Time for my annual raid on the bookies' coffers.
There's still £35 lying in my Paddy Power account from last year, so the plan is a handful of each way bets.
Backing a few means interest should be maintained further into the race, since they can't all fall at the first fence.
I will back the favourite, Synchronised, it should stay and if anyone can get a horse home first it's A P McCoy.
My money will also be on the two lady jockeys, and perhaps a couple of others selected by means of an online pin.
Anyone else having a bet?
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As posted elsewhere.
West End Rocker 12-1.
I do enjoy the Scouse fashions!
Last edited by: Duncan on Sat 14 Apr 12 at 08:44
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...I do enjoy the Scouse fashions!...
I'm sure my two fancies - Nina Carberry and Katie Walsh - are fit in the correct sense for a sporting event.
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West End Rocker 12-1.
My choice too - should like the soft going
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I hope you're all right - just used the Quidco £30 cashback for a £20 bet with Ladbrokes to put my money where my mouth is your mouths are. 14/1 Each-way, 1/4 odds, first 4, whatever that means :)
Last edited by: Focus on Sat 14 Apr 12 at 10:12
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...whatever that means :)...
It means trebles all round at Focus Towers if the horse finishes first, second, third or fourth.
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Paddy Powers are paying 1/4 odds for five places. Also have an offer of free £20 bet but I think you need to stake £20 to get it. www.paddypower.com/bet
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£12 cashback for a new customer £10 bet with Paddy Power at Quidco.
www.quidco.com/paddy-power/
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BTW I'm afraid I won't be back here to thank you for your tip when my horse wins until some time after 6, just in case you think I'm being ungrateful. Got a rehearsal 4-6 so won't even be able to cheer it on :(
Last edited by: Focus on Sat 14 Apr 12 at 12:20
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Blooming Grand Nat - boooooring!
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Ah yes of course - like everthing else. It's a drab world you inhabit Roger.
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A great sporting spectacle of the type the British do so well, so it should appeal to the jingoist in Roger, if not in any other way.
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And an endless vista of extras from the latest Gypsy Wedding
tinyurl.com/colhagm
There is nothing done well about that lot!
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I'm sure they HAVE been well done.
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Ah - horses - they make good cat meat, I understand.
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A strong though not unpleasant flavour. Horse flesh, not cat food, I've never tried the latter (to my knowledge).
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A popular Dutch meat pattie known as Frikandellen certainly used to be made with some horse-meat in them - tasty!
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While you lot have been discussing dead horse meat, the live version is the shape of Neptune Collonges and Seabass has turned my £35 into £108.75.
There was also some classy looking totty in the winner's enclosure, might be the trainer's daughters.
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Another two to the Frikandellan factory! - Synchronised must have had a premonition, he tried to "leg-it" before the start!
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Talking of meat -this made me laugh!
tinyurl.com/7zlowb9
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I see that pre-race favourite Synchronised had to be 'offed'.
Bookies breathe sigh of relief.
Knackers yards say 'yeah!'
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Hell of a race. The only horse race I watch and occasionally bet on.
None of my mug-punter fancies came anywhere, so I am glad I didn't find a betting shop or do it on line. In fact they all fell, even Crankcase's tip Treacle given in another thread, which I thought for some time was a scathing literary judgement on the article in yesterday's Telegraph by a former jockey whose horse had had to be shot. Foolish of me Crankcase. But it is possible to be a man of too few words.
Two destined for the knacker in this race they say. I noticed the eventual winner's hindquarters in the milling around sort of parade lap before the race and thought it looked pretty strong. Its late charge was fantastically brave, full of heart to win by a nostril. Chapeau!
And to Miss Katie Walsh who was the highest ever placed lady rider and led for a while. If I understood her correctly she never thought she was going to win though.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 14 Apr 12 at 17:56
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>> And to Miss Katie Walsh>>
I assume you noticed her hindquarters as well, AC?
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Jockeys are a bit whipcord for my taste Ian. But she's a pretty girl.
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I'm sure that, as this is a motoring forum, you wouldn't kick Danica patrick out of bed, AC!
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>> Danica patrick
Who she? Anyway I doubt that I would find her in my bed. Or that at 73, with a pacemaker, I could summon the energy to kick her out if I did.
Still, I find your attempts to fix me up sympathetic if not endearing. My own squeeze of many years will be kept in the dark, I promise.
Any more suggestions? I don't fancy Winnie Mandela much.
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at 73?
What was that story? "lets go upstarirs and make love!"
"At my age, I can do either one or the other."
Danica, who looks quite fetching in a bikini, is one of the few female racers who can combine talent with looks.
As much as the racing teams have tried to bring in some glamor (sic) queens, inevitably they can't take the pace.
Those females who do normally look like Polish weightlifters, and have necks and jaws like Coulthard.
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>>and have necks and jaws like Coulthard.>>
Mindbleach - quickly, please.
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>> Danica, who looks quite fetching in a bikini, is one of the few female racers
>> who can combine talent with looks.
Can't let a statement like that go unchecked
tinyurl.com/cpazvqx
No argument there then !
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>> In fact they all fell, even Crankcase's tip
>> Treacle given in another thread
Ah now, I did say Treacle, but went on to say (ok, hint) that Seabass was the one I'd be putting my money on. So third wasn't too shabby. The implication was that Treacle was a Wonderland bet - too obscure of me. Sorry.
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maybe they should have released a certain Mister Oldfield onto the course. And issued the rifers with lances, and spurs?
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Two horses killed in this race is it worth it?
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>> Two horses killed in this race is it worth it?
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I think not.
What I find very strange, is the fact that people who wouldn't think about placing a bet on a 'normal' race, will place a bet on the most disorganised, and dangerous race in the calender.
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I put a tenner on the nose with Shakalakaboomboom, and it put in a good performance.
As for *another two* dead horses, for the second year running? The race has had it in its current form, It should be the last. Too many runners, landing zones below take off points, mixed camber at the landing point, 90 degree bends after the fence, and frankly horses that are not as robust as they used to be, all means the race can not survive in its current form. Owners and trainers won't put up with the loss of a Gold cup winner too often.
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>> Too many runners, landing zones below take off points, mixed camber at the landing point, 90 degree bends after the fence, and frankly horses that are not as robust as they used to be, all means the race can not survive in its current form.
The Grand National has always been like that, apart from the weedy modern horses you claim are running these days. Indeed the fences and landing area levels have been softened, one since last year.
>> Owners and trainers won't put up with the loss of a Gold cup winner too often.
They always have so far. What makes you think they're going to change?
Of course the huge field, wide variation in the horses' ability and generally crowded, scrum-like conditions are what make the race more unpredictable than most horse races and mean an outsider mug punt can turn up trumps, often at rather good odds. They also help to give the race 'some of the qualities that make sport exciting'. That's why brutal indifferent ignorant dilettante steeplechase fans like you and me consider betting on it, and sometimes even do.
Each way is best though, especially when the odds are long.
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Technically, it has to be the worst race in the calendar to bet on. The odds are stacked against any one horse winning, only 8 to 1 for the favourite in a massive field over a long distance with ridiculous fences not found elsewhere is much too short a price.
If you depend on the odds to give you a guideline as to what's good and what's not, they are skewed by whatever takes Joe (or Josephine) Public's fancy - first female jockey to win the National was this year's biggy I suppose ( =- granted, she wasn't too far off, but she didn't win!). Many horses are chosen for their colour, name or that the punter has heard of the jockey.
And of course the bookies hose the punters by having a larger than usual over-round, often more than 140%.
My lot still lost most of the £70 staked, except one each way on the favourite. I think I have a £30 free bet coming from Coral though, and £20 on Quidco, so it's not all bad...
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I had a pound on the woman driver....third
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Duncan's tip - West End Rocker, as endorsed by myself fell at the first.
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>> Duncan's tip - West End Rocker, as endorsed by myself fell at the first.
I wondered where my winnings had gone. Oh well... :)
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I couldn't get to the bookies, so I am twenty quid better off than I otherwise would have been!
You know what I mean, don't you?
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The National is never a race to make money on. No-one ever makes a serious flutter on that one.
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...The National is never a race to make money on...
Made 70-odd quid this year, and a profit last year.
Never say never.
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...Are you saying this is the one to purchase then iffy?...
In the unlikely event of me ever having a huge amount of disposable income, a few horses in training would be one of my purchases.
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A National flutter - Duncan
