It's late and I'm tired and we're still working so the roller coaster ride that is Cheltenham week will be shorter than usual but rather blog a quick summary tonight that a longer one on Sunday when, really, it's yesterday's chip paper.
Race 1. We laid Jonbon and Constitution Hill to our maximum liability and and the only other horse in the race was Dysart Dynamo (a good winner for us as we couldn't lay it) which was never really going and we had a game of choose your liability. The worst possible start for us.
Race 2. We had a "traditional" bookmaker's book with the top 2 in the market (Edwardstone and Riviere Detel) our maximum liability losers. Edwardstone was an easy winner despite losing a lot of ground when badly hampered by a faller and the only question for us was how much further it would've won by with a clear round. 2 races, 2 maximum losses but the mood wasn't too despondent with 26 to go.
Race 3. Early and massive bet on Floueur meant our 3 staff became 2 for most of the betting as we were running around the ring hedging with our colleagues. As it turned out it was never really in contention. We also stood Fantastikas, Does He Know, Frodon, Grumpy Charley, Full Back and Vintage Clouds and got our reward when 2 of our better winners in the book battled out the finish and the majority of our early loss was covered.
Race 4. Honeysuckle was our inevitable bogey and what proved to be a fairly uncompetitive race was won comfortably by the favourite and another maximum loss was chalked up in the book.
Race 5. We laid the 2 we expected to in Stormy Ireland and Telmesomethinggirl and we got the result of the day when Maries Rock was a good winner and we were a little bit back ahead.
Race 6. Ludicrous. Absolutely ludicrous. Gaelic Warrior started very short for a 24 runner handicap and just got shorter going off 13/8. We laid it mainly at the shorter end of the market which was a relief but the race itself was generally disappointing saved by a close finish with Brazil just getting up and saving us a big loss but only netting us a small win. Gaelic jumped badly right throughout and would've won comfortably with anything like a decent jumping performance. We were relieved but probably not as much as the handicapper. Never has a 24 runner handicap looked less like a 24 runner handicap in every respect and best forgotten as quickly as possibe. Race 7. The story was that we couldn't lay Stattler and couldn't stop laying Run Wild Fred. We stood Fred for our max and ended up with it as our big loser and another 3 small losers , our only winners being the aformentioned Stattler and Braeside who made early errors and soon pulled up. 1 v 4 but our one was an easy winner and ended our day on a very unexpected high. We had a reasonably decent day in the end, especially considering there was only one traditional bookmaker type result and had a bit of luck in the last which kept us moving forward and we prepare to do battle again tomorrow. Apologies for the brevity. Such a long day and so little time spare- I'm off to bed...
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