I am writing this bit pre Hexham so who knows how we've done? What I do know is that I'm in a Premier Inn on the outskirts of Edinburgh (too much travelling to do it in a one-er on Saturday) and I swear Kevin has done the bloody playlist in the pub/restaurant/boil in the bag/poppity ping place. Cher, Bee Gees, Stevie Bloody Winwood- I had to retreat to my room or I'd get myself arrested. And there you have it folks- even the playlist from hell gave me the opportunity to shoehorn in a Gomez classic. And you thought I was just all about premierisation.
I have 10 litres of water, an industrial size fan that's bigger than me, a half eaten packet of Fox's Crunch Creams and I'm attempting to watch the US Open which is streaming, nay crawling, onto this actual laptop via 4G which is nearer 2G. It's still better than Premier Inn does Pap FM.
Breakfast update. Impressive that the music was even worse. I had to Google one particular piece of middle of the road tedium. "The Spinners"- I vaguely remember my uncle liking them in the 70s. He liked Frank Ifield as well.
Though my mood was lifted when the lady showing me to my breakfast table asked if I had any allergies. "Cat hair and pollen" I ventured. I got the seat furthest away from the buffet for my trouble. And nearest the plants.
Make the most of the tedious preamble as, when we get to Ascot, it'll be betting reports only so I can get to bed in time to make an early enough start to inch down the High Street for the 7:30am pitch in. At least that's what it feels like standing for hour after lonely hour hoping for a two-fifty each way or a fiver win 3 hours before the first race off a punter who's, presumably, had less sleep than me.
On the subject of Ascot- here are a few rules;
1) ALWAYS know which one Frankie is on as they will want to bet it
2) ALWAYS know which one the grey one is as they will want to bet it
3) ALWAYS get the "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi" chant out if you need to lay one from down under.
4) ALWAYS have a fiver minimum bet (or correct change on Tuesday and Wednesday at a push) or you'll be out of change by Thursday
5) ALWAYS bet next to the bookie who'll take a quid each way on Thursday-Saturday
6) NEVER put up 10/3 (see point 4)
7) ALWAYS know which one is going to win even though you don't. Then tell the punter when asked. Then watch them back their mate's horse anyway.
8) Have extendable arms, especially on Thursday, in order to take 5 bets whilst the person at the front of your queue searches for a fiver.
9) NEVER say what you want to say when the person at the front of the queue in point 8) suggests you're being rude serving someone else whilst they search for their fiver.
10) NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER serve someone unless they give you the number of the horse. NEVER. You're just encouraging bad habits.
11) TRY not to be smug when the horse you tipped in point 7) on the off chance wins and their mate's horse that they backed didn't. This is hard.
12) Practice your pelvic floor in advance or hope for an early 2 miler on the card cos it's flippin' miles to the toilets.
13) Grit your teeth and try not to swear when the posh bloke who clearly knows nothing about fashion spends an hour from 11am showing everyone precisely how little he knows about fashion on the biggest of big screens. He can't hear you anyway.
14) Resist the temptation to scream "it's not a person, it's a bloody dress" when the 80th lady in an hour gets asked "who are you wearing".
15) Revel in the fact that for 5 days a year you will hear the word "Milliner", repeatedly, before having a 360 day abstinence thereafter.
16) And finally (and I hope he doesn't mind me saying this) enjoy to the absolute fullest Dave Hazell pitching in. The bloke makes Peter Ustinov look like Danny Dyer. It's an education. The finest wit, and nicest chap, on course. It's the only reason I go.
So what happened at Hexham then?
Firstly- it's as beautiful as everyone says it is, and more. I absolutely loved it despite requiring about 30 bricks to level the joint up on the 45 degree slope! Punters were also great- friendly, down to earth bunch. From an atmosphere point of view it is not dissimilar to Cartmel- an experience type of course, not just a day at the races. At the risk of repeating myself this is another joyous fixture that would, potentially, be decimated by the spectre of premierisation. For regular readers, it's still not a word.
Bryson stepped into the breach as Steve's better half is over the pond somewhere and you can't really leave 5 year olds on their own no matter how pretty the track is.
1) Absolute stinker of an each way race to start. We expected to have the top two winners and most of the rest losers but it didn't quite work out like that. We hated the drift on the favourite and worked hard to get some late money in for it which turned out to be the right decision as it never ran its race. The 2nd favourite was a moderate winner and, with the jolly not placing, we gave a chunk of that back in the places. A very modest start but at least a move forward.
2) At the risk of becoming Mary Whitehouse Bet, modesty was again our watchword as Special Rate looked well beaten but rallied to beat Glengeever and we tip toed very gently forwards. I still didn't have Bryson's wages but we weren't digging holes like we were last week. Won 14 quid in the forecast...
3) I'm blushing now as, yes, the jolly gave us another fish supper win though at least it beat the max loss, Glinger Flame, who looked like pulling up only to rally in unexpected fashion and nearly cost us plenty. Bullet dodged.
4) 4 winners, 4 losers in classic CairnBet bingo book fashion. Plus the well bet Budarri was barely green so only 3 solid chances- 2 of which were the rags. We got our full reward, though, when Kicksaftersix won comfortably and we left our modesty in the bathroom and had a full on resplendent, dare I say flashy, win. Bryson had his wages and we were slowly, but surely, falling in love with Hexham.
5) Standard book alert as the top 2 in the market were losers and were slogging it out with the well bet Velasco. We were fortunate again and, once more, got full value with another solid result on the winning 3rd favourite.
6) Couldn't dodge this one though. Hapy La Vie just kept shortening and won with ease. Half the max gone and, to add insult to injury, we even managed to lose in the place market on a 7 runner job. Impressive in its badness. Still nicely ahead but wanted the last winner to truly forget about last week.
7) And we got it. Lots of on course money for Minella Youngy which wasn't reflected off course with a late drift. It never really threatened despite running on into 2nd place and the winner was surprisingly nice given it was 2nd in the list. Not jackpot territory but we definitely allowed ourselves a small, virtual, twirl.
Love Hexham. We don't have a great number there so will only be there for the busiest meetings and probably only when we know a few other books will miss but it was a modest (there's that word again) investment and early signs were encouraging.
Ascot starting on Tuesday- blogs will be short and not terribly sweet as we don't have a lot of spare time but our trials and tribulations will be faithfully, if rather tediously, recorded for posterity anyway.
Until then...
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