Mixed emotions - the punter's lament

After a bad start to the month I did back Sergeant Tibbs  in the 6.50 at Kempton. I looked at the race yesterday evening when my tracker popped him up and with Bet 365 he was 50/1 so instead I invested £20 each way with the Betfair Sportsbook because they were 100/1 (not best odds guaranteed).

Just watched the race and Sergeant Tibbs was a very credible 2nd at ...... 200/1. I would have got best odds guaranteed with Bet365 so a win felt great but also felt a little bit like a loser.

A winner but with the gloss taken off!

And of course I never did a accumulator on the wonderful Hollie Doyle, who managed only her usual 5 winners on the card.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plenty in the Tank

 I think I may have written before about the dangers of betting on 'bumpers for jumpers.' You can never be quite sure who is trying to win and who is using the 'race' as an opportunity for a free racecourse gallop. Today's 1.55 at Newcastle provided a case in point. Plenty in the Tank was sent off the 9/2 2nd favourite. The horse is trained by Olly Murphy and owned by Oliver Jack Murphy (who I am assuming is a relation). In October 2019, when trained by Ed de Giles, it won a bumper at Chepstow quite easily. It was then bought for £75k by the current owner. The horse had wind surgery and ran poorly in 2 hurdle races for Olly Murphy. In today's race it looked to my eye that Plenty in the Tank was on a schooling run. He started near the back, ran round fine and finished 7th of 12 with (well) plenty in the tank. Plenty in the Tank has gone into my tracker. I'd suggest the new owner will want to recoup some of that £75k before too long.
Read more

Hunter Chases with Professional Jockeys

I have always felt slightly uneasy when the top trainers run horses in hunter chases. Of course it's all within the rules but to me not within the spirit of what these races are for - the chance for point to point trainers to have runners at proper racetracks. Owing to the convids it's now got worse because amateur riders cannot take part under the rules which allow elite sport to continue. There used to a bit of an angle because the standard of those amateurs varies enormously.  Which leads me to the 4.10 hunter chase at Warwick today. As I type there are 17 runners, showing how keen the point to point trainers are to run their horses - despite the really tough jumping test which is Warwick and the inevitable very heavy going. Olly Murphy (see my first paragraph) has a runner, The World's End, who was near to top class under 'rules', winning a grade 1 and coming 6th in the Stayers' championship at the Cheltenham festival. He will be favourite. But lets hope one...
Read more

What to make of Goshen? Or Song For Someone for that matter?

This is a horse I get wrong every time. He was brilliant on heavy ground on the flat - especially in October 2019 at Nottingham. Watch it here . I remember Hector Crouch saying how sorry he was that  Goshen would be going hurdling afterwards (maybe, with hindsight, he was right).  Then of course Goshen won 3 hurdle races really easily. I was there at Footwell when he was miles clear and Jamie Moore let him run down the last hurdle to make sure there was no danger of him tipping up. I had laid him in each of these and then backed him for the Triumph. Again he was miles clear but this time the jockey (understandably in a grade 1 race) did not let him run down the hurdle and the jockey was unseated.  This term he has run disappointingly on the flat, and then even worse in a hurdle race at Cheltenham in December. He was 6/4 favourite but beaten by an impressive Song For Someone (6/1), and may (or may not - depends who you listen to) have had a defibrillating heart (something ...
Read more