We don't normally do requests but especially for our good friend today who has requested that we personalise the blogs a bit and write a bit more about our day outside of the betting bit- we got wet, we had pizza for tea- you're welcome.
Also, the punters we meet at Cheltenham are almost invariably a great bunch- we love the banter where we are and occasionally will indulge in a bit of price haggling with regulars and folks that ask nicely. One small word of advice though. If it's 5/2 on the board you ain't gonna get 4s. And standing there for 3 minutes doing the full on Mrs Doyle with a cup of tea is more likely to make me cut it to 2s until you've gone away and pestered someone else. Which is precisely what happened. You didn't get 4s off next door either. Or next door but one.
And whilst I'm on the subject, and sufficiently exhausted to be able to have an excuse for my crankiness, Mr Lovell can have another addition to his list. We absolutely love punters who've clearly had a terrible day and decide to take it out on a bookmaker they've never met before. We absolutely welcome your advice that Facile Vega is way too short and we are all robbing b******s. Though next time we would appreciate that advice just a little louder so the Queen could hear you in Ascot. We also appreciate that being one price above SP at the time and only cutting it to SP as we'd just laid 1500 quid does, indeed, qualify us as being robbing b******s and we were gratified to see said horse gag up pulling a cart at our ridiculously short price. We were somewhat disappointed that you did not take up our kind and generous offer of you laying us a grand at the price we had on our board as it was so short and wish you the very best of luck with your upcoming application to the Gambling Commission and very much look forward to meeting you on course soon, as on course bookmaking is p*** easy and we ALWAYS walk out with shedloads of cash. Especially when we pay a grand a day for the privilege of betting at Cheltenham and then watch favourite backers enjoying a current strike rate in the region of 57%
So, a very abridged assessment of our betting book is as follows (as I need my sleep)
1) We laid Sir Gerhard. We lost on Sir Gerhard. We also had the 2nd horse as our worst each way. It wasn't a good start. Again.
2) We laid L'Homme Presse for the maximum liability. We were winning stacks on Farouk Dalene which was cruising and looked the likely winner until falling a couple out. We were winning stacks on Ahoy Senor which came to lead at every fence before losing 3 lengths every time it took to the air. We were miles behind after 2 again and resolved to turn up at 2:15 tomorrow.
3) We didn't lay Commander of the Fleet at all. We didn't take much money because the rain switched up a gear from "persistent" to "torrential" but we, literally, didn't look a gift horse in the mouth. We had 5 losers and we did lay the 2nd and 4th horses each way fairly chunkily which killed our places but we were getting nearer to parity though covering expenses seemed as easy to see as, well, the far side of the course.
4) We stood Shishkin for our max and, even though Energumene won in fine style and was also well bet, it was still a reasonable winner for us and we finally hit the front. Now just those pesky expenses to win.
5) Yep, we took on Tiger Roll. We also had big losers with former winner Easysland and with Shady Operator. The Cross Country normally involves them running round and round for 10 minutes until the favourite wins and, fortunately for us, it was the same today as Delta Work (a nice winner) fought off Tiger Roll in a thriller. We finally were looking at some wages for the day. Possibly to buy some waterproofs.
6) As per the previous big field handicap the betting turnover was pretty poor as the rain continued to bucket down. We stood the jolly for the maximum along with Hasankey at the other end of the market. Amarillo Sky and Elixir De Nutz rounded out our losers. We skinned Global Citizen as it gamely held on from Andy Dufresne despite a late idle and a bit of a wander. In the context of a low take day we were nicely ahead.
7) You've already read about this. We are, I think, nice people. We have a lot of lovely banter with many, many punters and we do our best. If you don't like our price on a certain horse don't bet it with us. Or ask us if we can give you a better price- we won't bite- we might say yes or we might politely say no but we won't bite. Just don't repeatedly question our parentage and lay into us about something you have no idea about. We are 3 blokes who have young families, like many people, and are running a small business making a modest living trying our best. We don't need you to feel sorry for us but we were exhausted and soaking and we don't need to be your punching bag because you've had a bad day. Almost incidentally we did, of course, stand the favourite and it won like a 1/10 shot. We lost our max. We didn't walk out with shedloads of cash. In fact, today, we probably got a hair more than minimum wage when you consider our 14 hour day. Please be nice. It's free and we're human as well and we appreciate it.
Until tomorrow...
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