Ayr Scottish Grand National - 12/4/25 - All The Young Dudes

A delay in getting this out nearly as long as watching Amazon Prime stream via a 1980s copper wire. It's still half time on the telly as I start this but PSG might've scored 5 already.

Kevin stepped in as Simon made his debut at Thirsk. More on that around race 6...

We pitched in down at the bongos (old Silver Ring and now car park 363 days of the year, 364 in a leap year). No Beatles tribute band this year for the first time since Red Rum did the double, I almost missed Twist and Shout every 3rd song. Almost.

It's the busiest meeting in Scotland as a rule and the unseasonably hot/not freezing weather ensured a sell out crowd and healthy turnover from the youngest crowd of the season. A sea of blue suits, no socks and stilettos- often on the same person. Could we cash in whilst simultaneously checking IDs on every other bet?

1) Western Diego for the max, Tommy's Oscar for a bit and we got off to a monster start as the best winner in the book, by some distance, The Other Mozzie, won, if not by a distance, by enough. The card machine was getting some hammer but the payout sheet was delightfully brief.

2) Top two in for modest amounts. The big winners were mid market but a decent enough win on the outsider of 7, Masaccio. 7 runners which is in our favour place wise to start with and the best two place results in the book gave us another 50% of the win book on top.

3) Another Mullins bogey (or two as it turned out) on Bunting for the darts fans and Ethical Diamond for responsibly sourced jewelry aficionados. We suspect more of the former than the latter but either way neither ever looked the winner and we hit another massive result with the sweet, sweet music of Cracking Rhapsody. Places good again overall despite Ooh Betty doing a minor whoopsie in the CairnBet beret.

4) See what happens? We get all carried away and we get done on a relative outsider. Albeit a relatively smashed up outsider. The Lord Maid set us back as a small part of the profit was taketh away.

5) After last week's Aintree Grand National, we had the 2nd busiest betting heat of the year with this week's Scottish version of the marathon. Betting was very brisk and, like last week, we hoped we'd cash in. 3 clear but the worst of the lot (though still a small winner) Captain Cody was cruising coming to the last. Klarc Kent was a genuine jackpot and absolutely pinged the last as Cody demonstrably didn't and for a few strides, just a few, we thought we'd repeated last week's trick. False optimism was our Kryptonite however and there was enough time for our hearts to be broken with the small comfort of a ridiculously good place book and, whilst there was a nice move forward, it wasn't faster than a speeding bullet. Though that might've been a different superhero.

6) 5 runners followed 23 and the drop off in turnover was suitably large. Another Mullins runner on the loss side of the ledger but the winner was barely on the profit side though clearly better than Jump Allen in 2nd. 7) A combination of a lump and a few doubles meant that the expected one horse book on the short priced favourite turned into a one loser book (The Jukebox Kid) and we had a decent win on the outsider of 3, Gale Mahler where the patented CairnBet bingo/stand what you take book dodged a bullet as we often only have the shortie ending up onside. It was around this time that the first Simon text pinged in from Thirsk. "I've messed up the pick lads, I might as well go home now". Though he may not have quite used the expression "messed up". Turned out he could've gone frontline and, inexplicably, stood on the 2nd line directly behind the gap in the front line that he could've filled. Steve opined there must've been a reason. If there was we're still to ascertain what it was. What we lost in business we've more than made up for in comedy material since.

8) Sutherland the inevitable bogey with the slightly more surprising Kalkbrenner and we ended up with a half decent win on jolly Dysart Dolomite though the jackpot, Spreadsheet Guru, briefly Excel-led expectations in running and we thought we'd (auto)summed up a massive one to finish. We didn't...

So that's it. Apart from a little insight into the infantile world of the CairnBet WhatsApp group following Simon's disastrous 2nd line adventure at Thirsk. Enjoy...