Musselburgh 30/4/23 - Raintown

An inordinate amount of time is spent huddling over a phone trying to predict the future. It's difficult. One site tells you one thing, another something totally different. It's all a bit of a guess and this meeting was no different. Not the Racing Post or Sporting Life apps, you understand, but the Met Office rain radar. We're an optimistic bunch when it comes to weather. It always looks like we'll just miss it even when it's lit up like Blackpool illuminations from Manchester to Inverness and all stops in between. Yesterday was marginal though. It really was right on the edge.

So we had a few choices- down by the tunnel but that option was gone with the 2 picks directly in front of us. I breathed a sigh of relief that I was down to just the two options though I'd inevitably choose the wrong one. Even if you choose the right one you think you've chosen the wrong one.

2nd from the end in the main ring or the best pick facing the lawn. We were 1/5 the lawn going in but the marquee with the big bar was fenced off and deflated, and I felt much the same. 2 pop up bars on the path plus gin, prosecco and Pimms bars servicing the picnic benches. It didn't look like Pimms weather. Mulled wine maybe, but not Pimms. It was raining at pitch in time. One last check showed a gap coming but the threat of a splodge coming in from Glasgow tipped our deliberations towards staying in the ring. Obviously as soon as we decided the sun came out and many teeth were gnashed.

We felt the bet size was likely to be bigger in the ring than on the lawn though so consoled ourselves with that.

1) The first 30 bets we took yielded a little under a hundred quid in total. More gnashing of teeth as the quid each ways were barely covering the cost of the till roll. Business did pick up nearer the off though and, at one point near the off we had 6 losers. We ended up with 3 (Wreck it Ryley, Kelpie Grey and Winter Crown) plus two straight across (Girl Magic and Belsito). In the first part of our "laying prices we don't even have in our price ladder" we did a 30/1 "own price" for one of our Twitter regulars on Belsito. It went off 20s. Obviously. At the time 28/1 felt a bit skinny and 33/1 was a loss leader. I told him it wouldn't be the last time I gave him a price that didn't even exist (and it wasn't). We got a good start with the relatively unlaid jolly Jer Batt winning, literally at a canter. Nudge forward on places as well.

2) Myconian the only loser in the book but the winner, favourite Love Billy Boy, was a bore draw a la Arsenal circa 1990. We appealed vainly for offside as we wanted the 2nd horse but at least it wasn't a step backwards. I knocked up a forecast market for our guy who wanted a reverse and I managed to mess it up for him- it didn't come in though, so I saved him a tenner. And he was too much of a gent to point it out.

3) 4 losers dotted throughout the book and another good win on well bet (off course at least) favourite Elim. I resolved to never complain again about losing on a rag as we were well ahead when we could easily have been 4 figures behind already. That resolution would be sorely tested later on...

4) Another 5 losers in the "Eyes Down, Look In" stakes and another race went for us as Fairmac beat one of our bogeys into second. The winner went off 11/1 and I think we opened at 20s. I was happy we missed it as it could've gone horribly, horribly wrong. We also laid a 13/1 to our guy. Another price that doesn't, or at least shouldn't, exist. In my defence 13/1 will NEVER appear on our board.

5) And our winning on a favourite run came to a crashing end. 3 bogeys. Finished 1-2-3 and we were pricing up the next with half a mile to run as we couldn't win. Gincident won well last time and there was no way we could avoid it this time. The wife would've bet it as well, if she'd been there.

6) Another winner right at the top of the market and another bullet massively dodged. Barely a win but could easily have been another loser as we stood the next two in the market plus the rag Gobi Sunset. We were nicely ahead in the context of what could easily have been a 5-1 defeat.

7) Sigh. Big massive. huge, enormous sigh. The Thin Blue Line was a big winner for us until right on the off. 3 late bets at 18/1 was enough to wipe that out and make it a loser. It went off 14s. A solid loss for us in the last punctured our day. Write out 100 times "I must not complain about losing on a rag, I must not complain about losing on a rag".

Overall we got wages on a day we could easily have lost 5-2. The last stung at the time for a brief moment but you simply can't always avoid them. Still, 3 in 2 days though.

Musselburgh next Friday under consideration- decision will be made on crowd, card and weather. If not it'll be Ladies Day at Perth. Until then...