Perth 22/4/26 - I Bleed

This meeting was workable last year and had, on paper, everything going for it; good weather, 8 races and a couple of big names. Sadly, for us at least, it was desperately quiet. We couldn't get in the 4 pitches at the winning post end so plumped for next to end by the lawns and the Last Ditch Bar. The only consolation was the joy of working next to George, but even his normally bubbly demeanour was flatter than the can of coke I left on the table overnight.

1) Expensive Emotion for a bit and Gee Force Flyer for a bit more (the jolly mainly lumped into doubles and trebles) and we thought we had a move ahead with fast finishing Off The Jury but that jury was out and we made a small losing start after dodging the place bogeys in a terrible looking each way race from our point of view.

2) Half max loss with another favourite, Barlovento in another desperately poor turnover race. At least it wasn't King Roly who we stood for the max. Find A Fortune the other loser in the book.

3) The doubles and trebles rolled on to No Drama This End and, unfortunately, there was little drama here as we witnessed another comfortable winning favourite. At this point I vaguely remembered being at Perth and seeing 6 winning jollies in the first 5 races (yes, there was a joint fav dead heat) and wondered if we were in for much the same today. We were slowly, but surely, bleeding cash.

4) Minor respite as a couple of decent doubles from race 3 rolled on to Panic Attack who went out Crisp like and finished in much the same fashion. Sadly a late bet of reasonable size on the winner, Apple Away, meant a modest win rather than getting back somewhere near parity. Hard to win much on Lucinda's at Perth. Kept the 40 quid we laid in the forecast as well. Still comfortably behind with badge fees and Matthew's wages to find on top.

5) Another race, another favourite, another loss, though not quite the loss we'd have had on the other 3 bogeys, Sunnyvilla, Coup De Coeur and Jigaro. No comfort to be had and the drip, drip, drip of loss kept beating it's steady refrain.

6) Chucked the top 3 in for maxes. Looked like we'd got the skinner on Tread Softy Now which would've cleared most of the earlier damage. Didn't get it. Places kind but we were still walking slower than the treadmill and were looking for what we'd hit when we fell off the back.

7) Bollin Matilda and Jeteye for the max and we finally got a result skinning win and place but the figure was depressing in context. Still behind in book and expenses on top. It was at this point that SD rocked up to see how we were doing. Told him Matthew wasn't getting any tea. He complemented me on my new branded workwear, well I say "complemented", more "I see you've got your school uniform on". He needs to get down with the kids more...

8) Skinned the last as well for good measure; wee bit more this time plus good places meant that, for the first time, the book crawled into profit. And I do mean crawled. Not enough to cover expenses but enough to give us a chance of being back in the game over the meeting as a whole.

We really, really need a bigger crowd tomorrow. It was absolutely soul destroying today averaging 25 bets a race. We live in hope though. Until then...