Musselburgh 1/8/25 - Sally Cinnamon

Evening meeting for us which always coincides with the start of The Fringe and, similarly, always coincides with a minimum half hour delay at any, and all points, from Inverkeithing to the A1 junction. Sally Sat Nav usually throws up a smorgasbord of alternative options ranging from straight through the middle of the city to the hinterlands and Dalkeith. This time we sampled the delights of Leith and Portobello for our once a year excursion off the bypass.

We are always happy to help potential new bookmakers to the game and yesterday we welcomed Cameron to come over to the dark side to see how it all works (or, often, doesn't in our case) as he is considering entering the world of on course bookmaking. A really nice chap and we wish him well. It was not that long since Simon did something similar with us at Kelso and he is now a fully fledged member of the CairnBet team; not bad for a 50+ someone with a light beard.

1) A late withdrawal on one we had barely laid (Crystal Guard) meant the book was lopsided to say the least. Maxes on Wadacre Giorgio and, inevitably, Rory The Cat plus a half job on Ivynator leaving us 3 winners out of 6, though Billy Bathgate was barely onside so all eggs in the girls' names double header basket of Ana Emaraaty and Lady Phoebe. Wadacre had a soft, and unpestered, lead and hit very short in running and it was only industrial strength "crying it in" on the CairnBet joint that got Lady Phoebe over the line and gave us a cracking start.

2) A lady with a Stella McCartney handbag had a small slip which, in normal circumstances, would not be worthy of comment but, as she was helped up, I couldn't help myself but point out they were Exhuming McCartney. Delicious. Three losers smack bang in the middle of the book, Parisian Scholar (33s into 9s), Ten Sixty Six (12s into 13/2) and Spirit of the Wood (15/2 into 11/2) and the book was short on value though, as always, big on hope. Steve was surprised that the Scottish crowd wanted Ten Sixty Six until I pointed out that he was probably mixing his events up with Nineteen Sixty Six. Either way the aforementioned Ten Sixty Six looked the winner until it was outbattled by the slow starting, boxed in jolly, Blooming Legend. Conquered if you will... Me and Steve have been working together for 12 years and he finally hit a pun. And it was a good one...

3) Jolly for close to max and we eked out a small win on 2nd favourite Dazzling Haze though we suffered a huge dose of seconditis on Straight Ahead which, ironically, hung badly right.

4) Middle of the book losers again with JM Jhingree and Castan and and a decent result once more from near the top of the market on the drifting Curious Rover, on an unhedged book, which beat the more modest result, Lexington Blitz.

5) This time the smashed up jolly the loser along with Doomsday and Ignac Lamar and it looked like we had a nice result with Concert Boy which turned into a jackpot result on the outsider of 7, Unthinkable, a result that, after it fell out of the stalls was, well.... Cameron was advised that he was welcome any time if he could throw up results like that.

6) Bit of a nothing book, in truth, with a bit of a nothing win on outsider Red Force One whilst our esteemed colleagues were twirling enthusiastically. We were only grateful we weren't at Haydock or Chester where the damage would've been severe...

7) Straight batters look away now. Best result in the book and 2nd best result of the night on 2/5 fav Mersea which looked beaten by one of several bogeys, Hard Nut along with Zaphea and the eponymous Sali Cinnamon- and, yes, I did say the horse was sent from heaven and, no, nobody got it. As is usually the case, we couldn't get the odds on shot in, and, as usual, we keep very quiet on track as we know many of our colleagues were not feeling the same.

A final shout out to the chap who, on 90s Rock Disco night, was wearing a T-Shirt proudly stating "There's Only One Way Of Life" and, with every bet, I said "And that's your own" with a knowing smile. Turns out it wasn't a Levellers T Shirt and he had no idea what I was on about.

A great night for us overall, set up by 2 early wins which looked like losses and rounded out with a couple of jackpots later in the card. Hamilton Ladies Night next up for us. Until then...