Stress, stress, stress. New areas, decent pick. Too many potential options. Too many chances to get it wrong. 1/2 furlong marker? Well, we weren't gonna get that pick anyway. Which left the likelihood of 1f pole or by the big bar a bit further along? Must've walked 2 miles up and down, up and down weighing up the likely flow of traffic. A good judge went 1f pole. More stress. Then, in the blink of an eye, all of the pitches in the new area were gone just before we picked so we went in the middle of the course. It was almost a relief to get what was probably a worse pitch for the lack of mental gymnastics working out how many people might have a bet on the way to the toilet from the bar. The middle of the course was the obvious next pick for us so I breathed an enormous sigh of relief....
And then the next 6 picks went elsewhere and I was stressed again. What had they seen that I'd missed? How could I have got it so spectacularly wrong? Or had I? And I still had another pick to take. Kev thought another one in the middle but I was reluctant to put all my increasingly fragile looking eggs into one increasingly fragile looking basket so we stuck the 2nd pitch on the lawn.
Then Broony emerged after his tipster talk in the big picnic marquee and we implored him to have not given them the winners as he made his way to the smaller one. "Just the first 4 lads" was the reply. "And the last one"... It turns out he had a good feeling about races 5 and 6 as well. Ta Broony. Pinno then rocks up in one of his more creatively designed shirts and proceeds to point out the utter dreadfulness of my pick. This doesn't improve my mood. A quick glance at the laptop shows that our colleagues in the Pro team have done precisely 50 bets in the time we have done precisely less than one. This fact is not lost on Pinno. I weakly tell him that marquee business always takes time to get under way as they are all getting stuck into chicken parfait and prosecco. He smiles knowingly. I offer him 18 holes on Rosemount for a more favourable assessment of my choice. He looks disappointed in my incompetence and says hello and waves goodbye. I tell him I secretly adored his shirt but it was now a tainted love. He told me I'd stick my Soft Cell references in the blog. I told him I wouldn't disappoint him. He said I already had when I picked my pitch. I mentally cut him 3 shots next time I played him. We took a bet as he left. I looked triumphant. He looked disappointed at my excitement at a £2.50 each way. "It's a start" I implored "and possibly a finish" he said. I feared he was right. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a microcosm of what it's like to pick a pitch. I deserve a medal. But only if I get it right.
1) As expected business did pick up as the beef main course was cleared and we end up with a respectable 40% or so of the overall business compared to our Pro team colleagues 60% share on the lawn. Broony watch suggested he tipped Cosa Sara and Ayr Empress as they were the losers though the latter may have been a few folk who emptied out of West Coast charabancs that liked the name. You never can tell. Either way we got off to the best possible start with Chinese Spirit barely bet on either pitch. As an aside we lost a bet to next door despite having 11/2 on our board v their 5/1. Turns out the punter knew he was betting a shorter price but the price next door meant that the horse had a better chance of winning with them...
2) 3 runners and no interest in the top 2 in the market. Little Betty shortened in the early betting due to weight of on course money. Bookies were having it back at any price but we felt we wanted to keep our powder dry for the expected pre race drift back to its original price. Well, it did drift a wee bit but we were in such a parlous potential cash situation that we had a ton back with the Tote. After accepting the bet they politely informed that they might not have the cash to pay me... I told them it wasn't going to win anyway but I still silently seethed. It didn't win and we had a small move forward with Looking For Lynda. I used to go out with a girl called Lynda- it didn't last long. And she spelt it with an "i" in the middle. I may have mentioned this before
3) Proper CairnBet book now. 3 losers, the inevitable Dark Jedi, the even more inevitable Happy (clap along if that's what you wanna do) and the slightly more surprising "Glasses Up". Whilst the winner, Sir Chauvelin, was only a small winner I leapt atop the moral high ground as the Pretty Team finally outperformed the Pro Team in terms of bet numbers. I checked my look in the mirror- wanna change my clothes, my hair my face. But I was still 50% of the pretty team.
4) Another teeny tiny field alert but at least this was 4 runners and the rag wasn't a million to one this time. 2 v 2 for us as Dapper Man and Birkenhead proved popular, the latter possibly because I gave out every ticket in as strong a scouse accent as I could rustle up since living there 20 years ago but the top of the market prevailed and we had another winner in Eeh Bah Gum , albeit the worse of the pair that were onside with us. On the subject of accents I have steadfastly avoided doing a Scottish accent despite living up here for 20 years- there's not a lot worse than a hackneyed "See you Jimmy" from an Englishman. The boot was firmly on the other foot here though- my significantly better half hails from Yorkshire and she would've delighted in the mangled attempts at the accent from pretty much every Eeh Bah Gum bettor which appeared to range everywhere from Bristolian to Mancunian via Mumbai but none really came close to "Barnsley". I metaphorically went to foot of our stairs with every utterance.
5) When they weren't asking for 3 and 7, they were asking for 7 and 3 and we had them both in for plenty. Fortunately not many of them asked for 4 and we hit the jackpot as it won the blanketest of blanket finishes from about 20s in running. Huge result for us despite losing another bet to next door when we were 7/4 v their 13/8. The punter was confused about which price was better until her friend patiently explained that 13 was bigger than 7. CairnBet quickly added 201/200 to the price ladder.
6) The Gay Blade reprised its role of loser in chief from last Friday and we got another solid result with 2nd fav Monhammer giving us a nice win over what would've been a monster jackpot Fanzone. I couldn't complain.
7) Smart Lass the guaranteed lay of the day on Ladies Day. The money looked as smart as the lass as the price collapsed but a late drift back to somewhere near our opening price meant we weren't staring into the abyss of a worthless book. Red Bond and Lucinda Russell's Cuban Cigar the other bad ones for us. Our luck held yet again as joint favourite Arrange had it won 2 furlongs out to beat 2 of the 3 we didn't want, to end up with one of our best days on track. A message came in from Steve which I assumed would be delight but was, instead, a mild admonishment for a 15 quid hedge I'd had on Smart Lass as we'd laid a bet in running on it. The quest for perfection....
After trudging through treacle for virtually all of July we've hit the jackpot 2 weeks running at Musselburgh and we need to remember this when we're losing at Kelso in November or Perth next week. But we probably won't...
So Perth next for us on Saturday. Until then...
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