Our 3 day (semi) epic jaunt through 3 meetings which are all marginal calls for one reason or another starts at Musselburgh on a Friday afternoon. We had a choice of coming or here going to Newcastle for student night and plumped for Musselburgh due to having a better pick and working on the basis of possibly swimming against the tide bookmaker number wise and the forecast was set fair. As it turned out we may have been wrong. On both counts.
Musselburgh went from 7 races to 6. It appears that one of them was a 3 runner job and anything less than 4 runners is cancelled, depending on the class of the race. I understand the theory but, in practice, I'm not sure what cancelling the race after the fact achieves unless those runners more or less immediately switch elsewhere. The track haven't put it on only expecting 3 runners, the jockeys will have been booked, the owners probably having made plans to attend, horseboxes organised etc. And, of course, the racegoing punter is likely to feel somewhat short changed again. I totally understand the need for bigger fields but the solution, for me, is not to cancel races after the declarations. We all know that a fixture cull, particularly in the poorly attended midweek fixtures, is the way forward from a live event perspective but that doesn't suit off course concerns so, inevitably, the status quo is maintained and we go 6 race cards, in the main, for the exact time when the majority of people want to go to live racing later in the year. Again, the needs of live racing and the desires of off course bookmakers clash and, again, there will only be one winner.
1) A slow start betting wise and we feared the worst. We stood Obligatory and Northerner small and won on Circus Lion, also small. We laid the forecast as well- yes, small. Steve is on holiday with a bag of clubs and some balls at the moment but I felt his presence over my shoulder. Not a fan of forecasts, our Steve.
2) Purple Martini from the bar hounds and Homer Stokes from The Simpsons fans the two bogeys in the middle. Another teeny tiny win on a short priced favourite which was wiped out by laying the forecast. Again. The spectre of Steve was metamorphosising into one of those little devils sat on your shoulder. Simon had no hesitation in revelling in my misery.
3) And then the screen went blank. No power to the laptop as the green light on the charger went resolutely unlit. And, presumably, had been for the last couple of hours. Quick change to laptop B but we'd lost 10 minutes of betting and the book was pretty limp. The tannoy belted out Footloose, I did the heely dance thing, Simon looked on in disgust. Sometimes you just gotta cut loose. Scoops Ahoy the only game in town really and was our stick out loser in the middle of the book. We get results on the flat, apparently, which was rather less apparent as the third jolly on the spin hosed in. We played a 0-0 draw in the win book and the places were kind for, yep, a small win. It was becoming a habit. We didn't lay the forecast either and the first drink at the bar that evening was secured. Assuming we could get a pint for a fiver.
4) Stood Letsbefrank for the max and Shifter for half in what was a disturbingly normal looking book and won nicely on the massive drifter, The Dancing Poet. And we couldn't possibly have laid that forecast. But we did. And then had to explain to the winning guy why his return was significantly less than expected, the winner having virtually doubled in price since laying the bet. He understood in fairness. The devil on my shoulder didn't though- I like to think Steve was channeling a shank at the mere thought.
5) As the un forecast rain turned into un forecast hailstones the crowd shuffled out. Probably headed for Newcastle. We took very little and stood Giorgio M and Summit for little and lost a little on the favourite. At least we didn't lay the forecast. Mainly because we didn't lay any forecasts. 4 favourites out of 5 and our head was still a little above water.
6) Didn't play hard in the last as the money piled in for Lucinda's Ledger and the late drift gave us a dream of a book. We cashed in nicely on the 5th favourite of the day to give us a nice end to the day.
On our 3 day "Take A Punt" odyssey we need about a grand to cover our expenses before we can think of wages. We got about half of that at Musselburgh on 5 favourites and what is likely to be the poorest take of the weekend. In that context it was a reasonable start but these types of meetings are tough as you are grinding without the prospect of real jackpot opportunities.
Hexham evening meeting next up for us so you're probably looking at a double header of blogs on Monday, including Hamilton on Sunday. Set your alarms... Until then...