Honestly, we should be used to 32 degree temperatures coming from Scotland but today we weren't. It was brutal. Admittedly our 32 degrees in Perthshire tends to come in Fahrenheit rather than Centigrade, which may have accounted for the melting on the CairnBet stands. Thanks so, so much to the loveliest group of punters ever in the picnic area who were our ice runners and also supplied us with mangoes, melons, strawberries and grapes from their fruit platter- very much appreciated. Apparently Ascot were charging £2 for a glass of ice; though our friends managed to secure 3 ice cubes (yes a whole 3) for free. You can draw your own conclusions regarding that mark up.
Another day, another late decision to close off the back lawn for VIPs though at least we knew in advance of pitching in this time. We spoke to a few people in the VIP picnic section and there was a lot of disgruntlement that they had paid a fairly hefty upgrade and were positioned way past the bend and did not have access to view a big screen. Problem exacerbated when the tannoy went down for an early race too. It's absolutely not for me to tell Ascot how to run their business but I would imagine that a relocation further towards the winning post for VIP picnic areas may be on the agenda next year if the annoyance we witnessed translates into actual complaints. I'd be surprised if there will be much repeat business if left in that area. There is clearly a market for this as they all said it was great to have their own table to retreat to but, with the absence of a screen and the positioning past the bend, they barely saw a horse all day.
1) 6 losers with max losses on Beautiful Eyes and Queen Olly. It was a shootout between the top 2 in the market and we started with a decent win with Meditate. As has been said before we really struggle to lay favourites in the silver ring at Ascot and this was the case again today in race 1.
2) Finally a liability on a favourite (Go Bears Go) plus 3rd favourite El Caballo- almost a "normal" looking book, and we dodged both to get a small win on 2nd favourite Perfect Power.
3) Ascot became Perth as we had 2 normal books on the run, standing the top two in the market (Just Fine and Trawlerman) for plenty and we breathed a sigh of relief as the lightly bet 3rd favourite Candleford gave us a cracking result.
4) If you read yesterday's and are playing the liability game then "Honey Girl" was the absolute nap lay and we had to back it back to get it into our liability from its colossal liability. 2nd and 3rd favourite also losers and Frankie did us a rare Ascot favour by obliging on favourite Inspiral which looked in trouble early but got out of trouble and won impressively. The only disappointment was that Inspiral's price wasn't a carpet. Another nice win and This Is How It Feels To be relieved.
5) Max liabilities on a couple of rags (Golden Mayflower and Mashaaer) plus a max on Fresh Hope at the top of the market. Teeny win on yet another favourite Heredia and we stood plenty in the place market and got an excellent result when we steered them all.
6) A 50/50 book for us with Lysander, Dark Moon Rising and Savvy Victory in the losers column. The best result for us, unsurprisingly, was the 11/10 shot Changingoftheguard which looked in a great deal of trouble throughout but managed to prevail by the smallest of margins. Steve's not a fan of forecasts and took great pleasure in pointing out our loss in that market. Spoilsport.
7) We were crawling at this point. 8 1/2 hours on track at this point and we were all feeling it- bookmakers and punters alike. Betting was fairly quiet as the crowd ebbed back to air conditioned comfort and we liberally applied factor 50 for the 12th time. 6 losers inevitably including Tippy Toes which ran well but got hampered at every turn and Peggy Sioux which looked the winner and likely to give us a patented CairnBet loss on a rag until Latin Lover got up in the final 100 yards to beat Nymphadora (small loser) and we were relieved that Harry Potter devotees outnumbered Ricky Martin fans to give us another decent win.
All in all a good day for us on a fairly small take overall. I'm always slightly reticent about posting these blogs when we've had a decent day when the results have been poor for the traditional layer but it is what it is I guess and we move on to tomorrow (though blog won't appear until Sunday due to travelling home through 2 countries for about a day). Until then...
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