As Kev and Steve worked through their mid life crises, via the medium of motorcycle tours and rock concerts, the pretty team headed to Chester. Our first punter, without a hint of irony, asked how many races there were today. We promised a minimum of 1 and a maximum of 7...
We pitched up at the ice cream end again and were the filling (along with Ossie) in the Swanny sandwich. We bought a pitch at Ascot about 100 hundred years ago off Ossie and will finally get the chance to use it next week. Hopefully.
1st race betting is always quiet in the hinterlands of the far end of the line, though we did get an early punter who set a new zip world record. A quid each way on a couple of horses and she definitely had a fiver somewhere. Possibly in her bag. Or coat. Or trousers. All with zips. By zip eleven we were started to doubt the existence of said fiver and by zip fourteen we were beginning to give up the ghost. There was, apparently, a fifteenth zip but it was hidden away in a concealed bum bag and required a trip to the toilet to extract. As Amanda gazed on optimistically at every new compartment, I aimed for subtlety by coming off the book, jumping up and yelling "any bets, anyone that's ready, anyone?" really, really loudly. At this point the existence of a grand-daughter was revealed and the fiver may very well have been with her. Number of grand-daughter zips still unknown. We never did see the fiver and the slips were voided.
1) Hardly any business- stood Pink Stripes for more than we took (which wasn't much) and War Treaty for much the same. Sanks A Million was absolutely smashed up and won the way the market suggested it would. 0-0 draw and lost on away goals in the forecast.
2) Absolute guaranteed lay of the day (and any other day) at Chester "Gabrial The Anything" - in this case "The Devil". "Gabrial The Anything" is also nearly always "Gabrial The Shortener" early on in the betting followed by "Gabrial The Drifter" in the last 5 minutes of betting. Today didn't disappoint and we stood it for the max along with 1/3 liabilities on Militia, Lord Riddiford and the winner Copper Knight and we were becoming specialists in small losing races.
3) We got stuck into Golden Melody in the 3rd and stood it for the max. Love is Golden was a small loser along with Daheer and we got a nice result in Jean Baptiste.
4) Roman Dragon was a lovely name covering everyone from Chester and everyone from Wales and was inevitably a max loser along with bingo losers across the book (Bullet Force, Cowboy Justice and Gorak). We weren't desperate to lay the winner Outgate and we had it winning for us, albeit not for a life changing amount.
5) I cant tell you how much we wanted to get stuck into Spirit Mixer. Shouted myself hoarse. Got it into a small liability but couldn't get as much as we would've liked. It's Good To Laugh and Merlins Beard were straight across but the book was as dull as a mid season international break when the Premier League is getting interesting. Soapy Stevens collapsed in price and won easily and gave us another reasonable win.
6) Got a bit of luck here. Didn't get a liability on the fav which was a taker (did have a liability on Redrosezorro and Toussarok) but did have bigger liability on the 3-1 forecast than we would normally stand in forecast market so I ended up backing Hyperfocus in the place market to effectively, reduce the forecast liability. We got a good result with the winner Ballyare and our place bet back was 2nd so we got the win in the places whilst the laid forecast didn't come in. Actually, I'm not sure I understand what I've just written- answers on a postcard but we had a better win than we should've- better to be lucky than good- my mantra in life.
7) Through the arched window we laid Little Ted over and over and over again. As did our brethren. It shortened and shortened and shortened. Me and Swanny were confident it would drift back out again (Swanny's guess on the off was 40/1 and mine was 33/1) and it was just the weight of on course money that keeping it artificially short. Ossie then took that moment to tell us they'd been battered on it at, I believe, Ripon and our "on the off price" predictions tumbled. In the end there was a little drift but it wasn't a great book though we stood it for the max along with original favourite Bookmark and half maxes on Red Derek and Athmad. We had our jackpot, The New Marwan looking the likely winner but it was snagged by Bamboo Bay which was an ok winner for us and a massive one for our colleagues.
In the end we had a good day after a bad start. Our next stop is Ascot- to save you having to wade through my drivel next week, we laid Frankie, the grey one and the ones with the funny name. Check Racing Post to see if we won if you can't be bothered to read the blog though, given the 14 hour days, the blogs are likely to be mercifully short.
We end on a sad note in that it's our friend Graeme Dand's funeral on Monday. I'm staying down south after Chester for Ascot but Steve will be there to pay our respects and Graeme and his family will be in our thoughts on Monday and throughout the week.
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