Where did we go? Thinking back we've not been at Hamilton since Covid I don't think. I mean, I've passed through it on the M74 but the track itself? No, I don't think we have. When we were still sojourning south for Cartmel and Chester etc there were a few clashes and we just weren't going to Hamilton enough to justify the pitch investment. But accommodation costs went up, we all got a bit older and getting home at midnight after trying to get the joint under the bloody subway at Chester through a load of bladdered blokes in blue suits did, in the words of the great Housemartins, lose its appeal. We'll still get home at midnight as Hamilton specialises in evening meetings but at least we get a lie in before we go and it's 90 minutes instead of 6 hours.
So we bought back in- we have a reasonable number, but nothing spectacular- it's more of a workhorse pitch than anything else, but we hope to make a wage from it. We'll see. New bookmaker car park since last we went and it appears that they've gone for the 45 degree angle across shale I hadn't seen since, in my youth, I climbed Ben Macdui. Impossible to get up, even more impossible to get back down without severe damage to shins or to whichever car was in the way as the joint and trolleys careered uncontrollably like a 5 year old on a sledge.
As Steve is still away Simon once again stepped into the breach on the final leg of our "take a punt" 3 day epic. Musselburgh was decent, we struggled at Hexham and, with a fair few quid to still find to cover the weekend's expenses, we hoped for a small wage or, at least, to wipe out the still yawning weekend deficit. Though we did, at least, have pizza, a gourmet burger and a few pints of IPA on the tab. Simon doesn't do salad was this weekend's learning point- his gourmet burger was au naturale and his plate was threadbare. And no, Simon, onion rings don't constitute one of your 5 a day which, at this point, was still 5 short. I was tempted to ask for a cherry on a stick for his beer. He mentioned he did like guava though. He's lucky he's still in a job.
1) Stuck into Simple Star and Two Brothers and, despite the traditional first race, low turnover, book we got off to a decent enough start as the well bet Capital Theory won well. Parity was in sight, though binoculars were still required. We didn't even lay the forecast. Mental note to message Steve.
2) Losers 2nd and 3rd in the list with the favourite onside. Said favourite fell out of the stalls, got boxed in, switched more times than a bored teenager with a Sky remote and still nearly got up. Didn't though, and we had a small step backwards with Airman when a half decent break would've seen us close to covering a long 3 days' worth of expenses. We knew we wouldn't have any sympathy in the ring though so we kept our counsel.
3) Stood Son of Sampers and Grandad Bob- obviously every bet on the latter was met with "Good Luck Bob" or, if we were brave enough "Good Luck Grandad". We really wanted the 2nd for a lovely win, and it looked the winner for a long time, but we had to settle for 1/3 of that with Giselles Izzy. Traditional books, no doubt, were celebrating the reverse.
Guineas break as we took a couple of hundred quid and had a nice result with the outsider Elmalka and managed to skin the places. Level par for the weekend was now tantalisingly close.
4) Where's Jeff provided yet another opportunity to trot out the patented CairnBet gag. And there were plenty of Jeffs to wish good luck to. Jolly My Little Queens defied the unfathomable syntax of the name to give us a nice win and we had chips on the way home. Just needed to fund the fish. Or sausage at a push.
5) 2 losers (top of the market) who both hit double figures in running so, really, it was a case of which one was winning us the most. Until it wasn't and the top 2 in the market were the 1st and 2nd in a fashion that we need the repeat to understand how. Still ahead on the day but chips in danger.
6) Another favourite winning in comfortable fashion, disappointing places and we chalked up a small loss. Chips seriously in the balance.
7) And finally, a well balanced book in the last gave us a tiny win on yet another winning favourite and favourable places got us the sausage on the weekend, if not the cod.
It's a great job, but it's not always the easiest of professions when you're explaining to the infinitely better half that it wasn't that bad a weekend as "at least we didn't lose" on what were a pretty wretched set of results under normal circumstances. Simon had slogged away in commendable fashion all weekend for what was, frankly, a pittance. But he did get a lot more experience. Experience, described by Butch Harmon (presumably when addressing the camera directly, instead of addressing the host which is incredibly disconcerting) is "what you get when you don't get what you want". We didn't get what we wanted but we also didn't get the battering we could have and just about escaped unscathed.
Perth Ladies Day probably our next outing. Until then...