I had hoped that this weekend I’d be able to post a long, detailed analysis of winners galore tipped up by the racing guys I follow. This will not be that. Why not? Because put simply, there were no winners galore. Winners were indeed, in pretty short supply.
In the end, after all had been totted up and accounted for, I more or less broke even.
I like to keep my Bet Diary posts upbeat. Over the years I’ve been able to manage my emotions much better than I used to, keeping deliberately on a mental even keel when things are going well and when not so well. But Cheltenham has been different. Cheltenham has allowed me to get carried away with the moment, celebrating good wins, agonizing over near misses, agonizing over the horrible days only to be picked up and placed on a high when a great day has followed. I’ve immersed myself in the drama of the sport, sitting from the comfort of my sofa, watching all the action unfold, all the stories resonating for one reason or another.
But this year I’ve been frustrated by work commitments, and frankly I saw very, very little of the actual racing. It divorced me from the occasion, prevented me from placing some of Northern Monkey’s more ‘involved’ multiples (including in the run-up to the Festival) and generally reduced the week to just another. It’s been weird. It felt like all the excitement was happening behind my back, which I suppose it was.
Anyway, enough of the downbeat. How did we actually do?
Bet Alchemist had an absolute stinker the first two days, but although the “day-to-day” single bets produced a near ten point loss for the week, a Yankee that had Honeysuckle winning the Champion Hurdle, Bob Olinger the Turners’ Novices Chase, and Elimay the Mares’ Chase generated a profit of over 14 points. If only Minella Indo – the fourth leg – had won the Gold Cup instead of finishing second (and well beaten, to be honest) – then we’d have had a bumper pay day!
I feel for Wayne (Northern Monkey). He clearly put a huge amount of effort over the preceding months to try to replicate previous years’ successes, but this year it just wasn’t to be. Stricken by a terrible punting disease called ‘seconditis’, he came incredibly close to landing some monster profit, but the Gods were cruel and my NMP balance sheet for the week showed a very small deficit. It may be different for those followers who were on all the multiples I don’t know. I wasn’t.
Finally, Racing Service 1 was conspicuous by his quietness. Just one bet each day, with the last one, A Plus Tard successful and netting a small profit overall (this was a winner too for NMP).
So we move on. Any lingering thoughts of resentment from missing the action can be firmly dismissed as we look forward to the imminent start of the flat season. That’s the thing with racing. There’s always something to look forward to. Roll on Cheltenham 2023!
Bet Alchemist: Staked 35 pts, +5.391pts.
Northern Monkey: Staked 39.5pts, -2.319pts.
Racing Service 1: Staked 2.5pts, +1pt.
Cheltenham ROI: 3.14%
