Another year over (and a new one just begun - or at least it will in a couple of weeks for tax purposes...)
An awful lot written re crowd figures, experience etc. I won't rehash a ton of it but the big positive, from our point of view, was the freedom for punters to walk around with their pints. We saw an increase in bet numbers of around 15% on the first 3 days with crowds being down by around 10%, I believe. Gold Cup Day bet numbers largely similar v last year but there was a big reduction in The Gold Cup itself due to the make up of the race- more on that later. The other thing the lifting of restrictions did was to curb binge drinking - for the last few years, if you wanted to watch the race live, you had to throw your pint down in 10-15 minutes to be able to get back outside. The law of unintended consequences and all that. A big pat on the back to the track for the change of policy. I believe this will help customer retention from this year and, hopefully, the first step towards rebuilding the crowd.
The number of odds on shots continues to be a major concern. Punters are not as engaged as 1/2 as they are at 5s the field. We consistently saw significantly higher bet numbers on the races that did not contain a short priced favourite and, for the first time ever, The Gold Cup was not our busiest race in terms of actual bet numbers. In fact, the Albert Bartlett - 9/2 the field (the race before) saw us take 30% more bets than The Gold Cup - 1/2 the field for most of the betting until the late drift. Absolutely unheard of. Many punters throughout the week commented, again, on the number of odds on shots and how they would wait for the next race. Yes, you see bigger individual lumps when the top of the market is short but from a customer engagement point of view, it's a turn off.
The final bit of the preamble is regarding bet sizes. I'd imagine a lot of us have seen some of the bets on Twitter and it's true that, at Cheltenham in particular, you do see lumpier bets on occasion but, having looked through our books the betting was virtually all of the recreational kind and, if a connection or a big punter, wants to play on a short one then they absolutely should be able to, but please don't think it's the norm- it's not. Fair play to the bookmakers who are laying these bets (and standing them) - I know some of them and they are all great guys. They have liability levels small guys like us simply cannot run and I admire their intestinal fortitude! That said, we will usually lay to lose around £4000 at regular meetings and around £10000 at Cheltenham - I'd be lying if I said we don't hedge some of it back into our own liability levels though! I don't do this very often but I've posted all the bets we took on the Albert Bartlett for your delectation. You'll see it's pretty standard stuff.
Ok, eyes down, look in;
1) Stuck the top 2 in the market in and they appeared to be fighting it out. Furthermore it looked like the worse of the 2, Lulamba, would prevail. Then this blue thing gets an in running price and it's near the bottom of the book. We hadn't laid it. And the in running price shortened so the big screen got the serious attention of all 30 bookmakers in our ring. And there it was, staying on from the back. I did that thing that cricketers do in the dressing room when someone's in the 90s. Don't move, don't breathe, don't utter a sound, just a little bit of reflexive shaking as it went past. And it got up. The eery sound of silence was everywhere. If it wasn't for the 17 quid we paid on 4 place bets we'd have had a genuine win and place skinner. I've not checked back but it may very well be the biggest win we've had on track since we started.
2) Stuck the top 3 in this time but we couldn't repeat the trick as jolly Kargese always looked in control, though there was a brief moment of hope as Ndaawi momentarily threatened. Places were equally rotten and we took a step backwards.
3) Just the jolly in here but that was all it took for another loss on Dinoblue and there wasn't even to be the brief moment of hope this time. Just the certainty of defeat.
4) 5 losers throughout the book here including fav, The Big Westerner, Jet Blue, Argento Boy, Wendigo and the inevitable Derryhassen Paddy and we got another huge result on 2nd favourite Jasmin De Vaux that was surprisingly weak throughout the ring. Winning on the (nearly) jolly, we felt suitably abashed.
5) A lovely guy who had a big win on Dinoblue popped back with his ticket and rolled up onto Galopin Des Champs which gave us a lovely frame to hang our book on and ensure it was the worst result. The late drift was encouraging for layers and the evens in running by the first fence was more so. And so it proved as the hugely impressive INoTheWayUrThinkin was the 2nd best winner in the book and gave us jackpot number 3 on the day. I doubt we'll want it if it runs at Aintree though. Places were awful but it was always likely to be the case in an each way book that favoured the punters, but we got back in the "without" market what we lost in the each way.
6) Not sure how much cash flew out of the ring on Wonderwall but I'd imagine it was plenty. A very small win on what would've looked a good result on paper. Presumably mainly "done on a name" from Oasis fans or, possibly, a few of the more discerning Travis followers. Either way a very small move forward after decent enough places.
7) Stood the jolly again along with No Ordinary Joe (yes, we did say "Good luck Joe" with every bet) but the winner, Wodhooh, was 3rd in the market in a list of 24 and was only a straight across job for us, though didn't set us back either.
Overall we were happy with the week. Bet numbers up on a smaller crowd and results a plenty in the big races, though the keen eyed amongst you will note that the handicaps were pretty awful from our side of the fence. We're never happy! We are acutely aware though that many of the results were from jumping mistakes and, without those, a very different week could've been staring us in the face.
Tons of stuff to do at home so not sure if the Newcastle blog will be up today, though it's fair to say, a dose of reality about turnover quickly kicked in with a lower than normal crowd, due a little to the terrible field sizes, and a lot to the 50000 Geordies who have decamped to London.
Not sure when we're out next but, wherever it is, until then...
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