[Professortrubshawe]

Ballbriggan put down.

[Professortrubshawe]

I’m only interested in stewards’ inquiries when they award the race to my horse; something that never happens.

[Professortrubshawe]

Good luck with your thread Prof.

Thanks. I’ll need it.

[Professortrubshawe]

I like it when the commentators say ‘enigmatic’.

[Professortrubshawe]

I had Dunraven Storm and Irish Saint. That’d be right.

[Professortrubshawe]

I had 7 horses in that race.

Steve Caution note: I am happy to lose!

[Professortrubshawe]

1.30 Aintree

Benbens

The Package.

[Professortrubshawe]

ok. cheers.

[Professortrubshawe]

I do too many posts for that to be worthwhile Prof, you’d get inundated with messages.

Also, I don’t do texting.

No worries, I was only kidding.

Just so I check back – are you putting any bets up later for Sandown tomo?

[Professortrubshawe]

Might be an innovation Cormack could work on: Allowing people to ‘follow’ another user and get an email when they post in a certain thread. Be handy!

[Professortrubshawe]

DIDN’T SEE IT!!

Darn.

Can you do a text-to-phone service, please?

[Professortrubshawe]

No matter how bent the game is and how much the bookie’s hypnotism draws you in and befuddles the brain with smoke and mirrors, there is always a winner in every race.

Sometimes you will be on that very winner and sometimes you won’t. When you can treat those two imposters just the same:-

"If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss"

Kipling (Exceedingly good stakes)

…sounds like ‘The Ladbroke’s Life’ to me. Have you seen that advert? TRAGIC.

I am a big Kipling fan. But these days I think the following poem is more prescient and germane, and must presuppose If:

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don’t work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

The smooth-tongued wizards are still with us unfortunately.

[Professortrubshawe]

I downloaded the Timeform racecard for Ludlow. Never used one before: crikey, it’s fiddly.

Anyway. After a lot of squinting:

No. Selections Event Event Date E/W Terms Odds Result
1 Stephanie Frances 1.40 Ludlow (RACE 3)
(Win and Each Way)
Live Stream 03/12/2014 2 Places
1/4 Odds 9/2 To Run
2 Roja Dove 1.40 Ludlow (RACE 3)
(Win and Each Way)
Live Stream 03/12/2014 2 Places
1/4 Odds 9/1 To Run
3 Kingsmere 2.10 Ludlow (RACE 4)
(Win and Each Way)
Live Stream 03/12/2014 3 Places
1/4 Odds 7/1 To Run
4 Sin Bin 2.10 Ludlow (RACE 4)
(Win and Each Way)
Live Stream 03/12/2014 3 Places
1/4 Odds 8/1 To Run
5 Bonobo 2.40 Ludlow (RACE 5)
(Win and Each Way)
Live Stream 03/12/2014 3 Places
1/5 Odds 7/1 To Run
6 Highway Code 2.40 Ludlow (RACE 5)
(Win and Each Way)
Live Stream 03/12/2014 3 Places
1/5 Odds 14/1 To Run

2nds and 3rds. SIN BIN is going to win soon. Stephanie was beaten and neck, still probably pull it off somewhere. Highway Code was what I call a joyride: Run it pedal-to-the-metal and see what happens for next time. We haven’t heard the last of him.

[Professortrubshawe]

Nicholls says in his memoirs: ‘We don’t stop them.’

I’ve always found him one of the more open trainers in interviews.
In regard to general trainer/jockey tight-lippedness, surely there must be universal acknowledgement among them that the game has to be the way it is – a difficult thing deliberately made as complex and diaphanous as possible – for everyone in it to make a living. If trainer/jockey x said on saturday ‘yeah, my nag’s gonna piss it; everyone in lambourn knows, down to the potman in the pub, and I informed Ladbrokes last tuesday. Everyone’s on, including most of the jockeys in the race,’ well, there wouldn’t be any racing after a short while.

[Professortrubshawe]

Thanks for all that, Ginger. I’m rubbish at maths, so that was a help.

[Professortrubshawe]

Well done, Ginger! Many Clouds and Monetaire. Plus I found Medinas under my own steam.

Not sure I deserve credit Prof. Many Clouds was just a saver bet for me and only the 5/2 fav Monetaire won. Well done in finding Medinas, am kicking myself for not doing so! Kingy in much better form than when Medinas finished behind Cole Harden at Wetherby, at his best a better horse than Gtreatrex trained front runner and available at at least 12/1 in the morning. What a mistakea to makea! Had it been 8 runners would’ve definitely played each way (even at 8’s) but decided against it. What makes it worse, had backed More Of That ante-post for The Stayers Hurdle, but despite Merry King’s good 3rd in the Hennessey Jonjo is not in great form at the moment and… With a horse who put up a fantastic show when last seen – why put a first time tongue tie on? Suggests he hasn’t been showing the old sparkle at home. Although suspect he’ll be back to his awsome best come March (when Jonjo is invairiably in top form too) – tongue strap and the way he weakened does give at least a question mark about breathing.

The thing about Monetaire is that normally I wouldn’t have looked at it – because of the price. I got into a bad habit long ago, perhaps my worst, of thinking prices under circa 100/30 were by their nature boring or ‘lacking value’. I suppose it’s an upshot of purple patches with big prices.

[Professortrubshawe]

So, what would be a sensible amount to be per point with a betting bank of, say, £2,000?

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