Perth 27 July 2022 - School's out for summer

Alice Cooper not really my musical genre but given the iconic reference to it in The Young Ones and my son's current Oasis length mop on top of his head it feels apt. Let all your hairs hang down.

Late blog as Thursday consisted of (in no particular order and for both of our offspring) Dance competition classes, 9 holes of golf, Gloomhaven session (Google it), under 15s football training (no lycra here) topped off by a continued and extended dialogue re player registration with Scottish Youth Football Association and me and the better half barely had time for a quick "Better Call Saul" before hitting the hay.

So, without further ado (and before this morning's Dad's taxi service begins) here's what happened at Perth on Wednesday.

As you know we don't do a lot of midweek meetings as they are generally not viable but we attended Perth as;

a) it's 20 minutes away

b) Goodwood was on

c) there's usually some sizeable bets on offer at Perth

d) there were more runners than bookmakers

It is, however, hard to set a liability. Normally we go half what we take up to our usual limit but midweeks at Perth are problematic as the number of bets taken is pretty low but there's the odd chunky one which pushes turnover higher than normal but a one off bet doesn't make for a "normal" looking book. Eventually we settled on somewhere between "Kelso training pants" and "max". Any reference to "max" below is today's Perth max therefore. Moving on as I am, literally, boring myself;

1) Split screen in order to show Goodwood on the LED board duly in place we embarked on a fairly low turnover betting heat as is often the case in the first. Book untouched- half liability on Al Muffrih, tiny one on Petite Rhapsody, bore draw on The Rutland Rebel- bottom 4 worth a bit. Genever Dragon led all and, a decent jump at the last would surely have seen us off to a good start but my nan hasn't got wheels so she isn't a bike. Similarly Genever clattered and Rutland got up in final strides to leave us 0-0 after 1.

2) We can usually get the short ones in at Perth and it was the case here as we had jolly First Angel for a close to max. Rock on Tommy a taker and other 3 winners. Getaman a good result for us and expenses covered... so far... but then a Goodwood jolly in the first a couple of minutes later set us back. Expenses back to coming out of pocket.

3) Another more or less untouched book left Lake Shore Lad and Emirat De Catana loses for 1/2, Get Phar a tiny winner and other 3 various degrees of niceness ranging from "pretty nice" to "jackpot nice". Next door told me Barney Stinson couldn't win but, nonetheless there was a bit of late off course money for it and it traded odds on close to home. Not to be though, as the jolly went past and our early profit turned to dust in a Mr Pointy style slaying which was compounded by another (ish) jolly getting up on the nod at Goodwood to beat our skinner who, again, had looked the winner. Book now behind as well as expenses to get.

4) Usual 4 runner CairnBet bookend book, again totally unhedged. Losers at top and bottom of market, winners in the middle. Next door wryly suggested more "unhinged" than "unhedged". No matter, Big Difference won comfortably in real life and in our book and a skinner at Goodwood gave us our best 10 minutes of the day and we were nicely in front.

5) Lady Babs the on course horse of desire (but not that desirable) and, if I'm honest, we had a pretty boring looking book which turned into a pretty boring looking infinitesimally small loss with Britka triumphing and us paddling. We bet without Baaeed at Goodwood and only had one loser in the book which, of course, won the runner up stakes to Baaeed. Paddling became back pedalling. A little bit.

6) 3 losers. All half max. Only 3 in the race. All the losers. Became a case of hoping Seemingly So didn't get past Heavey to place and turn a win loss into a win and place loss. Obviously it did and we had our worst result of the day. Running to stand still. Another jolly at Goodwood. We only had expenses and only had one race to go to earn from the day.

7) As is often the case we had a lovely, lovely lady who bet with us all day and, unfortunately, she hadn't had a winner all day. As is also often the case she implored us for the winner in the last. As always we said that if we knew what was going to win we'd be on a beach. As always she didn't believe us but was incredibly lovely about it. She'd bet Diablo Loch each way and asked me my fancy. I liked Illusion of Time and told her so and she had a reasonable bet on it at around 3/1. She told me it had better win. I told her I wasn't riding it but I'd cross my fingers and toes for her. It shortened to 9/4 but was still a fairly healthy winner in our book. She showed me her Diablo Loch bet which was winning an eye watering sum for her at 3 figure odds- she asked me why Illusion wasn't winning as much. I told her Illusion had 4 legs whilst Diablo had just the 3. It's a standard bookmaker gag. Diablo was a loser for us along with fav Say You Say Me- I'm not a fan of Lionel Richie either but that didn't stop me singing every bet we took on it. I digress...

Our lovely lady's horse with 3 legs hit 1/3 in running and I was preparing a spoon for my super size humble pie but it stopped when it looked like going past Illusion of Time but still hung on for a place. Good win for us knocked a wee bit by Diablo placing. I got a chaste hug from our lovely lady and I was delighted for her- I didn't even ask if she had the forecast as I knew she hadn't. Don't puncture the happy balloon. Overall we showed on ok profit in the book at Perth, a miniscule loss at Goodwood and laid a few bets at Redcar which also showed a profit, though nothing earth shattering. We ended up with a wage but, like the rest of July, it was a small one.

We are headed to Musselburgh tonight and hope for a, positive, change in fortune there. Until then...