Get away from Cheltenham (eventually) head up to digs near Sheffield. Unload a ton of stuff. Go to bed. Get up. Drive to Newcastle for what feels like after the Lord Mayor's Show in the knowledge it be nearly midnight before I get home. Life in the bookmaker fast lane huh?
We shared war stories before pitching up, generally about the uncompetitive nature of many races at Cheltenham and the worry of further dilution if and when we go to 5 days and, as already mentioned previously, the likelihood of increased "betting without" and forecast markets. We will see but it is a worry.
Reflecting on Cheltenham further we felt like we probably performed as well as we could given an unfavourable set of results, and we did earn some wages (!) but it is a long hard week and we will hope for better next year.
At Newcastle we again decided to bet in the premier enclosure with our friends the Paul Garritty team who had 2 pitches and had also been to Cheltenham, and the Bell and Mark Sawyer folks.
1) Rightly or wrongly we still don't know how to best approach the really short ones (in this case 4/11 ish) so we didn't really play hard and knew we would be left with the jolly as our biggest winner, though that isn't huge given the make up of the race and the understandable betting apathy. Gave a bit back on the obvious forecast result but a small move forward in the 1st.
2) Dawn Raider was well bet and our biggest loser along with the original 2nd favourite, Cracking Find which drifted to half way down the market. No hedging needed here and we stood the two of them and Mystical Clouds gave us a nice result given how well backed it was off course, if not necessarily on.
3) The first of 2 four runner races, albeit a competitive looking one. Again a hedge free zone as Voix du Reve was more or less at our maximum liability along with half as much on Minella Plus. The other 2 being good winners but, alas, Voix du Reve was a cosy winner and, therefore, a big loser. Profit from race 2 gone and we were expenses ahead but no more.
4) We had a purple patch in the middle of the day. We felt we were unlikely to lay Rafferty's into a liability but we were wrong when a group of guys reinvested a big win from race 3 straight back as our first bet. That nicely framed our book and we took enough throughout to keep it a loser and the rest of the field winners, the outsider being a jackpot which duly obliged and gave us a lovely boost topped up by not laying the winning forecast either.
5) Bookie bingo returned in the next, 3 losers (Rapid Raider, Gun Merchant and Shanbally Rose) and 3 winners including the favourite Morningside which was never going leaving us 2 chances at the bottom of the market, both of whom were running in snatches. Just when we were looking at the best case loss Ballintogher Boy, which was barely bet, unexpectedly rallied to just head off our worst loser, Rapid Raider. The only slight disappointment was that I over hedged Rapid raider to £200 lower than our liability for the day which cost us 50 quid or so- in my defence I had a split screen with the forecasts and the writing was small! Appointment made for Specsavers...
6) Worst book of the week bar none. We laid Kajaki. It shortened. We laid it some more. It shortened. We kept laying it and still it kept shortening. Our average lay was about 3 points bigger than when it went off and, if the green up boys were on it, they'd have had an all red book. We stood it for maximum along with the steadily bet favourite Curramore. Curramore was a non factor but Kajaki kept getting beat and then kept rallying and it was a real heart in mouth job. Eventually the original 2nd favourite Getareason was the winner for a no gain but no massive loss either and our skinner Kinondu Kwetu was 2nd. We were too relieved to complain which, for a bookmaker, is a rarity- we love a moan.
7) We were stuck into the favourite Hidalgo de Lisle which ended up our only loser and wasn't a threat. 2 went to the line and, surprisingly, we wanted the 4/1 shot Knockanore (big winner) to beat the outsider Berties Ballet (small winner) but it wasn't to be. Cheering from our colleagues, muted applause from us and the places hit us further but we really can't complain on the day and it's the vagaries of the system- we won on the odds on shot and plenty on the well bet 2nd favourite so absolutely have no right to complain when we have a tiny win on the outsider the same day. Though, of course, we did have a good old moan Thursday night in similar circumstances. So why the Alanis reference? Ironically we went to Cheltenham and worked ourselves to a standstill through sun, wind and rain, fielding bet sizes we won't see for another 12 months and our 2nd best day of the week comes on the way home at Newcastle in a meeting we barely thought about until we got there. Couldn't make it up. And that, Alanis, is properly ironic- unlike your 10,000 spoons which doesn't even make sense. And it didn't even rain on my wedding day.
Kelso next week with handbrake again partially applied then the big 2 dayer at Ayr. Until then...
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