This week the busy Perth Saturday was a bit of a sideshow, sandwiched as it was between 4 days of the annual Bonzai Golf Society event. A bit like the Travelling Wilburys, the society has an ever changing lineup and this year 2 new recruits (Pinno and Emmet) joined me and Steve in our golfing supergroup. 2 days at Moray (36 holes a day) a round at Boat of Garten on the way down south and 18 at my course, Blairgowrie.
So, as we sat on the balcony for lunch on day 1 overlooking the most fantastic scenery and, in my humble opinion, perfect golf course at Moray GC in Lossiemouth, a bit of the old hippy in me raised its head. You can even see a bit of the menu in the bottom corner.
"Perfect circle of acquaintances and friends" is the lyric, back in the day when REM wrote proper good ballads and "Everybody Hurts" was a future pain I had not then endured.
I met Steve on a golfing trip in La Manga. I was working for a sub prime mortgage company at the time and as we landed in Spain- well, I say landed, 19 of them landed whilst I'd spent 3 days en route to southern Spain via the Portsmouth to Bilbao ferry and an inordinate amount of driving at either end- even the Spanish news was picking up video of Northern Rock customers queuing round the block as the mortgage world imploded upon itself. Frantic phone calls from the boss- the big, big boss, to say "for God's sake don't tell anyone who you work for". A Ryder Cup style tour of Scotland with the flotsam and jetsam of the La Manga trip a year later sealed a friendship based on golf and mutual football antipathy (he's blue and I'm red) which eventually resulted in starting a business together. This bookmaking business to be precise. Acquaintance becomes friend.
I was a bit scared of Pinno when we started bookmaking. Actually, more in awe- primarily of his legendary reputation, intense work ethic and bristling moustache. A few years later we're golfing for the week, trading bad puns in the most fantastic seafood restaurant (despite my seafood allergy) and gazing across the Moray Firth with cold pints in hand (IPA and Guinness if you're wondering) like something out of the final reel of Oceans Eleven. Acquaintance becomes friend. I didn't know Emmet until this week- he lives in Ireland, is a mate of Steve's and I'd had a couple of games of golf with him over the past few years. It was great to get to spend a few days with him, discussing his love of fine food and wine, and witnessing the biggest slice I've seen since my teenage lad divied up a pizza and got first choice. By round 2, if it came off Emmet's club face 50 yards left everyone acknowledged "Drive Emmo" and duly pegged up before it came in to land. The right handed Bubba Watson, if you will, but without the appalling rapping. Acquaintance etc...
There's a lot of moaning in bookmaking. We're never happy. The wrong one always seems to get up, the right one misses the kick, the drifter with all the profit is 100s in running before the first fence, and so on, and so on and so on. We're pretty phlegmatic anyway, the odd bout of joint kicking aside, but, really, we have a pretty good life doing a job that isn't a chore and meeting folk who, mostly, we like, even when they're nominally, our competition. There's a misconception that books are a different breed and, no doubt, a handful of the more curmudgeonly are but most are decent people. They'd lend you a grand, or a cable, or a laptop, or a board without blinking and eye if they could. It's not a war, it's a very small, and in some ways privileged, fraternity that I'm delighted to be part of. I think most will, hopefully, feel the same way.
Right- Hippy Hour duly over- how did we do at Perth between the golf?
1 ) Max on Aerospace which opened a surprising 7/4 given it was 10/11 when I went to bed the night before. Largy Texas and Easter Glory rounded out the bogeys. Fantastic start for us as unfancied Ailt An Chorrain was lightly laid and the 2nd and 3rd added the each way chocolate sprinkles to our ice cream cone of first race delight.
2) Bingo book with jolly, United Front, mid rangers Auld Toon Loon and Byron Hill, plus the rag Sheriff Haskell the losers. The winner, Cabra Lady, was on the small side of the winning column but it hung on from our worst result (Byron Hill) and places added further confectionery delight.
3) The blandest of books in Race 3 with not much happening in columns "P" or "L" but Dripsey Moon gave us a similar result to race 2 and places continued to bestow their favours upon us and we were solidly moving forward.
4) Our 3 bogeys were never in it and it was a stress free watch ending in the best result of the 3 who could win, FourOfAKind, giving us mini jackpot and we added "Perth Places" to our Christmas Card list as, yet again, we avoided the nastier underbelly of the place liabilities in the book.
5) No "mini" in this jackpot as we were, metaphorically, surfing the crest of the Perth wave with a monster result on Jimlis Island was, for the 5th time, topped up with crazy good each way deliciousness.
6) Plenty of Georgies meant that this outsider was a modest, rather than spectacular winner, and our place jampot finally ran dry as we hit 4 shockers in 3 places (with the 3rd place dead heat) which further trimmed the win profit. Memories of 6 winning favourites in 5 races at Perth last year, fleetingly, came to mind.
7) Couldn't keep them off Bullion Boss which was the worst result in the book and the payout queue snaked round The Last Ditch Bar. Judging by the noise, and our colleagues' similarly mobbed joints, we weren't the only ones to suffer. A step backwards after 6 steps, of various sizes, forwards.
8) And finally, as all good news reports say, an excellent result on the favourite, and easy winner, King Roly, though we really wanted the 2nd horse, Milverton, that came like a train, then emptied out like a particularly robust bouncer at 2am. Plenty of losers at the bottom of the market meant another place result that was hard to believe.
Overall, an outstanding day. Massive credit to Perth for putting on an 8 race card, with as many runners as I can ever remember (all self funded I believe), and a sell out crowd. A great track which deserves the success it clearly got.
Hamilton on Friday night next up for us. Until then...
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