My half year review is going to make sober reading. 

Last chance to make headway:

2:55 Newmarket  I'm Your Man 9/1
3:15 Newcastle   Moidore 9/1
3:30 Newmarket  Producer  10/3
6:30 Curragh      Sugar Boy 9/1




     

Couldn't even get the right day in yesterday's title, let alone the right horse over the line first. At least Johnny Murtagh was concentrating.  


Doubles:
3:05 Ascot   Sir John Hackwood  8/1
3:45 Ascot   Mince  14/1
4:25 Ascot   Duke of Firenze 8/1
5:00 Ascot   Beaumont's Party  18/1
5:35 Ascot   Cul Baire  14/1



.

My cat was run over Wednesday morning. 6 years ago we flooded on the equivalent day of Ascot. 

You know your luck is at its lowest when you're woken in the morning by a dog walker telling you your cat has just been run over. 

Can't be much bothered with the racing. Certainly not the blogging about it.

I have to back Prince of Johanne today. He won for me last year, conferring bragging rights over the group who were there that day and who has asked me for a tipping sheet. Not a good reason granted. Still, he's on the same mark, has had an identical prep and the conditions suit ideally. Would normally want at least 16/1, first 5 places, for each way betting, but will settle for 14s.

Not sure I have a bet today - and Tuesday at Ascot has historically been awful for me.

I'll take my empty post last week as a metaphor...

Simple doubles this week, with a dodgy weather forecast and Ascot on the horizon. 

2:20 Sandown  Bancnuanaheireann  12/1
2:40 York         Fort Belvedere 11/1
2:55 Sandown  March 8/1
3:15 York         Baltic Knight 7/2
3:35 Muss        Ubetterbegood 20/1

When I was a full-time gambler, I liked to think of myself as rational and objective; that I was calmly punishing the mistakes of inferior market makers and spanking the arse of deep-rooted market inefficiencies. At the very same time, I was a gibbering mass of neuroses and red wine stains, desperate to keep the gambling gods on my side.

There's an old truism about gambling: When you're losing you're never as bad as you think you are, and when you're winning you're never as good as you think you are.

And it was when I was winning that I was on red alert for any hubristic comments that made it sound like I'd got the game cracked. No matter how provable my edge may have been, it was critical to act as though it was the gods who had decided to grant me my own pay-window. And that I acknowledged they could take it back at any time if I ever suggested my success was down to myself.

I actually went a little mad trying to appease the gods. I took to seeing people on the streets of London as their agents. Beggars, Big Issue sellers, anyone similar were like choric characters on my gambling journey. If I didn't give them a pound, my head would say “the gambling gods were watching”. I often had to turn around and walk a mile back to someone I'd ignored. It got so bad that I couldn't leave the house without a pocket bulging full of pound coins. Not forgetting that it cost me a fortune. When I moved to Shropshire there weren't any beggars. So I stopped. And so did my gambling success. Almost overnight.

I write this because part of me feels like I've been responsible for a terrible act of hubris, for which someone else has been punished. And part of me thinks it's doubly inexcusable because my gambling experiences should have alerted me to the consequences. (See Writing area of this blog for more details).    

I have a nice place double running onto Festive Cheer at 50/1, and most the others covered against the favourite, so that's the Derby covered.

It's a hopeless card otherwise so I'll stick to doubles:

1:35 High Troja  9/2
3:15 Long Awaited 8/1
4:00 Ocovango 9/1
4:50 Duke of Clarence 4/1
5:25 Gabbiano  15/2+