Perth 19/8/23 - Batteries Not Included

Sell out crowd. 6 races. More disgruntlement.

I'll try not to bang on too much as all been said but here I go anyway. Perth is the most northerly track in the UK. It struggles to attract runners due to the geography. It is a relatively small place yet it services half of the geographical area of Scotland plus is the nearest track for 5 of our 8 cities. It can never hope to be a "premier" track but, if it suffers, withers and dies so will all those prospective racegoers from Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee and Perth itself. These tracks are the breeding ground to spread racing to tomorrow's visitors to Cheltenham and Ascot, and are in danger of being sacrificed on the altar of an extended 5 minute "tell the story" segment on ITV and the demands from the off course giants to extend the betting window. Short term gain, long term pain seems to be the mantra.

Great to see so many familiar faces yesterday even if they notched up a fair few winners. Though, in my defence, I gave them all the winner in the 5th and they completely ignored me so yin and yang and all that. Rob from the golf club was there. Just like he did for 18 holes last week he called me Darren. I've been called worse. He had a crowd of friends with him and asked if we could give them prices here and there, which we are happy to oblige if we can. He asked how I'd know who they were- I told him to get his mates to ask for Darren which they duly did all day.

1) A shocking each way race, from our perspective at least, to kick the day off. A slew of losers across most of the market in the win and place book. Top 4 in market onside as we kind of expected and we got the 4th one in, Belle of Annandale, to give us a decent start with a lovely double your money reward in the places as none of the eye watering liabilities made the frame. I guess we were fortunate not to attract many punters from the Dumfries area. Nice to kick off ahead as we'd struggled early on since June.

2) 4 runners and, as is so often the case, the middle two were in for max liabilities and the profits were bookending at the top and bottom. The jolly, A Different Kind, an easy winner and another steady move forward for us supplemented by a chunky losing forecast. There was light approaching at the end of the tunnel. But would it be a train?

3) 7 runners. 5 losers. Trust the system I said, more to myself than anybody else. The two winners were, of course, of the delicious kind. Another favourite, Too Friendly, obliged and it was one of the 2 we had in green- we were on the right side of a neck for a change. Further big reward in places- 7 runners usually good for bookmakers anyway but getting 4 big place liabilities all beaten gave us a lovely profit on top.

4) A more normal looking book with the only decent winner in the top 6 in the betting being The Longest Day, though Red Happy would've been a small top up. Jimmy Rabbitte was the one they all wanted along with a procession of bawdy jokes. "Carry on CairnBet". An elderly lady asking if her betting slip included batteries was the highlight of my day, possibly my year. My mates all had it as well- they told me it wasn't their best bet of the day- I agreed. Though egg was very nearly on face as Jimmy looked the winner for a long time before The Longest Day gave us another great result. It was the longest furlong for us as the winner wandered but held on. Our luck held again and a small dent in the place market didn't put any dent in our mood.

5) The track was jumping with Lucinda Russell fans, presumably Manx ones as they just wanted Castletown. We don't hedge until late as regular readers know and we had a liability running up to about 5 times our maximum liability. It shortened and then, when it stopped shortening, it collapsed. We had a dog of a book with Castletown for the max plus Favori de Sivola and Hidden Commander for close to the max. Our luck was in once more as my tipped horse Wasdell Dundalk won by a head and we were on the right end of another close one. Places were equally spectacular again.

6) Extremely busy, couldn't lay the jolly, Born Famous, enough to get a liability on it and we were cursing our last race luck as it was under pressure miles out and a big in running price. When your luck's in though- it rallied and won from Malangen which was a taker for us and, yet again we got full reward in the place market when we got 4 of the 5 big liabilities out of the top 3.

After a pretty ho hum run for us we hit big here with our best result of the year outside of the big festivals. I'm further telling myself we'd have lost the 7th race as well.

Cartmel double header next weekend, hoping for better weather after the carnage of last time. Until then...