Musselburgh 20/3/24 - It's A Kind of Magic

Nope, I haven't gone all prog/glam rock and, whilst I very much admire Queen, they are not really my bag. And now I'm happy I've referenced Lloyd Cole.

Phoned the racetrack on Tuesday - expecting a 2000 crowd. Weather forecast was excellent. Matthew was booked and confirmed. He was in an excellent mood when we set off; I'd erroneously given him 9:30 as our leaving time and I had to message him to let him know I'd miscalculated and it was 10:30 we were leaving. Yes, he does still live in the same house as us but, you know, teens, communication and all that. I digress. We arrive in timely fashion and politely enquire on the gate whether they were still expected 2000. I'm not going to lie, I was hoping it would be a few more given the semi tropical conditions. We were met by incredulity. "1100 mate. If we get a decent amount of walk ups". How to make 900 punters disappear in a few days. And that's magic. In our case tragic, and I was tempted to knock our day on the head there and then. We have a good number though and we felt we'd try to make the most of our 900 punter shortfall.

Tunnel was unlikely so our choices were likely to be 15/16 in front of the steps down from the bar, 20 at the end of the row or, off piste options on the lawn or by the paddock. We stayed resolutely on piste and took the end of the line and hoped that 12 degrees was enough to encourage punters to the hinterlands of the lawn area.

1) A fair few lumps in fairness and we had a fairly balanced book. The well bet Quercus Robur was the bogey and we got off to a pleasant start on original favourite Alsakib but, in truth, neither potential profit nor liability got the pulse racing.

2) Bookends with jackpots with the two at the bottom of the market, a reasonable profit on jolly Big Storm Brewing and 3 bogeys in positions 2, 3 and 4 in the betting. One of the aforementioned jackpots, Sam's Falcon, went into a nice lead which looked like extending until brough to a halt with shuddering error. We had one modest winner v 3 modest losers but our modest winner prevailed and we had another small move in the right direction on another favourite. Sorry...

3) Ach, we thought we had this. As Fast As Wind looked to be cruising until becoming "As Slow As Me" when it really mattered. Vampire Slayer finished like a train but there was to be no Buffy Bonus as we hit max loss on Light Fandango. Too much noise from the stands. Loss in book. Matthew looked disappointed in me. I explained I only lay em, I don't ride em. It fell on stony ground. Most of early profit gone and betting badge plus Junior's wages to still find.

4) Early lump for Sanilam meant it was always likely to be in "max" territory and further late lumps on Abbey Scope and Keyboard wasn't enough to change that. The G Wizard another bogey and we looked like we had all the beans when Killycarn went clear but it wasn't to be and we were behind in book and only had two races to get it back.

5) Never changed your mind. Never. Bloke had a decent each way bet on Bollin Matilda and came back 5 minutes later to tell us he'd backed the wrong horse. Bet changed and he chuckled uneasily stating "the first one better not win". It did and we had a cracking result and a monster place result as well. We saw our punter shortly after the race and sympathised - he'd had a saver with another book but it was cover bet only. For the record, 4 bogeys and only the jolly was ever in it. We had a wage.

6) Small win in the last topped up with as much again and a bit more in the each way market and we had a reasonable win overall when 40 minutes earlier that appeared highly unlikely.

So a bit of a bonus blog, depending on your point of view, but I don't think we're out again until Good Friday. Until then...