Musselburgh 7/6/25 - Satellite Of Love

Not a love in for Elon and his Starlink (or Lou Reed for whom the title references) I'm afraid, more a homage to the vagaries of Met Office. From Saturday to Wednesday we were set for light showers. Met Office didn't waver in its certainty of the obligatory sunshine and showers.

I stopped checking until the CairnBet WhatsApp group lit up on Thursday as Steve used the word "washout" and Simon opined it could be "biblical". In the absence of plagues of locusts I assumed the worst in the rain department and how right I was. I'm not a fan of the weather summary so investigated the satellite forecast. Sure enough the bright blobs of misery over Musselburgh (and in Simon's case in Hexham) resembled a Donny Van Der Beek heat map of the Man United subs' bench. I went straight for the waterproofs this morning.

As we were pitching in we had a few choices - the rain option of the ring or the "hope for the best" option of one of a couple of lawns. We hoped for the best.

No sooner had we pitched in when the rain started. The Tote pitch inside the marquee (with the wholly unnecessary teeny tiny parasol) looked heavenly - we were getting soaked, despite the brolly, and the punters opted for the parasol in the tent. My Mum always said it was unlucky to put an umbrella up inside but we'd have taken the chance for the Tote spot. And then, as we peered, through the gloom over the stand, a miracle occurred and slate grey turned to shiny silver - blue was never on the agenda but we barely saw a drop of rain for the rest of the day. The satellite revealed we dodged bullets that whistled past both north and south and we understand Hexham was much the same. Better to be lucky than good.

Incidentally I understand that Simon was approached at Hexham by a bloke who said he had a terrible gag for him cos he knows he's something of an expert on terrible gags. Instead of fighting the CairnBet corner he simply told the punter that the crap gag bloke was in Musselburgh. The cheek...

1) Steady but unspectacular betting heat gave us the one bogey, Woohoo, who won with relative ease whilst we lost with a similar lack of effort.

2) Abduction for a half max and Code Purple for the max and a guaranteed payout queue back to Portobello. Fortunately we avoided both with a degree of comfort and were rewarded with a monster result with outsider Fletchers Dream who held on. Places topped us up still further.

3) Regulars know we struggle to get odds on shots in as a rule and the rule held true here as well. Filly Foden and U Turn the bogeys here and we had another excellent result on the late shortening jolly Alaskan Light.

4) Same story as the last as another decent win on another odds on shot, though we wanted the boxed in Arolla for the jackpot. The Fiery Lucys were out in force but could only manage 3rd. We moved forward.

Epsom Break. We didn't take loads on the Derby but the one half decent bet we did take was on the winner Lambourn and we took a step backwards. One year we're going to stop throwing cash away and give the Derby a miss. Not this year though.

5) Regalian, City of God and Bassadanza the ones that would've hurt us here and we got another solid win on Thunder Wonder though there was a heart in mouth moment when we wondered if the photo went against us. It didn't and we were back in the win column.

6) Where did that come from? Luna smashed up, favourite fell out of the stalls, presumably due to the weight of all our profit on it, Luna wins at a canter and we're looking at a payout ticket we could easily used as bunting. For the whole marquee. Horrid.

7) Another good win on Keep Me Stable the last, though Coramento was the jackpot that couldn't hang on.

Cracking winning day for us and driving home through torrential rain reminded us of how bad it could've been.

Perth tomorrow for an 8 race card. I might need a kip when I get in but, if not, we'll knock something up for your delectation. Until then...