If you're looking for a funky quip about The Gold Cup and fools and stuff you're going to be sorely disappointed. Today I was up at 7:00, working until 12:15, jumped in the shower, took the boy to his footy match in Dundee at 12:45, realised it was Mother's Day, nicked off to Asda for some flowers and an exceptionally average Ploughman's butty, got back for kick off only to watch them lose 5-0 (they were playing the Dundee United feeder team in fairness), got home, worked for another hour then cooked 8 pizzas outside in about minus 5. And you still want a fool's gold pun? Really? In truth it was a headline that was either gonna be Stone Roses or Spandau Ballet and I don't know what "always believe in your soul" even means so I went with the quality song option. And there's no use scrolling down hoping for a pun cos you ain't gonna get one. And the butty was for my lunch, not the wife's present in case you were wondering. Romance wasn't dead after all.
After 4 days of travel Kev finally worked out where the potholes in the nether regions of the back roads from Shipston on Stour to Cheltenham were. I'm not sure if I preferred the relentless thud of suspension on backside or a slalom Alberto Tomba would've been proud of. Neither were condusive to the aftermath of the biggest sausage and chips tea in the history of sausage and chips teas washed down with the finest IPAs that Morrisons (Penrith) could offer. I preferred Shangri La to Brewdog and I also preferred board games about space conquest to taking 3 days to cover the week's expenses when I hadn't seen the wife since last Friday. We needed a big day. We needed an epic day. We needed a day where we got everything right and did nothing foolish. See, I lied about the Fools Gold gag....
1) Five losers. Yep five of them. Even with the jolly going off 11/8. Lossiemouth, Gust of Wind, Jipcot and Hypotenus for the max (and awful place liabilities) plus Zenta for half but with an equally massive place payout. I could feel the collective head shakes of despair of our forbears. Lossiemouth won readily of course. And Zenta placed to not even give us a place book sticking plaster over a gaping wound. Wednesday revisited. We had 6 races to get a wage. The expenses we'd just aboiut covered the night before were, once again, uncovered. It looked hopeless.
2) Hedge free zone in the next as the book was untouched by outside agencies. Pembroke and Ballyadam for the max and Pied Piper for the nearly max. We needed a skinner and and we pretty much got one in the shape of Favoire which we'd only laid a couple of fiver each ways on. Huge win in the book and for the first time in nearly two weeks we'd earned more than we'd spent.
3) Fellow books would've been proud as the CairnBet liability lucky dip threw up 4 losers out of the top 5 in the market. And boy did we cash in as the barely laid Stay Away Fay won from 2 others we'd hardly took a bet on either. You wait 4 days for a bus and two massive winnebagos rock into town in half an hour. I texted the wife to let her know that the kids could eat again. Modestly.
4) We don't bet to opinion but none of us had any great desire to get stuck into Galopin Des Champs either. Plenty of each way interest across the board but we got stuck into A Plus Tard in the win book. As the jolly winged the last with Townend motionless on board we could only say "wow". High class effort and another very good win for us. I messaged the wife to say the kids could have a Canton. If she didn't mind waiting another 40 mins they could also have curry sauce if we got another winner.
5) And we did. We stood Chris's Dream, Bob and Co and Secret Investor for various degrees of liability and we got the result of the week with the virtually unlaid Premier Magic (one fiver each way) beating the virtually unlaid places (It's on the Line and Shantou Flyer). We don't wish ill on the punters but sometimes the greatest sound is the sound of silence and we got it here. A payout slip we could barely get clipped to the board it was so short. Biggest win of the week and Wednesday was, almost, forgotten.
6) The punters were conspicuous by their absence and we experienced the first tepid betting heat since Wednesday's rain. Last year's winner, Elimay, was the only show in town and shortened alarmingly, more alarmingly for us as we had it for the max. It didn't help us when it won last year and it wasn't going to this year either. Somehow Jeremys Flame was a loser for reasons unknown, presumably from assorted Jeremys and Pearl Jam fans. Impervious gave us a small win, Pink Legend nearly wiped that out in the places. Smaller win.
7) The lucky last threw up more reds than greens at the bottom of the market with a whole host of losers at the touch of a "scroll down" button. A couple of reds at the top as well but we steered them all with a win my Mum might have described as "sensible" and places which supplemented the win.
So there it is; a terrible start, 3 monster results, a Gold Cup favourite we largely steered and a couple of steadfast wins at the end gave us our best winning day of the (financial) year and I may even spring for that steak night for the wife and kids in the week after all.
I'm writing this on Sunday night and I still have Newcastle on Saturday to post. Like the Strictly Come Dancing results show I'll pretend it's live, all the while we all know it isn't. There is a cracking REM gag to come in the next blog though. Even if it is a post Green album song. And a horse named after a film that 3 of us had 3 different synopsises for that we all got wrong.
Until then...
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