The Festival is less than 1 week away. Without doubt, the best Racing week of the year as 12 months worth of anticipation builds to its climax. The AntePost book is moving along nicely at this stage and barring a complete nightmare week, we should come out with a decent profit.
AntePost punting is very similar to driving. At aged 17, after 25 hours of lessons and a disastrous first attempt, I managed to pass my driving test. On my first day without the L Plates on, I thought I had made it. My 1991 Renault Clio, with no 5th gear and an alarming knocking sound every time I turned hard right, was all I thought I needed, but as every driver knows, you learn to pass your test and then you learn to drive. Driving alone, without an instructor in the car to help and guide you, is very very different.
My AntePost betting is very similar. In the early days, it took a scatter gun approach, mainly backing the obvious favourites for the Festival and the National in a combination of multiples and specials. The danger with such multiples is that the failure of just 1 or 2 selections can bring it all crashing down. The New One being hampered in 2014, Annie Powers Fall in 2015, Cue Card in 2016, Benie Des Dieux last year, all painful memories of near misses.
I am pleased to say that this year has been different. Carefully plotted AntePost bets and a staking plan put in place in October has helped to give me more control. There are very few multiples for a start. The odd bookmakers special where I felt the price was fair, but other than that it’s been singles all the way. Yes, the opportunity to win huge life changing amounts is more limited, but equally, so is the risk of one faller ruining months of planning.
This week has been quiet, watching the racing more than getting involved. The plan for this fortnight was always to ease off, as the quality of racing diminishes in the lead up to Cheltenham. I have a decent “bank” built up in readiness for next week and am very keen to protect the balance as much as possible. With that in mind, it was only a casual glance over the midweek card at Catterick. However, a horse stood out for me, Stradivarius Davis for Sandy Thomson. In my tracker since its days under Paul Nicholls and further notes to an eye catching effort over too short a trip at Newcastle. I was already to go in and the 8/1 available against the hot favourite Django Django for Jonjo O’Neill seemed fair.
On a wet March afternoon, I settled down to the racing with a cuppa. Tipsters and Pundits have a very difficult job, trying to find a winner amongst the lower level fare on offer on an afternoon such as this is an almost impossible task. It is sometimes too easy to think that they will always be right or to take comfort if their selection agrees with your own opinions. Now to name the tipster would be unfair, but I made the mistake of allowing myself to be influenced by their views that the horse was a work in progress and would find the quirks of Catterick too much on the day.
Inevitably, the horse won. Every punter will have stories of winners that have got away, but to lose one because I valued someone else opinion more than my own is a painful lesson to learn. Go on twitter and type in “Cheltenham tips”, there will be so many matches that it will nearly crash the app. Remembering that racing is a game of opinions, that it is my opinion against everyone else’s, is key. It is surely better to lose on my own views, rather than those of others.
The Novice Punters Diary 