Perth 23/4/26 - Whistling In The Dark

As always with these multi day festival type things it's a very quick trot through the book and not a lot else. This may not be a bad thing in fairness.

Certainly busier than yesterday and we, again, pitched up down by the lawns; the weather was unseasonably kind and we hoped the picnic tables would fill, which they largely did.

1) Two virtually the same price when we opened, one halved in price, one doubled. No prices for guessing a) which one we couldn't lay and b) which one was never winning - spoiler, they are one and the same. The winning jolly was a 0-0 draw in the book as we did some rag standing at the bottom of the book. Each way book was rancid and we needed the massively drifting original joint favourite to place to save us. It didn't; the smashed up Frankies Fortune did and we had a bit of a kicking. They say the horse doesn't know the price but I'm thinking a few of them had a fair idea today... Poor start

2) Not getting funny now. Perth; Jolly Zone. It felt like it was taking on the same nature as yesterday as another jolly won with jockey motionless. Half max loss as we stuck Joey and his bottles in plus the obligatory bottom 2 in the market so it could've been worse but the omens were ominous again.

3) Another race, another smashed up fav but this time we'd laid the original favourite Soldiers Leap plus Lets Mingle and Heard That. Nice enough win topped up by a place result that was the polar opposite of race 1 and we nudged marginally ahead in the book but still nowhere today's expenses yet alone getting some of yesterday's back. Next door joined in with a lady who was breaking out into song. There may very well be a tune called "Lets Mingle" but I'd never heard of it and I doubt I'd recognise it from the rendition floating across the ring.

4) Only two horses in town. Toothless and the one nobody could pronounce. Turned out, despite our diligent work, half the crowd were still asking by name and "Too....thless" led to a million voids as I'd hit horse 2 before the sentence was completed. Numbers not names, especially when a horse name starts with a number. No matter we had a virtual skinner on Classic Maestro and we were finally over the expense hump. As an aside I told every bet on the 3 horse that it might be a giant. I might be the only person in Scotland who got it.

5) Aaaand the hump came back with a vengeance. Stuck the top 4 in with jackpots on the other 3. Never had a sniff. The dead heat was between the worst two in the book with further place misery. The genie was out of the bottle as next door were, once again, serenaded and required to partake by their insistent punter. I told George his wife must really love him.

6) 5th winning favourite out of 6 races ( 4 1/2 for the pedants) and we couldn't avoid it. Thoughts of wages a mere hour before seemed fanciful again. Sigh. The "singing" next door showed no sign of abating - it was more like an episode of The Good Old Days than a betting heat. I was implored to "join in". I asked them if they knew "I Am The Resurrection", they didn't.

7) Stuck 4 of them in and got our full reward on Breadalbane Lass. Mispronounced throughout by both punter and commentator. I could feel the collective ire of Aberfeldy folk across the ring. Best result of the meeting by some distance and we were most assuredly back in the game.

8) Lumps in the ring for Inis Oirr and I wasn't disappointed to see it was just on the positive side of the ledger when the race went off. Places halved the profit and it was a bit of an anti climactical end to the day but no damage done when there could've been plenty. Next door gave us a final rendition of the day - Proclaimers, natch. Fortunately it wasn't 500 miles back to the car.

Solid enough day for us in the end and we have a base to work from for tomorrow on the busiest day of the meeting. Until then...