Slack Jawed Babbling

What I say: Time to join the discounters... My betting and sports yarns, Mug Punting and Smug Punting have both been lobbed into the New Year sales bear pit. Go on - treat yourself to a good read to sustain you through the back-to-work blues.  What they say:  Mug Punting:  "For anyone with a sporting interest in having a few bets and enjoying a beer, this is a good excuse to lose yourself in someone else's story. Five stars from me." "This is a laugh-out-loud funny book that is much about men's relationships with each other as it is about horse racing."   Smug Punting:  "Another excellent set of tales. Well written too - would appeal to horse-racing fans and others alike." Where to buy: Both books are available through Amazon at £2.61 each for an electronic kindle download (free for unlimited subscribers) and £6.91 each for a proper physical paperback. Better value than the Cheltenham Festival ante-post markets!  

The hangover from some wretched Christmas punting has almost equalled the one that began at 5.30am on New Year’s Eve. Reading back over the Christmas Shopping post induces the sort of head-swimming nausea more common to those ill-advised whiskies that rang out the old year. Anyone looking for some New year bargains, I’m ready to flog off a few unwanted ante-post purchases. One careful owner. Very few miles on the clock. Just don’t check the service history. Some runs were too bad to be true. Ttebbob was beaten in Boxing Day’s Racing Post Novice Chase before the end of the first circuit. Douvan bossed the race from the moment the flag dropped and one school of thought is that Ttebbob’s game was affected because he couldn’t dominate from the front. This looked more fundamental than that, though. Poor jumping and sluggish travelling surely meant something more serious was amiss. My 20/1 voucher for the Arkle looks like bad joke. Douvan, however, looks like a po-faced shoe-in, de