Slack Jawed Babbling

St Patrick's Thursday I very rarely stay past the first two days for Thursday's action. Like Al Ferof, I’ve tried the extended trip a few times, but recognise that I should really stick to something that doesn’t test my suspect stamina quite so ruthlessly.  Persevering  with the analogy, I refuse to rule out stepping back up at the right moment for the right opportunity. It could be this year. Tickets never sell out for the ambiguously titled St Patrick’s Thursday, so the option is always there. It’s all about quality. This card looks like it’s shaping up nicely. I’ve stoked up a little interest. JLT A fascinating race. Like the Neptune, the market for this intermediate trip has more questions than answers. For my ante-post porfolio, the nightmare scenario is that Gilgamboa and Valseur Lido both pitch up here rather than the Arkle and the RSA respectively. Given that turn of events I’d probably end up backing them both at odds shorter than ideal. The m...

Traditionally, my strongest day. And in many ways my favourite day, though not just because of the positive financial returns. I love the staying novices better than anything. Save perhaps for the sight of a select bunch of two-mile top-notchers attacking fences with pace and skill in the Queen Mother. Do I say this every year? Yep. But last year I missed this day. We left after the first day due to a number of dull reasons. It felt so odd, out of place, to be at home watching on the races unfold on the telly, rather than baying my head off on the rails. I’ll be back this year. I hear they missed me. My punting action has been limited and unsuccessful this ante-post season. Just a quick round up then. Neptune A market that I habitually get stuck into, but this season is subject to the ebbs and flows of Willie Mullins’ impressive novice hurdle brigade and the shifting targets of other principles. It feels as though Parlour Games heads the betting almo...

Like a mud-caked cartwheel turning slowly out of the claggy mire, I’ve come full circle with my Festival ante-post punting. Returning to a decade old strategy of backing big priced Betfair outsiders struck to low stakes that I think I might lay off when the market turns my way.   I rarely did lay off. The markets too often drifted the other way, or I got greedy and hung on to my big prices. I can think of only two occasions when I laid off to a reasonable profit. Once when Nicholls took over the training of Venn Ottery for the irascible Oliver Carter and I backed him at massive odds in the 2004 Champion Chase place market. Nicholls then coaxed four wins from five runs out of the horse who was almost as quirky as his owner. A shot at the Champion Chase became realistic and I laid off my bet. Ottery finished 5 th and tired after cruising into contention at the top of the hill. The other occasion was Sublimity in the 2007 Champion Hurdle. Again backed at huge odds, I laid of...

Arguably, as racing years go, 2014 was not a rumbustious cartwheeling of champagne moments or as packed with giddy achievements as some previous years. Neither did it attract so many damaging and controversial headlines either. Maybe a solid year is no bad thing. It was, however, thrilling, emotional, notable, absorbing and, yes, some dispiritng or concerning aspects too. Here are a few of the peaks, valleys and plateaus that have contributed to the geography of my punting year. Four good Cheltenham 2014 I sometimes crab and scowl a little about this fair isle’s finest racing festival: too many amateur races, too much domination of the season, too few decent facilities… And yet it remains the pinnacle of my year. Rightly so. The Cheltenham Festival is a place to make memories and celebrate equine excellence. And maybe find a winner or two as well. Fitting then, that Edward Gillespie who spent 32 years as the managing director at the course has been awarded an OBE in the ...

So. We've ended up with a bunch of workman crawling around inside and outside the house in the already fraught Christmas run in. With the inevitability of Santa's once a year coming, the projects we'd foolhardily agreed to be done in December have overrun. Madness, I hear you say, to willingly invite in such mayhem at this time of year. Well yes. And no.   The idea of having everything sorted by the end of the year is seductive, but we didn’t push for this. Businesses are only happy to overprogramme, leaving the tightest of margins. They can’t wait to get all the filthy lucre in their mits before the break. I ran away at the end of last week. The house was filled with blokes spreading rubble and brick dust far more liberally than any festive cheer. I couldn't get past the ponderous patio man to my office and the dining room was livid with sooty wood stove fitters. Mrs A had the back room baggsied. So I fled to the sanctuary of the Double Six cafe on Eversholt ...

I hadn’t been to Catterick Bridge racecourse for about 25 years. My previous experiences weren’t particularly positive. My formative punting years were scarred by ramshackle grandstands, fizzy beer and crap racing, as this chunk of Mug Punting makes clear: “….Catterick was worse. The track was surrounded by towering piles of unwanted spoil from the adjacent quarries carved disrespectfully out of prime Yorkshire moorland.   An ugly, crusty and polluted lake covered much of the inside of the track which served to encourage the feeling of dereliction. It was a hole of a course with no facilities to speak of. I stumbled across a gem of a book called ‘Cope’s Racegoers Encyclopaedia 1962’. Leafing through its mottled pages I discovered that ‘in January 1961 Catterick Bridge opened a £30,000 new stand which provides facilities previously undreamed off at this small Yorkshire course’. That must have been the twisted pile of rusty iron and crumbling grey brick that I could see acr...

I’d never been to Twickenham before. The largest stadium in the World devoted solely to Rugby Union. Not even to see Lady Gaga or Rihanna. So when Bryn, via Steve, offered up a ticket for England v Australia in the Autumn Internationals, I jumped at the chance. Another iconic sporting venue ticked off the list. (I have lists of lists, just in case you are wondering. Alphabetically and chronologically organised.) The game and indeed the stadium did not disappoint. Bryn and I had a sweeping view from the Upper East tier that enabled a perspective on the shape of the match, the gaps and overlaps and territorial advances that you can’t get off the telly. Identifying the individual protagonists was a little more tricky, however. As was interpreting the many refereeing decisions. The big screen helped out here a few times, but there were some random infringements that even the video boys struggled to nail. Up with the Gods This was mostly good, open action though. The Wallabies...