Bragging rights belong to me this week with my 25.4 to place about Ricky Barnes in the A T & T Pebble Beach Golf last week (I managed to get a little 29.0 on BETDAQ which feels even sweeter), but perhaps unsurprisingly, my friend who gave me the golf info is off on holiday in the Caribbean and must have had a larger stake on his bet than I did, so we will have to wait for me to bend his ear for more advice (and I did point him to BETDAQ for the better price so he will hopefully be happy to share his thoughts again)!
Overall, it was a winning weekend for all my bets that actually “ran”, with the Birmingham game abandoned and ditto the Newbury card, though as you all know I am an Everton fan you may have read a touch of bias to my Manchester United to beat Liverpool bet. Fact is, I try desperately to keep emotion out of my betting and for once I got it right, though I also admit I did not lay it back at the shorter price, and let it ride until the final whistle like the greedy punter we can all be on occasion.
Sat in front of my TV/Laptop/I-Pad combo tracking market moves, prices, and live commentary as is normal for me on a Saturday (pity my poor family), I was frankly a bit gutted by the lack of action on the horses with Musselburgh doing their level best to appease us punters but not really grabbing my attention with the exception of one race. The novice chase at 4.20pm caught my eye as I felt Bold Sir Brian was the proverbial good thing looking for his hat trick after wins at Hexham and Kelso, the latter when seeing off the useful Lie Forrit which in my book made him the clear form choice. Odds on is not usually my game but in a five horse race I considered making an exception and checked the BETDAQ odds expecting 1.8 or thereabouts. Imagine my surprise (actually delight), to see plenty of 2.25 an hour before the race, which I helped myself to plenty of. The race was not as clear cut and without incident as I hoped and to be honest I could not react fast enough to market movements when considering laying my stake back in running, Mistakes by leader Chester Lad saw him fall five out stopping Bogside and putting him out of contention (fell later anyway), and with outsider Double Expresso running as expected we were left with a two horse race. Stopped Out was left in the lead but in my mind didn’t like it one bit, but was soon overtaken by my selection as the £ signs appeared in my eyes like a Tom and Jerry cartoon (OK, they were $’s). Luckily for me, despite being hampered when the leader fell the six year old turned in a classy performance from then on, and sauntered home to a twenty-two-length success while I dreamed of beaches and warmer climes.
As that was that for a quiet if highly profitable weekend (and the good thing is BETDAQ will not ban me however well I do unlike old fashioned bookmakers), I ought to move on and see if we can make some more money this weekend, pity those poor layers if we can keep going in this sort of form. The real quality racing starts this afternoon (Friday) with effectively last Saturday’s Newbury card, though sadly not enough runners for me to get involved with Burton Port each way in the Denman Chase at 12.40pm which is a bit of a shame so all I can suggest is a watching brief ahead of a possible tilt at the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March. One bet will do me here when David Pipe sends his highly regarded once raced and difficult to spell or pronounce Gevrey Chambertin who hacked up by thirty lengths on his debut at Ffos Las despite being heavily eased in the latter part of the race. For a potential hurdler/chaser he was pretty expensive at 150,000 Euros (about £125,000), but then again he is a full brother to Grands Crus, who reached a mark of 171 over hurdles and goes to Cheltenham as a hot favourite for the RSA Chase. As ex jockey Steve Smith-Eccles once told me when discussing the breeding industry, the fact that your grandmother can play the piano doesn’t mean you can, which I roughly translate as breeding is hardly an exact science, but the ability he has already shown is possibly good enough to take this, and you can bet there is more to come.
Football has been boosting the profits on a pretty regular basis and I am hopeful (never confident) that we can add a little to that this week despite the FA Cup interrupting normal service. I admit and remember numerous FA Cup shocks over the years all of which make the headlines for obvious reasons but OI am sure (with zero evidence to back it up lol) that overall the better team invariably wins, especially if there is a decent gap in class. Two examples leap out at me this weekend and both look to offer value of a kind, starting with lowly Bolton away to Millwall who sit in 20th in the Championship, a division and a place behind. That, to me, makes the odds of 2.7 for the away win just too much to resist, and with no offence intended to the home team, you can imagine Owen Coyle reminding his players this is where they will be visiting next season if they do not pick their ideas up and fast, which will hopefully be just the incentive they need?
For my other bet, disloyalty rears its ugly head once again as I go against Crawley as they play Stoke at home at the Broadfield Stadium. Numbers mean nothing I agree but a difference of close to three whole divisions is a lot of ground to make up especially without Matt Tubbs their prolific striker who moved to Bournemouth in the transfer window and the odds of lightening striking twice (they reached the fifth round before going out to Manchester United last season), is slightly beyond my imagination.
This week’s suggested bets (odds correct at the time of writing):
Football:
2pts Win BOLTON to win at Millwall Saturday at BETDAQ odds of 2.7
2pts Win STOKE to win at Crawley Sunday at BETDAQ odds of 2.2
Horse Racing:
2pts Win GEVREY CHAMBERTIN 3.30pm Newbury Friday at BETDAQ odds of 3.1.
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