6:30am alarm calls just feel wrong in order to get to race meetings on time. They just do. And, of course, because I knew I was up early I didn't actually bother to sleep much anyway. Precautionary inspection called for 8am, I was going to be on the road at 7:30 so a volte face somewhere around Perth was a high possibility.
4am brought about a long check of the rain radar. It had barely rained at Kelso the preceding 6 hours so I was confident we would be working. Sleep finally took over.
An early inspection and my optimism was confirmed at 7am over a morning constitutional and a game of Clash Royale at the same time. I'm not very good at it, my son despairs but he assures me my deck is a "log bait" deck with a "low elixir count" which allows me to "quickly cycle my cards". I frantically jab randomly as my towers go up in smoke. Again. Ask your kids.
It was still dark when I met Kev- he was driving again as he was disappearing for yet another month long holiday in January. Mental note to check profit split as he can go to the other side of the world while I'm wondering if we can stick the heating on. In fairness, it's probably cheaper to just follow the sun anyway.
It was brutally cold as usual. We were end of line at the paddock end as usual. The wind blew straight in from the paddock. As usual. I forgot my fingerless gloves. I expected to lose a digit.
1) Camp Belan and Smackwater Jack bogeys at the top of the market, Prince Dundee, Thunderosa and Along Long Story at the bottom. Plenty of place liabilities at the bottom as well and we got off to a solid start with Rath An Iuir justifying the late, presumably off course, money to give us a reasonable win book profit and we steered the place bogeys to more or less double it. Kelso gave once more.
2) And then Kelso took away. There was either a massive delegation from Gelsenkirchen in or this one was the result they gave away free in the racecard as Schalke (our biggest bogey) beat Charm Offensive (our 2nd biggest), with Lissen to the Lady running on for a place to mess up our each way book as well. Lucinda's favourite was depressingly unlayable and the 2nd fav (also onside) hit 50s in the first half mile as only Kelso massive greens can. Couldn't lay it, couldn't win within first 30 seconds. Profit decimated.
3) Racecard results had a special 2 for 1 offer on as the whole track, plus their dogs, were on Wheelbahri. Soft lead. Always in command and a late, ultimately futile, charge from another unlaid fav, Jetoile, rubbed masses of salt in a very big wound. We were losing.
4) Ned Tanner following on as the only one they wanted in the 4th heat though we also ended up with liabilities on Old Painless and Captain Quint. Bill Baxter collapsed in price and gave us a reasonable profit which was eaten into by some pretty bad place liabilities. It's Christmas, it's cold, I could be at home with the kids slaying dragons in Gloomhaven instead of losing money at Kelso. I had 90 more mins to justify my absence.
5) We got the non runner we needed to go from a truly horrendous place book to a merely dreadful one. We got the early big lay on the super short jolly, Imperial Merlin, and it obliged by drifting in slightly dramatic fashion. In fairness this is often the case in these types of races as prices on the rags are grabbed to balance books- the jolly then usually shortens back in to where it started. Except this time it didn't and the 2nd fav, De Legislator, kept shortening. It was a nice green and we saw no reason to do anything but watch as it gave us a nice win, the jolly helping us out by finishing second and, literally, giving us the only result which didn't end up with an "L" in the places. We were back in profit. Slightly.
6) Another race, another one where only one result could avoid a place market loss as we were so overbroke in the each way market it was making my eyes bleed. Back in the win book, we were mightily green on jolly, Traprain Law, with 5 minutes to go- we needed it in- we stuck it up, we got the queue. We also got it beat by 2nd fav Carcaci Castle and the top 3 in the market were generous enough to fill the 3 places to avoid each way armageddon. We finally were getting a modest wage.
7) Yes I did break into "Song For Whoever" as we tried to get stuck into jolly Phillapa Sue. The singing was more successful than the laying enterprise and it remained stubbornly profitable. Which isn't saying much. As it turned out, Millerville and Arcandy were the ones to avoid and Coreys Courage didn't disappoint by hitting something ridiculously big in running almost immediately with a ton of our profit on it. I say "profit". The race was between the 2 shockers (from our perspective) until Maimies Magic, which had virtually trebled in price on the off, gone even bigger in running and appeared to be running somewhere nearer Coldstream, then came from the clouds and got up in the final stride. Massive win. And to think I was moaning we hadn't laid it pre-drift. These things don't happen at Kelso.
So I could hold my head up when I returned home. Those dragons will have to wait until tomorrow.
Musselburgh on Sunday. Early drink embargo on Saturday night. See you there.
Until then...
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