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The joy of having your rare judgement vindicated by a long-priced winner reminds me of an incident in my younger days.
It took me many decades to bet even half intelligently on the horses, and I’m not merely talking about the normal need to garner experience; I was always looking for rank outsiders to win – when as we know, they form a small percentage of overall winners.
I thought trainers could get horses fit at short notice, whenever they wanted, and they all had minds like corkscrews, and I was going to try and follow wherever the corkscrew led to winners.
During this long, long, almost completely fallow period, I spent 4 years 300 days and an early breakfast in the RA (senior regiment, right of the line – for the benefit of you guards types), with precisely the same rank as Duane Doberman and, oddly enough, Hunter S Thompon.
Duane was a Private II class in the motor pool, Hunter, an Aircraftsman II class (though not in the motor pool, I think), and me, a Gunner II Class in the Motor Pool.
One evening the guard sergeant, who happened to be my troop sergeant, Eagles, had us on parade for inspection, before guard duty.
Now, I’d had a rare winner just the other day, called Cassieme – a horse trained by Dave Thom, I believe – which won at 25/1.
Anyway, Eagles came up to me, looked me up and down and, evidently thinking I looked scruffy, asked me if I’d looked in the mirror. To my addled brain, it sounded like had I "seen the Mirror".
I thought that’s a strange question to ask in these circumstances, but if he wants to be informal, who am I to be complain? So, I replied, "Yeah, imagine that…..Cassieme – 25 to 1…..".
I could see him rock back on his heels with a look of utter bafflement on his moosh, while the other lads seemed to be having great difficulty suppressing their laughter.
Unfortunately, I chose to join the army a time when I was trying to work out the relationship between appearances and reality. And the army is not the place to  be with that kind of mindset. Constant discursive musings on the nature of reality is just a no-no. Don’t aks me why.
(Edited by Grimes at 4:17 pm on Sep. 17, 2006)<br>
(Edited by Grimes at 4:20 pm on Sep. 17, 2006)
Great story, Wallace, and fascinating reading other posters’ experiences in this thread, too.
Recently, Little Edward, first time out at 25s. Seemed the type to catch win first time out, particularly in a small field. At half his best, he was different class, (though on balance, I don’t think had really lived up to his potential).
When connections have a chance to win well, to a relatively small stake, on a horse that hasn’t won for a while, been disappointing, I think they don’t want to risk it winning in a small field, not providing cover. They’d prefer to continue to be disappointed until they decide the time’s appropriate! I’m not saying this is true of Little Edward’s connections – just my speculations.
Looking back through my records for the past year, such as they are, I also noticed Detroit City at 33s. It seemed incredible, and so it proved.
There is a downside, though, in that I’m so astonished, that I sometimes take the 14s to 20s asap, and it ends up 33s! Also further down the odds scale. I’m getting a bit better at sussing out the likely prices set by the bookies, but doubt it will ever be an exact science.
Another angle, a negative one, is big-priced or fairly big-priced horses you bet on that get mugged by a 50/1 or 60/1 shot – like Excusez-moi, yesterday!  But let’s not dwell on those.
I’m baffle at Imperial Stride being on offer on Betfair at 60s for the Caulfield Cup. I think he should win it. Godolphin say he’s their drak horse for the race – intending at this stage to run him – as he hasn’t yet run for them. But he’s down to run in a couple of races here before Oz, so if he’s anything like his old self that won’t last long. He was rated by Tmeform a few pounds above Yeats last year. Top horse for his age.
<br>
I suspect that, as well as being better on the day, Kastoria is a very good horse, himself. Yeats has had a busier season; this was Kastoria’s dedicated first Group 1 target.
I’ve noticed that classy sort of horses who won middle- distance or staying handicaps apparently very easily under 10 stone (at least, when the bottom weight was 7.7) were often never the same again. Well, that’s true, I suppose, of a lot of horses who bust a gut, sometimes to be cruelly pipped.
I think Captain’s Table was once such horse.
Interesting time this arvo watching RUK. I seemed to be watching different races to the race caller, though I suppose they must have been the same races, only with a time lag of several seconds.
So, I’m thinking Whirling Dervish for instance is tearing home in the lead, and it turns out it’s 33/1 shot who wins. Similar thing with Shot to Fame earlier. Senior moments are happening to me ever more frequently.
(Edited by Grimes at 5:58 pm on Sep. 15, 2006)
<br>(Edited by Grimes at 6:01 pm on Sep. 15, 2006)<br>
(Edited by Grimes at 6:03 pm on Sep. 15, 2006)
If he is a losing punter, they were very short-sighted, and he’d have just as much reason to feel aggrieved, wouldn’t he? I don’t really get your point. ÂÂÂ
If he is a winning punter with them, surely he has as much right to moan about them as they have to limit his bet.
(Edited by Grimes at 10:26 pm on Sep. 8, 2006)
I like Lydia Hislop a lot, but I also like the sound of Ryan Moore as an interviewee! A kind of equestrian House, the surly, cantankerous diagnostician.
Jockyship is no laughing matter, of course, but I much prefer dry dark humour to a Bernie Winters type of affableness (nice bloke though he doubtless is in real life). I’m really looking forward to seeing the "suppressed rage"!
Lydia Hislop’s reaction, seems characteristically feminine, and makes it all the funnier to read. Her waspish "…charitably interpeted as shyness" was hilarious. <br>
(Edited by Grimes at 10:49 pm on Sep. 1, 2006)
A couple of plausible-looking outsiders at Redcar tonicht, imho, are Matinee Idol in the 7.30 and Apex in the 8.00. These kind of bets tend to come in, I find, when punters have given up on them. Win or lose on the day, they’re value bets.
Easy to say… before your optimism is shattered, I suppose!
(Edited by Grimes at 10:09 pm on Aug. 24, 2006)
I’ve learnt something this week from York.
Put enough on a long-shot I really strongly fancy to get a return, not of £100, but £200.
My net profit from a £100 return, after other liabilities, some maybe hedging in the same race, some frittered away on more speculative bets (invariably at shorter prices), makes it an unnecessarily onerous way to obtain even by my standards a relatively small amount.
In another connection, re the first race today, I think Prime Defenders’ backers were robbed. I’m talking through my pocket, but justificably imo. I’m baffled why Hills didn’t object.
I’m pretty sure I recall a race in which the fourth horse was moved up to first place – in fact I think most of the placings were changed. So, I presume they must have changed the rules in the interim. <br>
I think Soapy’d beat hm in the Leger, but fancied Red Rocks in this. He has a fair bit of speed in his breeding and has shown it on the track; whereas SD is aid to be a lazy so-and-so, and I get the impression he just lengthens. The extra distance of the leger may show him in a better light. I hope… I would think he wasn’t aimed at this one.
(All of the above, opined by the man who thought Cherry Mix could be the best bet bet of the week!)
I expect those two to fight it out – Cherry Mix and Maraahel. They’re the two stars on the book, timewise, and I’m hoping they’re going to turn it on. I’m hoping CM ‘s going to run them into the ground.
Perhaps I’ll be terribly wrong, but CM looks the star bet of the week to me.
(Edited by Grimes at 10:05 pm on Aug. 21, 2006)
Very interesting Cormack. How about Wild Thang… among so many spoilt middle-class brats in the ranks of the golfers! Not all, I know, but very well represented, imo.
(Edited by Grimes at 1:59 pm on Aug. 10, 2006)
I reckon Dettori, Fallon and maybe McEvoy would edge it, the difference from the other jocks being chiefly consistency. Personally, I doubt Kieren would be inferior on front-runners to the other two.
Not that I’m knocking Robinson’s prowess, but I think he was a lighter weight for most of his career, wasn’t he? Or Holland’s prowess, but I get the impression he hasn’t made the most of his opportunities and gets less of the top rides these days.
Of course, Dettori and Fallon tend to get more of the the best horses, having made their mark on lesser beasts.
But otherwise, I suspect you couldn’t get a rizla paper between  the rest of the leading jockeys. When they’re on top form they’re perfect or near perfect, and their consistency would be at much the same level, though below the top two.
A bit like pro golfers. My brother-in-law told me the difference between their skills is actually very slight.
<br>(Edited by Grimes at 10:06 pm on Aug. 9, 2006)
<br>(Edited by Grimes at 10:06 pm on Aug. 9, 2006)<br>
(Edited by Grimes at 2:02 pm on Aug. 10, 2006)
I love the Morning Line. Couldn’t get enough of it before it started at an unearthly hour. I could watch it all morning otherwise.
I wish Tanya would turn her back on McCirick and look around at great length, while he is talking to camera. Is he watching the tic-tac activity, while she is talking? Well, so can she.
Really, she needs to show him the fathomless contempt she must feel for him for his endless infantile rudeness. It’s gone on for far too long. Some may have found his  mode of address, "female" droll the first time they heard it, but to say it’s worn too thin ever since would be to seriously understate it.
Though no amount of public derision by fellow-racegoers has proved sufficient to shame him or his employers, no young woman should be routinely subjected  to such humiliating rudeness week after week, on the implausible grounds of humour.
Maybe Im paranoid about freemasons, though I know there are some good ones, but I can only assume he is one, to have remained in that job. It doesn’t make any sense at all otherwise. There are, after all, many other people at least as knowledgeable and infinitely more personable to fill his place.
Is that libel? It sounds fair comment to me, however reluctantly made.
<br>(Edited by Grimes at 2:42 pm on Aug. 6, 2006)<br>
(Edited by Grimes at 2:43 pm on Aug. 6, 2006)
Of course, comparing him to Secretariat was way over the top. But he just seemd to be in a different race, a different dimension even, in that relatively lowly penultimate race. And he didn’t win by a furlong…
In another connection, I didn’t bet on the race but I’ve just seen Jon-Jo’s New Time take off from the field in the last furlong or so, at Stratford, seem to slow down and take a breather coming up to the last, jump it slowly and then fall.
It’s doubtless easier said than done, but I couldn’t help wondering even when he took off, if it wouldn’t have been better to cruise at a higher but more even pace (and take the last fence at "normal" speed).
(Edited by Grimes at 3:49 pm on Aug. 3, 2006)
