Quick turnaround from Musselburgh today to Hamilton tomorrow so it'll be a quick trot through the betting action before I, metaphorically, go up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire.
I can't let today's Premierisation nonsense to slip by though as a fantastic course like Hexham has to move their start time a couple of hours so that Premier racing can "take centre stage" and the creme de la creme can, supposedly, get the airtime it deserves. The story can be told, time can be taken with the pinnacle of the sport. Etc, etc, etc. To quote Viz, imagine my surprise when the Derby wasn't off until 4:30. Yep, 30 minutes after the Goldilocks 2 hour window of protection/glory. Imagine my further surprise when the "Premiership" of flat racing is in the middle of this lot;
4:05 Worcester
4:10 Listowel
4:15 Hexham
4:30 The Derby
4:38 Doncaster
4:45 Musselburgh
Please, for the love of God, stop the Premierisation nonsense now. You're killing the live sport for a mythical window that you're not even pretending to adhere to. That extra levy money better be worth the carnage you are wreaking.
1) Stood 4 of them- 2 at the top of the market, 2 at the bottom, and none of them were Ski Angel which gave us a reasonable start in the win book supplemented by a solid place result when we got our reward for standing the bottom of the market for plenty. Bullets dodged as 2nd and 3rd were both bogeys and the 2nd horse hit something rather short in running as well. I'm sure I won't be moaning at any point today.
2) That resolution lasted a whole race as New Image looked beaten by both of our jackpots, Love De Vega and Judgment Call who we'd have forgiven the Americanisation spelling if he'd have only just hung on for the win. He didn't, the jolly got up, we lost our max.. Good places took the edge off but the 2nd favourite of the day set us back.
3) The jambos were out in force and Up The Clarets was an inevitable bogey along with the absolutely smashed up Combat Soldier. Combat didn't put up much of a fight and Invincible Annice repaired the damage of the last and put us nicely ahead. 3rd in the list as well, in the context of 2 previous jollies this was almost a monster.
4) Weird betting heat as original favourite, Jabaara, won like it hadn't drifted like a barge and gave us a steady win and we dodged another slew of place liabilities at the bottom of the market to top up the profit. Still, we were looking at, effectively, 3 favourites and a 100/30 shot in 4 races. Not jackpot territory.
5) Watcha Matey. Done on a name. And a well bet 7/2 shot. Jackpots 2nd and 3rd. Obviously. Nothing in the bottom half of the market was threatening. Where were those Hamilton results when we needed them?
Epsom) Some idiot thought it was a good idea to bet on The Derby. Some idiot lost the max plus. That idiot was me.
6) Stood Make It Easy and a couple down in the nether regions of the betting and got a very tidy result on another favourite, Pilgrim, plus further reward for getting stuck into the place market again.
7) And another jolly wins by half the length of the track. We stood a couple in the middle which meant we didn't do any damage in the win book and the chunky place liabilities on Cuban Rock and Eva Rosie meant we had another move forward, albeit in baby steps.
Honestly, I don't know quite what to make of that. 8 races and, I'd say, for traditional books, there were no results of any kind. Our system saved us today for sure but it was a day of dodging more losers than we had any right to but, of course, there were no jackpots either.
Hamilton tomorrow. Until then...
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