Day 4 of this years Festival put me through the wringer far more than any others day’s racing that I can remember for a long time. It’s hard to explain exactly why, but hopefully as I write up the story of the days events, everything will begin to unfold.
The day started with a bookmakers offer free bet on the Triumph hurdle which I placed on Degas Art. I liked the flat form of the horse and looking at this years results, I really felt that that was likely to be the defining attribute of the winning horse. I took 8-1 which seemed skinny, but the horse was backed during the day and went off at 7-1, third best in the market.
Degas was prominent for the first three quarters of the race but never jumped well and I knew from a long way out that my ‘money’ was gone. He finished in twelfth and the other potential contenders in my mind, Lounaos and Duty, finished tenth (7-2 favourite) and nineteenth respectively.
Katchit, the 11-2 second favourite, was a wide margin winner, immediately causing bookmakers to offer quotes for next years Champion Hurdle. Now, I have followed this game for a long time and I’ve seen a fair few horses run out wide margin winners at Cheltenham only to fade into obscurity thereafter. Katchit is available at 11-1 on Betfair and has already taken around 10% of the money staked, but I think that anyone who has baked it really needs to have their heads examined. Last years winner, Detroit City, subsequently showed his form to be exceptional for a five year old, but even he was unable to buck the trend for older horses in the Champion. At this moment, there is no reason to think that Katchit’s performance is anything other than ‘best horse on the day’ and if I had the available funds, I would happily lay the beast at 11-1 until the cows come home. If I really wanted to tie my money up for a year, then the 10.5-1 on Detroit City would appeal and I suspect I will get involved at whatever price is available come September/October this year. All things being equal, for me, if he goes to post Detroit will win next years Champion Hurdle.
After Degas Art’s poor showing, my plan was to lay my bets on Wichita Lineman in the Ballymore and protect my Festival winnings. Unfortunately, despite the volume of money, the layers on Betfair decided to try and get Wichita and his price before the off hovered between 2.46 and 2.6ish. At that price, I could have generated a free bet for myself, but it would have been fairly niggardly given the amount I’d staked and my general confidence in the horse.
I was more or less forced to stand my bet before the race and decided to try my luck in-running. At the off my liability was £250 to win £475 (£475-£250 for those unfamiliar with the game). As the race started, I placed a call on Betfair of £157.89 at even money. The principal equated to £150 after commission, ie: I would then be left with £317.11-£100, which seemed a good bet. I also left myself the option of adjusting the odds in-running as the situation demanded.
Wichita’s price never really contracted to start with and then around the half way mark, the horse started to slow a bit and McCoy was forced to ride him quite hard. This didn’t worry me too much as he had done the same in a couple of his previous races, but his price did drift out to around the 5-1 mark. He got back into the race though and with only three to go, he started to stride clear of the field with Black Harry.
At this point I grew my balls back and hit the cancel button for all Unmatched bets. I was conscious of the fact that having set myself a target before the Festival and having started out well on day 1, my actions the next two days had largely been determined by timidity. On Wednesday this had worked out quite well, as I only gave back £19 from my first day winnings. However, I was always fearful of Wednesday and would never have become too involved, no matter what Tuesday had brought.
On Thursday though, I felt my weakness had cost me. Not from Inglis Drever, whose laying off I still think was a good move, but from Taranis, who I fancied strongly and who I should have had a straight bet on. I should have staked £100 on Betfair at a price somewhere between 9-2 and 5-1 rather than generated a free bet, nice as that is, paying out a little over £100.
My initial feelings on the Wichita bet were cut from the same cloth which, was fairly cowardly. It’s not that I’m rich, but I’ve done this for a long time and I’ve made money at it for a long time too. I was using £200 as my big bet over fifteen years ago and I wouldn’t consider a £250 loss to be a disaster today. Equally, a £475 win is hardly massive, especially considering that I started with two £450 wins on the first day and could have won £500 on Inglis Drever on Thursday.
Wichita and Black Harry pulled some way clear of the field and Wichita was probably a length to the good when Harry felled at the last fence. I helped AP ride Wichita home and he eventually won by over ten lengths, with an SP of 11-8. I felt completely drained, but my winnings for the week were now well over £1300.
The whole process was quite cathartic and I do feel that I removed a weight from shoulder, but it did mean that the Gold Cup became somewhat anticlimactic in comparison. Kauto Star proved the doubters wrong and jumped safely round to become the 5-4 winning favourite, taking well over £10M from the ring. My selection, Exotic Dancer, came home second and having backed him at 9-1 each way, he paid an effective 5-4 for the place adding £62.50 to my days winnings.
McCoy rode a good race on ED leaving him out the back in the early stages, only to stride through the field when it got to the business end. He was hampered at the second last, but not by enough to cost him defeat. The eventual margin was two and a half lengths and given that Timeform had Kauto Star at 184 before the race, you’d have to think that ED was now within only a couple of pounds of him. Exotic Dancer was rated 168+ before the race and I suspect that their real worth is now somewhere within the middle, say 180 and 177 respectively.
Turpin Green at 40-1 became the big priced placed horse that I had predicted. Neptunes Collonges who I thought might have filled that role was eighth at 50-1 and Nil Desperandum didn’t run, which I think is a pity but not for reasons that you might imagine.
I had very little interest in the Foxhunters, where Drombeag, at 20-1, touched off last years winner and this years favourite Whyso Mayo at 2-1. After Wichita Lineman, Drombeag provided a double for owner JP McManus and trainer Jonjo O’Neill.
Despite being well up, I decided to pass in the Grand Annual on Hasty Prince. If he’d won, that would have been a treble for JP and Jonjo and I couldn’t see lightning striking for a third time. Also, in his (presumably ghost-written) column in the Telegraph, Tony McCoy was hardly glowing in his praise of Hasty Prince, although he did rate him an each way prospect. For the record, he finished second at 8-1 to Andreas, a 12-1 shot, and with hindsight I suppose I should have risked a few pounds in the place market.
Rather than have a bet in that race, I decided to have a small bet in the County Hurdle instead. I was £1421.83 up for the meeting, so decided to have the £21.83 on Fair Along at 8-1 with Ladbrokes, this around 45 minutes before the off. Fair Along was then the subject of a massive plunge and was backed down to 7-2 favourite. 4.8/4.9 was freely available on Betfair. If I’d known that Fair Along would get down to 7-2, I’d have had the £1400 on him as well and made a killing laying the bet off. As it happens though, I decided to stand my actual tiny bet rather than lay it off, which I would have done almost any other day of the year. On reflection, that was pretty dumb as I could have generated myself an £80+ free bet, but it seemed small beer at the time.
Fair Along was prominent for a mile and a half but faded badly to come home 25th of the 28 finishers. Pedrobob won at 12-1.
So that was Cheltenham 2007, roll on 2008. It’s only four weeks to Aintree now and I’m tempted to go into some detail on The Grand National soon, but it would be nice to have some kind of response here first. I know that there are people reading this and I welcome any feedback that they might give.
As my uncle always used to say, stay lucky.
