Subway. Not the nice one with the meatball marinara option but the one that goes under the track at Chester from the bookmaker's car park in the middle to the Dee Stand in another continent. I swear that trek is longer than the National. Imagine navigating a supermarket trolley laden with lead weights through a throng of bladdered racegoers at 5:30 in a space the width of your lounge but with sharper corners a foot off the ground and you have an idea. Pain awaits both mentally and physically, the only question being whether it's the shins which bleed on the way down on the calves that bleed on the way back up as the joint repeatedly smashes into my every appendage. Often both. "Keep to your left please or you'll lose a shin" on repeat, loudly. "Your left not mine" shortly after. There's actual tongues that stick out as the battle between basic navigation and 3 bottles of prosecco takes place in befuddled minds. The prosecco wins enough times to risk a loss pf a punter's leg- or perhaps a mild gash if I'm not being so melodramatic. I'm knackered before I even contemplate the journey home which starts on Saturday evening and concludes in the early hours of Sunday. This new chippy the Pro Team have been raving about had better be good...
Regular readers (I'm flattering myself to think we have any in truth) will know that we tend to park ourselves down by the ice cream van at the far end of the line. This week we were the rather unattractive gooseberry in the Swanny/Dave Hazell foursome that also joined us in the land of overpriced 99s. Right smack bang in the middle we were, like the annoying one that won't leave you alone when you're trying to get off with her mate- or at least that's how it was in the 80s- it may be different now when you can just delete them from the What's App group- I don't know.
1) Coppers. Not the police but the amount we took on race 1. It always takes a while to get going when you're nearer the town centre than the winning line, especially so when the jolly is priced at 3/10 and wins at a canter. One optimistic punter asked for the "betting without" market. As expected it was worse than the race market. Ultimately we won 12 quid. Or £11.99 to be precise.
2) Two small losers at the top of the market, one decent winner (Queen of Uplands) and that was about it. The two small losers fought out a battle for which one was slightly worse (the winner by 17 quid) but we never laid the places so we ended up losing a fiver. Life. In. The. Fast. Lane.
3) At last we got stuck into something with plenty of money coming for the favourite, Loft, which shortened on the off and gave us a fairly value free book. River of Stars led all and never looked in any trouble to give us a fair reward for having a reasonably decent liability on the jolly. We were under way.
Elvis was in the building and had been betting with us all day, pretty much since I called him Elvis. There with his daughter and son in law and what a great family they were. They bet well and it was good to join friendly battle with them We had a small lead at this point.
4) Four losers and they were all over the place. I get a perverse sense of pleasure when I see a couple of rags around the same price with a grand difference in our book. Gets the blood pumping. We had full liabilities on Fools Rush In (including Elvis's bet, obviously- he told me he couldn't help falling in love with me which was very forward of him), Bullace and Absolute Ruler plus a tiddler on Positive Impact. two bogeys went clear until our best result, Percy's Lad, flew past and gave us the jackpot.
5) No chance here. We couldn't lay the favourite, Roman Dragon and we had two of our losers King Of Tonga and Ancient Times first and second. Tonga being the worst result and winning handily. Elvis's son in law asked me what I fancied and I suggested Ancient Times- credibility intact as I gave him the 2nd. Elvis had the King (of course) so a net win for them- fortunately they didn't have the forecast. Glory Fighter the other max.
6) Frisky and Le Beau Garcon for half maxes and So Smart for pennies the losers and we though we had a result with Riversway until we discovered daughter of Elvis had 40 quid each way at 11s before it collapsed to 15/2. She asked me what I thought and, even at that stage, there'd been a nibble so I told her I wouldn't put her off. That'll do enough damage to mean it was a wash and we regressed to our earlier state of losing a couple of quid. Oi ois everywhere suggested our colleagues had either missed the late smash up or hedged it back.
7) Three max losses (Mancini, Emiyn and Bollin Neil) and two jackpots (Cogital and The New Marwan). We didn't get any of them, good or bad, to end with a pleasant win on favourite The Gadget Man with bogeys 2nd and 3rd which always feels a bit better. Elvis had the winner so we were both happy with the result and I think he probably ended up with one over us overall.
Chippy was as good as advertised, despite the lack of a brown sauce option. The battered sausage was pleasingly rather rudely shaped which appealed to my inner 12 year old and I made it home just before Sunday ticked round.
Incidentally, the pro team will be at Cartmel next weekend, probably scrabbling for signal. I have the weekend off as I will be demonstrating various board games at a board game convention he runs in Perth (Tabletop Scotland at the Dewars Centre if you're interested- it really is a fantastic event). I live on the edge.
We are probably going to be at Musselburgh on Wednesday, not because we think it will be mega busy, but because our mate, Sparky, is over from Florida for the 1st time in 3 years for a golf week with us and he needs a break in the middle to rest his back. No, me neither. It'll be a dull blog in the week as I don't think we'll take enough to get stuck in properly but we will faithfully record every fiver we take (10 per race) and, you never know, we might meet Dolly Parton this time.
Until then...
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