Gambling, dear reader, is a broad church. And wagering on living organisms has an only slightly narrower apse (now there’s a word I haven’t used for many a long year!).

Be it horses racing, cocks fighting, pigeons flying, or dumb dogs chasing a motorised cuddly toy, where there’s luck there’s brass…

So, today, I hope that the purists will forgive me. For with just seven days to go until the eve of Cheltenham, I have decided to trial a dog laying service.

Yes, you read that as I wrote it: a dog laying service. I know how easy it is to frown upon dog racing, and I must admit that for me its right down there with virtual racing. (By the way, have you seen the graphics at Millersfield, the virtual dog track? Very impressive!)

But lets face it, we are in this for the money as well as the love. And, if there’s money with no love, well that might just supplement some equine love with no money… so before dismissing things out of hand, take a squint at this:

greyhoundtipster.com does what it says on the label.

Today, I received an email early doors telling me to lay these in order of perceived chance (or lack of, given that we’re trying to get them beaten).

Now the picture is not great, but I can tell you that - as I write - the bottom two have yet to run and, of the other ten, nine were beaten, and the only winner was a 6/4 shot.

I intend to track this lay service’s progress for the rest of the school week, leaving the weekend to get back to the business of a small west country jumps meeting next week.

So, suffice it to say, early days but so far so very good… If you want more info on the service, you can check it out here:

But my advice would be to track things on here for a few days, as things may not be as good as they seem at this point… I’ll be tracking results on a spreadsheet, which you can link to here.

Gone to the dogs? I might be doing just that…

Woof woof!

Matt