Bert’s Horseracing Blog

Respect

May 1st, 2009 by Bert

A long and fruitless day on Wednesday.

I dropped the girls off early and came back to the farm. At 9:30 Sarah, my personal trainer, tipped up and we went for a run - she told me that she is going to be on TV soon in a series called “Fat pets and their fat owners” helping a few fat pet owners to lose weight.

Apparently there’s a theory that pets develop a lot of the same characteristics as their owners over time. Sarah asked me if Robbie, our family dog, had any unusual characteristics. “He tries to hump anything that moves” I said. It brought the conversation to a quick end.

A little later I took Robbie for a walk through our fields. Robbie is fully person sized - around 12 stone, huge and hairy. We have three woods at the farm, and they’re all full of bluebells at the moment - it’s a lovely place to go for a walk. We got to the top of the hill and Robbie wandered off across a field - I shouted at him to come back. He stopped and stared at me for a few seconds and then carried on on his way. He soon disappeared out of sight - I waited a few minutes but he clearly wasn’t coming back.

I trudged back to the house - Jane was unloading her car.

“Bloody disrespectful dog” I said, “that’s the second day running he’s wandered off half way through the walk. Does he ever do it to you?” Jane smiled politely and shook her head.

I headed off to Ascot just after 12 - I got lost and didn’t get there until 2. I saw Pete had a runner in the next race so I called him to find out if he’d come down.

“I haven’t come” he said, “my bloody horse has stayed in the stalls for his last two runs”. I rang Betfair to have a bet - Micky Sartoris, a long timer on the Telbet team, answered the phone. We got chatting - my pick was a non-runner so I asked Micky what was going to win. “I dunno” he said “there’s been a bit of money for Laa Rayb”. That was enough for me - “I’ll have a monkey on that” I said.

I wandered out to watch the race. They broke from the stalls, and Don’t Panic, Pete’s horse, stayed put. I laughed inwardly. Laa Rayb tried to make it from the front but was soon beaten. I headed off to find Tom Dascombe.

Tom was in the owners and trainer’s bar with Mick, his dad and a few others. He had a runner in the next at Pontefract and she was favourite - I asked him if she was going to win. He grimaced and shrugged. “Come on” I said, “will she or won’t she??”. He ummed and aahed a bit more - “she’ll win, she’ll win!”.

She was around 7/2 in the betting. I rang up and had a fair bet - she then drifted to 11/2. She tried to make it from the front but was passed 2 furlongs out. Adrian McCarthy pushed her along in second place and gave it everything as the line approached - she nicked the race in the dying strides, a great ride from McCarthy.

I was happy. We went down to the pre-parade ring to see Marine Boy - he looked absolutely magnificent, the best I’ve ever seen him. Tom Goff was there - “He’s looking bloody well” he said. We went through to the ring, and Richard Kingscote came in with a smile on his face. Tom gave him his instructions;

“Whatever you do, don’t let him hit the front early - you must hold him back”. Richard nodded.

I decided he was going to win and phoned a big bet through to Betfair - “put it on carefully” I said. We went through to the stands where we met with a few others, including Alex Gowar, until recently part of the Betfair marketing team.

“So Bert” Alex said, “why is Marine Boy 11/2 with the bookies and only 5.4 on Betfair?” I held up my hands and shrugged. We looked out towards the stalls - they opened and the horses flew out, but one stayed put. It was Marine Boy. He lost around 15 lengths - Richard made a token effort to catch up but gave up after two furlongs and cantered home.

We caught up with them in the unsaddling area. Richard had a red face - “I’m really sorry” he said, “I gave him a tug to slow him out of the stalls and it stopped him in his tracks”. I smiled - “not a problem” I said. We went back to the bar feeling a bit low.

I headed home a short while later, and I called Jane from the car park. She wasn’t happy - “So why did you eat the custard?” she demanded. I said nothing. “That was a whole pot, enough for all of us. They’ve had to eat their apple pie on it’s own”.

“Did you tell them it was me?” I said.

“Yes - I told them their big fat dad has eaten their custard!”.

“What!” I said, “can’t you show some solidarity in these matters?”

“I’ll show some bloody solidarity if you don’t eat the bloody custard!”

I shook my head and climbed into the car - more disrespect coming my way from my children. Things are bad enough as they are. One of Dora’s teachers asked her what her Daddy does - “he eats and watches horse races” she said.

I got home late and settled in behind my computer. For some reason I’ve done well in the past on the last race of the day, so I decided to have a bet on the last at Kempton. I spent a while going through it and I settled on Lucky Dancer - a lightly raced 4yo maiden by Selkirk. He’d had 2 recent runs and hadn’t done a great deal - he’d been ridden by Alan Munro for the first time last time and Alan had taken the ride again.

Alan’s a thinking jockey, and having ridden the horse once he could be guaranteed to have learnt from it and improve second time around. Selkirk is a big muscly type and his progeny invariably need a run or two to get fully fit. There were good reasons to expect some improvement. I backed him steadily from 19 down to 13 over ten minutes, taking everything I saw. He broke well and got to the front - he led the race from pillar almost to post, but was caught on the line by another longshot having traded 1.4 in running.

As I sat contemplating my fortunes, a mouse hopped out from behind the fireplace. Cool as you like he wandered up to my newspaper and tore a large piece off - he looked up at me for a moment before heading back to his hole, pulling the large piece of paper in behind him.

Jane had appeared in the doorway. “Even the f**king mice in this house don’t respect me” I said.

Posted in Horse Racing | 5 Comments

5 Responses to “Respect”

on 01 May 2009 at 5:32 pm1michael

Excellent entry Andrew, really enjoyed reading this today.

Hope to see you down at the County Ground next season.
on 03 May 2009 at 1:45 am2The Gambler.

Excellent stuff Bert.
Very funny, which is a high compliment coming from me.
Can we have more of this please. It really made my day.
Many thanks btw. Incredibly much appreciated.
TG.
http://john2e.typepad.com/
on 03 May 2009 at 4:00 pm3Philip H

A delightful piece Bert. Could’ve called it :”A Black Day”, subtitled ‘Of Mice and Men’. Excellent stuff; you could almost give up your day job - if you had one!

Cheers, Phil
on 04 May 2009 at 12:09 pm4james

The comments are accurate in respect of the entry. Did you find any winners over the weekend? Russian Around bailed me out and going to watch betting today in first at Kempton if money for Dascombes I will join in.
on 04 May 2009 at 3:33 pm5HorseRacingBlog

What happened to the dog? You could have blamed him for eating the custard… (don’t think Jane would have believed you if you’d suggested it was the mouse)…

Matt

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Respect

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