It's late, and as hard as it may be to imagine, I have an all day board gaming session tomorrow. True story. Welcome to your 50s. So it'll be short. Particularly as I've just channelled Lynyrd Skynyrd. And a Reece Witherspoon film. I've barely listened to one (though I did hear it from the house band today) and I've not seen the other, though I expect it's something to do with a high flyer who suddenly realises that the swamp and a hunky mechanic is more appealing than a 10 million quid a year job in New York. Or something like that.
I thought I'd heard all there was to hear in this job. And then I hadn't.
"Fiver on 3 please"
"Certainly luv, best of luck"
"How much is that then?"
"Err, a fiver.."
"Is that all?"
"Err, yep"
I'm glad I wasn't part of the bet where a fiver was a tenner. Or possibly a twenty. Though I've got a short list of potential bookies who may have been involved in it.
Could our recent spectacular run continue?
1) We stood the top two in the market plus the big drifter Laertes. Reasonable start with Ahamoment despite being the smallest winner and a decent place result to top us up.
Away break. We took plenty on the Derby but still won more away at Hexham on 2 small bets when Roger Rabbit or Jessica Rabbit or even, possibly, Welsh Rarebit finished 2nd. Every year we pop along to Musselburgh for this meeting thinking we were getting an extra race to bet on and every year we fail to win on the Derby. Another big race, another jolly. At least we weren't at Epsom.
Derby went off at 1:30. Grand National continues at 5:15. Can you spell P-R-E-M-I-E-R-I-S-A-T-I-O-N? No you can't. Cos it's not a word. And, let's be honest, it's not even a thing. It's a front for extending the betting window. Pure and simple. And there's The Lightning Seeds for you as well you lucky people.
2) Couldn't keep them off Abduction which we stood for the max along with eventual jolly Manigordo. Full reward with the barely laid Liarmarty Dream who was best result in the book though we'd have been nearly as happy with the 2nd horse Gioia Cieca. Jackpot result for us.
3) Despite betting on the lawn, which is usually a haven for rags and funny name, this was the 3rd race in a row that we had a "normal" book. Friends of ours will be horrified. This time we couldn't dodge the bullet and the worst loser in the book, Gray's Inn, gave us a step backwards, though race 2 still kept us ahead. Squeeze break. We get to listen to a lot of house bands. They generally do the same stuff. But kudos to these guys who were breaking out all sorts of random 80s and 90s tunes. It wasn't my bag but I appreciated that Cutting Crew and Modern Romance were unlikely to feature heavily in covers bands anywhere else. Then they played Is That Love and Another Nail Through My Heart. My heart of musical stone was melting. And they trotted out All These Things That I've Done as we were packing up. Killer tune. You're welcome. I even forgave them their Police cover. And there was no hint of Phil Collins.
4) We're in danger of losing our random bookie tag as we had another totally normal book with just the one loser, Heredia the 4/5 favourite. If you'd asked me before the betting I'd have guessed the other 6 as losers but I was wrong. Happy to be so as 2nd fav White Moonlight got home and we had a great win result supplemented by a spectacular each way profit as we'd laid Espresoo and Lady Onyx for plenty in the places.
5) We're going to get a reputation. Top two in the market for the max and we got our full reward with Lion of War and the places continued to be kind with barely a place payout on the sheet.
6) And Musselburgh was the gift that kept giving. Jolly Bulls Aye and Rory were the predictable bogeys and, again, a standard book. A blanket finish and we were in jackpot territory again with winner Viva Voce. The pixels in the photo favoured us once more. I resolved to have a 3 month hiatus about moaning about a photo finish. It probably won't last a week.
7) Our luck held as, for virtually the first time, we had a jolly onside and Laakhof duly won easily to give us a nice closer. Would be churlish to moan about the jackpot 2nd, Stay Smart, which briefly threatened.
So our run continues. It will come to a halt but this was a great day again for us. Even better when I got home and found out the the infinitely better half had chilli dogs lined up for my tea.
Perth a week on Sunday next up then our Ascot odyssey bookended by trips to Hexham. Until then...
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