Day One: Failed to fire on any cylinder!
Mecca has relocated to Gloucestershire for the week. I have bowed my head towards the east and am praying five times a day (for winners).
You think the animals at Cheltenham are lean, mean and ready to run for their lives? You should see me. I’ve studied the form. I’ve YouTubed the races from last year’s festival. I bought yesterday’s Racing Post to see which bookmakers were offering free bets for new clients and I’ve topped up my existing accounts. I’ve had a haircut because my head cannot afford to be carrying even one pound overweight. I am locked and loaded. If I’m half-loaded by the end of the week I’ll be a happy man.
I’m here all week, speculating €50 per day. Any winnings come teatime on Friday will be donated to a charity nominated by Examiner readers. There is, I hasten to add, no great, overarching cunning plan, but I’ll follow proven Cheltenham performers, I won’t chase my losses and I’ll start off, as I always do, by backing the Irish second-favourite in the Supreme Novices. If all that fails I’ll go for names that amuse me or tips from the young lady who serves my coffee.
Last year I had the Willie/Ruby Champagne/Hurricane double but foolishly decided against making it a treble with Quevega. Should I do the treble today? Thing is, Hurricane Fly is ten now and I really like Our Conor, even if Triumph Hurdle winners don’t win the Champion 12 months later. And hey, Trifolium did me a good turn when finishing third in the Supreme Novices in 2012, so I can’t forget him in the Arkle. Decisions, decisions.
Eventually a plan of campaign presents itself. A fiver on Our Conor. A 50-cent each-way Lucky 15 on Gilgamboa (because although he’s the Irish third favourite he’s trained by Enda Bolger, and us Endas should stick together), King Massini (because my friend Kris Glynn, who knows his stuff, has mentioned him), Art of Logistics (because someone on Twitter reckons the drying ground will suit him) and Suntiep (because Willie Mullins has won before here with long shots). Cross-doubles and a treble on Champagne Fever, Hurricane Fly and Quevega. Two euro each way on Gilgamboa and the same on Art of Logistics. In the end I go off Trifolium, 11/4 being too cramped for my taste. JP McManus I am not.
Gilgamboa is prominent for a long way in the opener but is beginning to be pushed along by AP coming down the hill, blunders at the second-last and that’s that; not that he’d have beaten Vautour anyway. Champagne Fever gives an exhibition of fencing but some nag that nobody’s ever heard of emerges from the clouds and cuts him down on the line. Bah. King Massini falls on the first circuit in a race won by Holywell, who it turns out won the Pertemps here last year. Bah again. What was that I was saying about “proven Cheltenham performers”? And then the Champion Hurdle comes and Our Conor goes. Eek.
Time to make a break for the bookies’, which is carpeted with the torn-up ticket stubs of a hundred thousand mugs. This is a temporarily gratifying sight. It’s not just me, clearly.
Are they betting without Quevega? They are. A fiver on Cailin Annamh for no other reason than I’m amused by the name; at my age the girls are getting very rare indeed. I’m not smiling at the winning post, and Quevega’s victory is no good to me in view of the defeats of Champagne Fever and Hurricane Fly.
I retire, wobbly of feet and glassy of jaw, for a badly needed caffeine boost. There, with a tenner left to speculate, I throw myself on the mercy of the lovely Rachael, my unofficial personal barista. Rachael was at Gowran Park for the Thyestes meeting recently, won a few bob and consequently has visions of becoming the next Barney Curley. She looks at the field for the last two races and nominates Shutthefrontdoor and Manyriverstocross.
Shutthefrontdoor isn’t disgraced in the National Hunt Chase but never looks like winning it while in the last Manyriverstocross fails to make the first four, Art of Logistics ditto. Rachael, bless her, will not be becoming the next Barney Curley.
Seven races and not even a place, never mind a win. Could I have done worse had I tried? Scarcely. I take refuge, not for the first time, in the wisdom of Saint Scarlett O’Hara, the patron of mug punters. After all, tomorrow is another day.
* Running total after Day One: Minus €50
