I prepared by getting in touch with my feminine side by taking the significantly better half and favourite/only daughter to the Strictly Ballroom musical on Saturday, despite a rancid chest infection, and supplemented it by watching the truly fabulous film on Tuesday night. My absolute guilty pleasure. So would we be Pan Pacific Grand Prix Champions or Gutless Wonders? Read on.
Some Ladies Days are hard work. Mainly because they're full of blokes who end up in a scrap if they are unsuccessful in the "courting" stakes on the day. I'm sure it's called something different now. At one rather infamous Ladies Day (I'll leave you to guess where) there's a sweep on the time of the first fight, the first bloke to be kicked out and the first ambulance on track. "Before the first race for all three" is the nap. Not so at Perth though. Perth Ladies Day is a delight. Unfailingly polite, delightful in victory, gracious in defeat, not a hint of grief. In fact, there's barely even any blue suited guys who emerge from the portaloos with a constant sniffle.
There are some Ladies Day constants though.
1) The perusal of the field right in front of your joint for half the betting, much like my wife with the menu at a new restaurant.
2) The fiver proffered for a fiver each way bet
3) The utter conviction that I know what is going to win
4) The decision to bet a totally different horse even after I proffer an opinion to number 3)
5) The utter shock at a fiver minimum bet, even though it's thirty quid to get in and 6 quid a pint
6) The utter delight to find out that we were, actually, only 2 quid minimum after all
7) The indignation when a 20 quid is offered, no stake mentioned, and a horse selected and I call "twenty on 2" when, of course, only a 2 quid bet is wanted (and 18 quid change is required)
8) The following conversation on repeat
"5 pounds on Lacila Blue"
"Certainly, what's the number please"
"Lacila Blue"
"Sure, what's the number please"
"Lacila Blue"
"Absolutely, err, just the number please" "Lacila Blue"
"FIVER ON 7 PLEASE STEVE"
Can I just stress that, when it's busy, we really want the number of the horse as it's miles quicker than me peering for it in the list. We never get it. When we ask for the number we probably know what it is most of the time but we're trying, in a very polite way, of getting folk into the habit of asking for the number, not the name. It doesn't really work. More on that pretty much immediately.
1) Almost the first bet in. "2 pounds on Sunshine Girl", "yeah, what's the number of that one please?", "Sunshine Girl", "Yep, what's the number again please?", "Sunshine Girl". At this point I can see Sunshine Girl. I know it's number 8 but I give it one more go as, when I'm 10 deep in the next race, I just want the number. So I do that bookie thing of looking at the board, pretending to try to see Sunshine Girl. It's a charade. I know it's number 8 but, by God, I want this lady to give the number of the horse for the rest of the day. It's the bookmaker equivalent of the baby food on the spoon pretending it's an aeroplane coming in to land. So the dance continues. I'm looking at the list, when our lady starts jabbing the board, still resolutely saying "Sunshine Girl", all the while prodding enthusiastically at number 8. And then, delightfully, she still doesn't say "number 8" but she does say, very, very loudly, "Sunshine Girl, can you nae f***ing read son". Frankly I was delighted to be called "son", especially as I suspect she was younger than me. I gave her the bet. It didn't win. We didn't see her again.
Anyway, I digress, we stood Lacila Blue and Knocknacree and had a modest winning start as Lucinda's very, very drifty Bix Beiderbecke beat the latter of our two bogeys. Places were poor but we were slightly ahead in the book and nabbed another 20 quid on a losing forecast. It felt like an escape as Lucinda's are generally losers for us at Perth.
2) 3 runners with the ever shortening favourite our only winner and the other 2 losers, as regular readers will know to expect in the standard CairnBet hotpot book. The jolly did prevail but made exceptionally heavy weather of it and we had a decent win plus another tenner in the forecast.
3) Lucinda's Aurora Thunder a bogey this time, along with the inevitable Neigh Botha, which shortened dramatically and gave us cause for concern. Unnecessarily as it turned out as Darkest Day looked the most likely winner for a reasonable profit for us, but all our Christmases came at once as Trebizond came from nowhere and defied a suitably big in running price to give us an absolute jackpot, supplemented by a dream of a place result and the obligatory tenner in the forecast. We were flying.
4) And then we weren't. The only one they wanted was Gordon Elliott's Calico which drifted on the off to give us a cracking book but, as is often the case, destroyed said book and also defied the bing bong of the stewards enquiry, which was probably a good job as we'd already paid out a grand when the chimes came in. A step backwards but at least it wasn't a double payout.
5) We stood the rag in this one. If you can call a 9/2 shot a rag. We weren't desperately upset that last night's runner, Victory Echo, was a solid winner for us as we assumed it was going again for a reason. Though if anyone had seen my next day out golfing performance on Wednesday they'd have been forgiven for doubting the wisdom. And, yep, we won in the forecast...
6) We had no chance early on here as Izzy's Champion and Sword of Fate looked the only possible winners but we were in bullet dodging mode again as our bogeys finished 2nd and 3rd and a small, but still welcome, win was eked out on Friary Rock.
7) Bumpers at Perth, for some reason, go a bit mad. Everyone comes out for them. Imagine our disappointment when we realised we were finishing with a handicap hurdle. It didn't bring out the punters in the way that, bizarrely, a bumper does. Beauty to Behold was our worst loser and looked to be cruising but we got a decent win on Just Dottie which was our only winner in the top 4 in the betting. I thanked my lucky stars that Dorothy, as a name, had fallen out of fashion. We'd have been battered in Kansas on this one circa 1935.
So a cracking day for us in the end, a procession of moderate to decent wins supplemented by a jackpot in the 3rd race and only one result that put us in reverse. And a Eurovision reference as well which is not our usual bag but appropriate nonetheless.
Cartmel a week on Saturday kicks off a Saturday/Sunday/Monday triple header for us over the bank holiday weekend. Until then...
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