Firstly, thank so much for Graeme @theformanalyst for coming to spend the day with us today. It was brilliant to see him and to hear him and Steve bouncing off each other all day round the back was an absolute pleasure. As regular readers will know, Steve is the brains of the operation and to add Graeme to the mix was fantastic. My job is to be the pretty one which doesn't say much about the strength of our operation. Apologies to Graeme for providing the shoddiest of shoddy seating which nearly led to an early trip to A&E as a collapsed chair and subsequent head trauma was narrowly avoided.
We had a really nice punter from Liverpool betting with us this week. After laying his first bet I counted his stake and replied "perfect". Our punter told me it was the worst fake scouse accent he'd ever heard. Spent the first 33 years of my life living in Knotty Ash and still a season ticket holder at Anfield. No wonder that lass from Line of Duty got some stick for a bad scouse accent when even real ones like mine sound wrong.
Betting was very weak today so the following betting blog is particularly tedious, even by our low bar standards. Subsequently that meant our "half of what we take" liability kicked in and we ended up exceeding that a couple of times in order to have some sort of book.
1) One lumpy bet on the jolly meant it was a half liability along with outsider Arcandy and Pasture Beach. Graeme did our Pasture Beach lay and it lost so he was running at 100% strike rate. Sadly we were less successful and the fav won despite not looking totally convincing, small nick back on the places in a rotten each way race from the bookmaker's perspective. Losing start. Laid obvious forecast as well for a further (tiny) dent.
2) Graeme had 4 he liked. We ended up with 3 of them onside. You can guess the rest as a small loss followed on Half Shot which was all the more galling as we had the favourite laid to lose about 70% of what we'd taken. 3 other losers at the bottom of the market (I'm to Blame, Theatre Legend and O Connell Street).
3) Laid Chic Name quite heavily early on and Gardefort steadily throughout and they were our 2 losers for a half liability. We thought we had a chance with the smashed up favourite Midnight Moss but it's chance was ended late on with a jumping error. A succession of moderate losses but we were suffering a steady decline and we were 4 figures behind now (including expenses). A thousand cuts and all that.
4) Plenty of money for No Risk Des Flos which meant a max liability along with an "almost max" on West to the Bridge and we had 2nd and 3rd in the market against us. Big Bad Bear (11/4f) was a very nice winner though the outsider Coolbane Boy was worth a wee bit more and held chances towards the end. Still, bleeding stopped, plasters applied and we were back in touching distance.
At this point there was the crushing realisation we weren't even over "hump" race as it was an 8 race card. Being on course is a lot of fun and very rarely feels like proper work but when you're only fielding 30 bets a race it can drag and, boy, was it dragging today. Apologies made to Graeme for dragging him along to the most soporific betting we'd seen since returning from lockdown (including the behind closed doors stuff)
5) And the take wasn't to improve here either with Alnadam and The King of May the significant, though not spectacular, losers and the fav Coach Carter and outsider Cracking Destiny losing us small. Coach Carter ran a strange race the day before hitting a massive price in running but made no mistake here and the paper cuts started again.
6) In a repeat of earlier we had 2nd and 3rd favs Boss Man Fred and Robinstown our losers and a negligible red figure on outsider A Place Apart. The favourite Arthurs Seat was snagged on the line (as Graeme had correctly predicted pre race) by Taxmeifyoucan which was small winner- the favourite actually worth a wee bit more. Again it was hard to win much due to the continuing quiet betting from the floor.
7) Blooriedotcom, Snowy Clouds and Ultra Violet gave us our most bingo-ey book of the day with losers scattered across the market and we were grateful that Jackhammer got up on the line from the next county in a blanket finish against Bloorie and Well Planted (which would've been a small winner) for our best result of the day.
8) Into hour 14 on track, or so it felt, and we reached the finale getting the expenses and a fish supper (for one). The fish supper was scrapped as another smallish loser, Durragh the 2nd fav, won from outsider Fathers Advice which was also no good for us.
This meeting a tough one to call for next season. The number of bets we took doesn't really justify attending but there are often good bet sizes at Perth which helps. We put 2 pitches up this week and I don't see us doing that on the Wednesday and Thursday next year so that will probably be our compromise.
Was fantastic to see Graeme today also.
Finally, why are we partying like it's? Just done the count. After paying betting badges we made the princely sum of £0.01. We pay £20 for software use. Today's loss £19.99
Final day of the Perth meeting today and it is usually much busier so fingers crossed for a more interesting read. Until then...
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