I’d made it to Day 3 slighlty ahead but with the prospect of 4 big handicaps to solve on the Thursday I wasn’t too confident of it staying that way…
The first race of the day was the Jewson Handicap Chase and incidentally there is a really good trend for both this race and the Fred Winter Handicap Hurdle that you should write down now for next year. It’s probably the best trend of the whole meeting!
Both of these races are for novices, both are handicaps and also both have now been running for 6 years. It may interest you to know that all 6 winners of both races (12 in total) hadn’t won over their respective obstacles until at least their 3rd run. That is to say, every winner of the Jewson and Fred Winter had a slow start to their new careers but were now improving just at the right time with lenient handicap marks.
Copper Bleu won his first chase on his 3rd run and Sanctuaire won over hurdles at the third time of trying. An excellent trend that gets rid of quite a few runners.
So having applied that trend and a few others I had the race between Kings Forest and Othermix. I slightly favoured the former and had £25ew at 20’s and balanced my book with a tenner each way at 50’s on the latter. Othermix ran a cracker to reward my each way bet and give me a good start to the day. According to the Racing Post an intrepid punter had £600 ew at 100’s on him. OOOhhh close, I bet his heart was racing coming down to the last!
Next up was the Pertemps Final and my two against the field were Prince Eric and Fredo so I had £25ew on both at 16’s and 20’s. Getting carried away in the moment I also backed Smoking Aces (£20 just in case) and Maucaillou (£20 ew). I also did a combination forecast / tricast and by the time Prince Erik had run second I’d realised how foolish it is to back 4 horses in one race and paid the price for my indesicion. Did I mention that I think the desicion to run Smoking Aces here instead of the Coral Cup was a bad one? Probably.
The Ryanair. I had a strong fancy for Tranquil Sea and waded in with £80 at 11/2 but it seems I was the only one who did as he spent the morning drifting in the betting and this carried on sliding out in the run up to the race. This forced me to have a rethink so I had a £40 saver on Poquelin. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve made Alberta’s Run the trends pick for our guides. Every race he ran in last year he seemed to have a perfect trends profile. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see him win this race at 14/1 having not tipped him, having not backed him and having backed the runner-up. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
The World Hurdle and the banker of the meeting, Big Bucks. So naturally I backed two each way against him. £10ew on Cape Tribulation and £20ew Sentry Duty. The banker won like a good thing, my two ran like something rhyming with bankers and I’d done my money again. I think I’m gonna have to start backing at odds-on. I mean, 5/6 was an amazing price.
And so on to my favourite race of the meeting, The Festival Plate. Having had a good win in the race last year I was very hopeful of following up this year with Jayo. Like quite a few of Willie Mullins’s horses last week he never really got into it and my £50ew wager was beaten some way out. My £20ew on I’m So Lucky proved to be anything but. I think I’ll have to start betting horses with names that are more appropriate, Second Again, Never In The Hunt or Fifthpayfirstfour. The Festival Plate is no longer my favourite race of the Festival, I like the RSA Chase.
Things were now looking bleak and what you don’t want for the get-out-stakes is a 24 runner, 3 mile chase for Amateur riders. But needs must and a quick £20 on Ballybriggs, £20 Shillinstone and £10ew Ma Yahab with a combination forecast/tricast nearly saved the day.
A loss on the day, put me only just behind on the week but it was looking a lot worse 10 minutes before those wonderful Amateur riders did their stuff. I reckon every meeting should have a 24 runner, 3 Mile chase for Amateur Riders as the last race of the day.
Friday, Gold Cup Day, the Big Match, Kauto vs Denman. Bring it on! I packed my laptop and my Kauto scarf into my rucksack and caught the train to London for a weekend of punting with my best buddy Matt. A couple of hours later and I was already $33 down. I foolishly decided to wile away the time on the train by playing a quick game of poker. With tunnels, fields, banks and other such obstacles blocking my internet signal it wasn’t one of my best ideas. Sitting there with pocket aces with an allin before you and being disconnected is in poker terms, definitely negative EV. (For the non poker players, I had a good hand but a bad signal and lost my money).
I arrived into Paddington at lunchtime and after a quick tube journey and a short walk I was in the Brown Bear drinking the first Budweiser of the day. Catching up with the guys, drinking and punting. Does it get better than that? Well yes, catching up with the guys, drinking and winning would have been nice.
The Triumph Hurdle just about set the tone fo the day after Westlin Winds ran an absolute shocker. My £50ew antepost bet at 22/1 went the same way as my £40 saver on Advisor, down the pan. Joining those slips was my £80 on Oldrik in the Coral Cup although a £10ew on Dee Ee Williams eased the pain a little. Things were bad but they were about to get even worse when Tell Massini and my £100 went down that same pan. Matt and I had £40ew on Najaf and rather embarrassingly spent the majority of the last mile shouting ‘come on Ruby’ unaware that he wasn’t riding Paul Nicholls horse, he was on Quel Esprit. If we had left it a little longer it would have been apparent that it was indeed Timmy Murphy and not Ruby onboard as after looking like the winner coming down to the last he did his usual impression of a ‘big girls blouse’ and was outridden, outstayed and out-fought. Time for another Budweiser. Geez, I thought Cardiff was an expensive place to drink but these Londoners really know how to maximise their profit margins!
The Gold Cup, The Big One, The Big Fight, Denman vs Kauto. Horse racing is not boxing, it’s ’s never just a two horse battle unless there are only 2 horses in the race. Matt and I decided on Tricky Trickster each way and joined Ladbrokes on-odds club to get the enhanced price on him. I’ve now signed up to a daily bombardment of emails from the Magic Sign just to get better odds on a horse that, as far as I know, is still running.
Another round of drinks, I need a winner or I’m going to have to remortgage the house, and it was onto the Foxhunters. £2oew on Gentle George ,who of course finished fourth, and £10ew Sericina, who fell, left me scrambling for the number for Ocean Finance.
More budweiser, more banter, more betting. I’d even resorted to backing the greyhounds by name. First, Jerry and I backed some dog with Jerry in the name (it won), then we backed one with Tom (Tom and Jerry!) in it’s name (that also won) but by the time we backed an Edna (Jerry’s wifes aunt’s goldfish or something) our winning streak had come to an end. Back to the horses….
The Martin Pipe Hurdle. It seems that the world and his wife were thinking along the same lines as me with Ashkazar and 9/2 didn’t look that good a price in the end. Obviously that didn’t stop me having £40 on him but I did have £20ew on Clova Island to save the race, if not the day. Ashkazar will win before the end of the season.
And so after 25 races this was it, the final race of the Cheltenham Festival, The Grand Annual. A week previously I had been very confident of one horse making my Cheltenham. His name was Shoreacres but having been backed in from 25’s to 12’s the trainer, for reasons I haven’t been able to find out, took him out of the race. Back to the drawing board. Having redone the race I came up with a shortlist of 4 including the horse my brother had been banging on about for some time, Pigeon Island, but what does he know? After an afternoon on the Budweiser my already poor vision had definitely clouded further and my £5oew on Safari Journey was just a desparate attempt to rescue the meeting. He ran okay but not good enough to make the frame. He’s another who looks sure to appreciate Aintree but if you take any horse from the race for the Liverpool meeting it has to be 5th horse home Tartak. I’ll be away when the declarations are made but make sure you back this one for the Red Rum Chase when the betting is put up.
And then it was all over. A poor Friday meant I had lost money this week and the amount I’d drunk meant I’d be suffering the next day but there’s always hope. My salvation would lie with a Full English, a bag of starburst (best hangover cure ever) and Tranquil Tiger in the Winter Derby. Then it’s Las Vegas and back home for Aintree…..
Good luck,
Gavin.