I must trust wife’s racing judgement, rather than jumping straight to form guide!
LAST week you got my enthusiastic thoughts on the excellence this year of the Irish horses at the Cheltenham festival. If I am really truthful, I will admit it is the conversations I had with my son, who for many years has been very knowledgeable on jump racing and the go-to person for when the big races arrive.
Although he and his mate are regulars at Cheltenham, he also follows the results of certain horses, no matter where they run.
Thankfully during lockdown when racing has taken place he has an agency account whereby he is paired with a punter who wishes to bet against the horse he wishes to back. This means he gets much better odds.
We always use him to place our bets even though we only ever bet on races like the Grand National.
I take a lot of time studying all the 40 horses in the race. After having so much opinion on the Irish horses, trainers and jockeys, I settled down to advise my son on the two horses I wished to back, and senior management chose her two.
She always tells me she picks the horses without knowing what she is doing and I am always sure that I do.
Yet the end result was the same. After all I had said about the outstanding Irish jockey Rachael Blackmore, she chose her horse, Minella Times, despite the odds of 9:1, and her second choice was for number 7, which she believes is her lucky number. The odds were not spectacular, which of course made me laugh.
After the race was run, number 7 had made it into fourth place, which paid some place money as she backed it each way.
The story of the race was the horse ridden by Rachael came first!
Senior management said that was because of what I had said about the Irish, horse, trainer and jockey and she duly collected another lot of cash from the bet my son had struck for her. I know that I should also mention my two carefully considered horses.
Despite all my talk before the day about the form of the Irish in National Hunt racing this year, as usual I forgot all this and picked my horses on my gut instinct.
So where did they come? Truthfully, I do not think they fell, but equally I do know they were not among those that completed the course. In short, the bookie won and I lost on both of them.
Given this happens every year and senior management always seems to back a horse that pays back some money, while with all my belief and so-called skill, I have only ever backed the National winner once in 50 years and never ever got anything else back from the betting shop.
So why do I not get wise and wait until my wife has chosen her bets for the race and then quietly back the same horses?
If only my brain would be that logical. I always think before the race that I have picked better horses.
Somehow I believe it gives us four chances on the winner. But as there can only be one winner, and senior management has more often than not chosen it, my logic is a no brainer. I think I could give up backing horses, but as it is one race a year and not a big bet, then all that is hurt is my pride.
Senior management is super kind. She never gets excited to cheer on her horse as it nears the winning post.
She simply tells me she did not realise that was the horse she backed. She did not make a fuss either when the winnings paid her hairdresser a couple of days later!