as Zeus Power gave us another step backwards until we checked the each ways which repaired the win damage and added a half decent chunk on top,

7) Lighted, Lighted, Laafi in tune. If you've not heard Laughing by REM put down whatever you are doing and rectify that error right now. And appreciate the atrocious word play at the start of this paragraph as much as we appreciated a virtual skinner to end proceedings and dig us out of what was looking an increasingly difficult day. Trust the system and all that.

So we're still a grand short of the week's expenses with just a day to go. We could use a result in the National....