Crusade for Cheltenham Clarity

"Life, woah life” [click here to listen whilst reading - recommended]

 Whenever I feel bogged down by events that occur to us inhabitants of earth, Des'ree's fine lyrics loll around my head and remind me of how insignificant we all really are, from a cosmological point of view anyway.  I'm sure that was her intended message.

I wrote that paragraph a couple of weeks ago but didn't finish off the chain of thought as Kevin Pullein in the Racing Post coincidentally published a piece with a similar theme in the paper, inadvertently denying Palphabet followers an undoubtedly cracking read.  As I didn't want to look like the Johann Hari of gambling blogs, I nipped it in the bud, looking for a slightly different angle.  The ultimate goal, however, was to attempt to define that moment of clarity that us punters have from time to time.  I'm referring to the supra-dreamlike vision of a victorious betting slip or Betfair interface, when everything just comes together in harmonious profit.

 January's P&L features one such moment:

Adrian "Jackpot" Lewis regained the PDC World Championship title, despite the best efforts of a wasp, a draught created by an open Alexandra Palace door and the first few sets of James Wade's accurate arrows.  Maybe "The Machine" enjoyed his own moment of clarity, shortly before the realisation that he was going to deny me the opportunity to pocket £1200 (minus lay-offs) caused him to metaphorically gouge out his eyes with tungsten-tips and collapse like Costa Concordia with Captain Coward at the controls.

The ability to see things clearly, then, is an advantage and fortunately January provided me with my first few transparent windows towards Cheltenham Glory:

Willie Mullins top trainer at 13/8 (Hills)
http://www.oddschecker.com/horse-racing-betting/specials/season-specials/cheltenham-festival/top-trainer/best-odds/

Ruby Walsh top jockey at 8/11 (Hills)http://www.oddschecker.com/horse-racing-betting/specials/season-specials/cheltenham-festival/top-jockey/best-odds

Soll to win the National Hunt Steeple Chase at 12s with Hills, Stan James and Betfred, only 8s with the Magic Sign after success in Ireland midweek
http://www.cheltenham-festival.co.uk/races/national-hunt-steeple-chase-odds.php

Big Buck's to win the Ladbrokes World Hurdle NAP at 4/9 (Hills)
http://www.cheltenham-festival.co.uk/races/ladbrokes-world-hurdle-odds.php

Hurricane Fly to win the Champion Hurdle at Evens with Paddy Power
 http://www.cheltenham-festival.co.uk/races/champion-hurdle-odds.php

Finally, for now, and I start to shake a little bit just writing it down: Kauto Star to win the Gold Cup at a mouth-watering 4/1 generally, and nearly 5s on Betfair
http://www.cheltenham-festival.co.uk/races/cheltenham-gold-cup-odds.php

I'd recommend looking for the best prices and placing a few singles and one whopping festival accumulator whilst listening to this.  I welcome your comments on my selections and aim to do a more in depth post during the week expanding on my reasons for the above selections, maybe looking for some more single-bet value plays. 

I am confident that the return awarded for this straightforward six-fold will mean that by the evening of Friday 16th March, when the festival racing is over, I will be so consumed by joy and alcohol that I won't be able to see anything, clearly or otherwise.  This excellent acca calculator from http://www.betcalc.com/accacalc.php illustrates my point as clear as a freshly polished pane of glass.

DP

The Post Knows More Than Most

I hope you all joined me in laying the hind legs off Binocular at evens on Saturday.  Those of you who also took a bit of Overturn at 4.0 on Betfair will have shared in my joy, although maybe not shared in celebrating by shouting “screw you Binocular!” at the telly, whilst in a packed bookies, in the premier enclosure at Newbury racecourse!  But I’m not here to blog about my success at the Hennessy meeting, enjoyable as it was.

For last night was one of the most enjoyable sessions I’ve had on the internet without enabling the “Private Browsing” feature on Safari. 

Whilst on Twitter, I engaged in what felt like a proper conversation with the following characters: Racing Post editor Bruce Millington (@brucemillington) and football-mad writer Mark Langdon (@marklangdon – a man who summarises himself thus: Racing Post journalist who loves football and betting and betting on football) ; Racing Post golf guru Steve Palmer (@stevepalmer78 – the 78 denotes his year of birth, a fact he bemoans regularly in his hilarious columns in the ‘paper and the amazing published diary “Born to Punt”... I mean that the account is amazing, not the fact a publisher decided to touch it); BBC Journo “Honest” Frank Keogh (@honestfrank); Coral’s Head of Racing James Knight (@jamesaknight) the Editor in Chief of Sport Magazine Simon Caney (@simoncaney) and some blokes called Mark Calvert (@furlongpost) and Lee Murray (@LeeAMurray) both of whom seem like jolly nice fellas.

The fervent retweeting and replying arose due to the fact that the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2011 shortlist had been announced, and in the aftermath Honest Frank shared a link with his 7,000 followers showing the various publications’ choices for aforementioned winning personalities: 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/sports_personality/15895642.stm

I don’t actually have a problem with any of the newspapers or magazines, free or overpriced, whose sports writers got a say.  I’m not a regular peruser of Zoo or Nuts magazine, as I favour hardcore pornography, which is why I’m not a massive fan of the Sun either, and I appreciate that giveaway dailies like the Evening Standard and the Metro probably do reflect popular opinion and make informed choices when given this sort of responsibility.   Yes, I was a tad bitter, having backed him for a top-3 finish, that Judd Trump wasn’t in the final selection, but the real omission was that of the Racing Post.  They didn’t even get a vote.

This is a staple of literary digestion that British punters up and down the country cannot do without.  Aside from gambling, though, it also provides some of the most authoritative, well-researched and insightful analysis and opinion that you can find in the print media.  Read some of James Pyman’s pieces on trends of the turf, tuck into Kevin Pullein’s in-depth treatises on the statistics behind the football hunches, and find me any golf correspondent anywhere else in journalism who puts more effort into previewing tour tournaments than Steve Palmer. 

http://www.racingpost.com/news/tipping/kevin-pullein-football-analyst/829275/

Maybe it is because these writers know that gamblers hang on their words before filling out their coupons, but I don’t have a bet every day, and I seem more and more often to reach for the RP ahead of most other choices in the newsagents.  I will already be aware of most of the mainstream news by the time I’ve had my Marmite on toast and morning cuppa – when I get to the cornershop, there’s always so much more to enjoy in the Post.

So the fact that the beeb didn’t even consider their opinion for SPOTY 2011 bemuses me.  I doubt we would have ended up with the RP team choosing 10 jockeys or even five choices from the whole sport of horseracing.  We might have had a female suggestion in the shape of Hayley Turner, and who could argue that AP McCoy doesn’t deserve to be in there again, but I posit that there would have been many shouts in the RP’s list that you would have agreed with.  They deserved their say.  Bruce Millington himself has said more for Mark Cavendish than most mainstream sports commentators, and I feel like I have had my sporting knowledge enriched by adding the Racing Post to my regular reads.   These hacks are more than just tipsters you know Auntie!  I would urge the BBC to look beyond regional rags and sleazy mags and give this other British institution the respect it deserves in next year’s SPOTY nomination process.