Again- this won't be a long one as we're doing 12 hour days all told and the longer the week goes on the more tired we get. My extremely wise mate once told me, many years ago, that when you turn 40 bits start falling off- he wasn't wrong.
This morning I wandered into the kitchen/lounge area in our digs. Kevin likes the his lights like Spinal Tap like their amps- max plus one. The sun was streaming through the window so I knocked the aforementioned lights off. Kevin was making the butties. He immediately stopped and said "I'll have to do these later then". I was mystified. "I can't see them" he explained. I swear he was pouting. I idly queried whether he had cataracts. He responded that if he carried on he'd cut his fingers, possibly clean off. I idly wondered if he was making the chicken salad sandwiches with a chainsaw with a blindfold on. He then squinted in theatrical fashion at the tin foil parcel he had made up and made a palava of an extended squint when writing Steve's name on them. He'd turned the kitchen into something out of the next series of Bear Grylls. It's amazing he's still alive. He's a bit of a drama queen is our Kev. At least half the blog was written for me by 8am.
And then, deliciously, Simon wandered in and stood in a cap off my inhaler and suggested he could have done himself a mischief. Two for the price of one this morning. I'm taking the team out in ways even Agatha Christie couldn't dream up.
And finally I was chatting to Jane, who is a truly lovely, lovely lady by the way, this morning recounting a Twitter thread regarding sniffer dogs, explosives and illicit substances.
Being a good Scottish bookmaker, shortbread is our mid meal snack of choice. This year's stock is of the "heavily sugared" variety. Steve has a lot on his plate doing the book so may have not been the most diligent when ingesting said snack and an element of Tate & Lyle's finest was coating most of his bottom half. At this point he decided to take a comfort break. Our friendly spaniel went into overdrive as Steve exited said convenience still with half of Walkers finest adorning his kecks. A posse, for it was a posse, of security surrounded Steve and offered him the opportunity to "come clean" and, when Steve, rightly, insisted he had nothing to come clean about, security demanded a full turn out of pockets. A few crumbs, a Tunnocks Caramel Wafer wrapper and a humbug later and there was the dawning realisation that Fido may just be a sugar addict. Sadly we haven't seen our floppy eared friend since and wonder if he's been pensioned off with a year's supply of Petticoat Tails in a novelty souvenir Nessie tin.
Incidentally I'd pay the entrance fee alone to watch Jane's husband Dave pitch in. The guy is the funniest bloke in the ring, possibly the country.
A quick trot through.
1) The two worst result in the book went to the line and the worst one won. Bad start, bad places. Shareholder wasn't an obvious lay on Ladies Day but the cheer suggested otherwise,
2) See race one. Worst result in the book, Going The Distance, beat best result, places were even worse than the first. Horrible.
3) It's Ladies Day so we don't want "names". Port Fairy won. Obviously. Yeah, places were awful again and we hit the worst result in the book 3 times on the run. Impressive stuff.
4) Ladies Day you generally have favourites running for you and we got our first positive result of the day with Kyprios. Though, again, places (which had been ridiculously kind Tuesday and Wednesday) were desperate. Dreams of wages were still on the horizon rather than in the foreground though. As an aside, we'd set the forecast up for someone and another chap followed in. He wanted 3 of them in each combination. I was feeling generous so I agreed to sort it for him. He started off wanting the 3-6 combo. I asked him his stake. "50p on that one"... No good deed goes unpunished.
5) Mickley was, however, so fine for us as only a couple of loyal American Disneyphiles had a couple of fivers on and finally places went our way and we had our best result of the week. Yeah, I know it was virtually favourite but we've lost on a couple of rags in the paragraphs above so cut us some slack.
6) Kings Gambit at Royal Ascot and it was the first favourite we'd managed to lay properly and we had another solid result on 2nd favourite Jayarebe. We'd turned the corners on places and we were digging ourselves out of misery and heading towards mediocrity.
7) In what looked an open handicap, favourite English Oak won comfortably but was another good, if not special, result and we had a places jackpot hattrick as well.
Business continues to concern at Ascot and Ladies Day appeared to be well short of a sell out. Not for me to tell Ascot how to do their business (even though I'm about to) but the Windsor Enclosure (Silver Ring in old money) is limping right now- attendances are well down in there. I like the ring but it is, really, a silver ring despite the name change. The cost of admission is not at a silver ring level (even for Royal Ascot) though and things like no big screen covering half the ring, the ring being over 2 furlongs (and over 3f at the far end from the finish line) etc means I hope they will take a long hard look before next year and find a way to re-establish what was, until fairly recently, a very vibrant ring. Whether that be a reduction in the entrance fee, a relaxation of the alcohol you can bring in rules, or some other creativity, I don't know, but a low entry admission point for what is an under 30s ring must surely be on the agenda?
I understand that crowds for Friday are set to be well down as well so we go in with a combination of hope and trepidation. Until then...
Commentaires