A variety of events on the racetrack on Saturday afternoon should serve as a valuable lesson to any gambler that no matter how much form study you do, how many race videos you watch, how diligently you compile your speed stats, when you place a bet you do so with no more realistic chance of knowing what is going to happen than knowing what lies in the centre of a black hole.
In the opening handicap race on Haydock’s card Classic Colori (10/1) came to challenge the leader, and favourite, Albaqaa in the last 200 metres. It looked like Classic Colori would pass the favourite and go on to win the race. That was until apprentice jockey David Bergin first dropped his whip and then mistook the half furlong marker for the winning post, stopped riding, and began easing his horse up. Classic Colori was only beaten by a head, much to the frustration of its backers and to the relief of favourite backers as Albaqaa held on to win.
Then in the very next race at York the appropriately named Mad Moose refused to race (RR). He went into the starting stalls but when they opened he simply ambled forwards a few paces then rooted himself to the spot. Mildly amusing to see but, again, not if he was carrying your money.
Mad Moose’s form figures this calendar year read: 2 RR RR 1 2 RR. But with his prices of 50/1, 28/1 and 20/1 when he does complete a race, you would be comfortably in profit if you backed him each way on all six runs this year.
Then back at Haydock Van Percy looked certain to be an unlucky loser when he was boxed in on the rails and unable to find a gap to get out. A gap appeared in the last five strides and jockey Cathy Gannon made one late last lunge to get her mount up by a nose.
It would have been hard to predict such a manner of victory beforehand and was owed in large part to good fortune. Similarly if you had backed Mark Johnston’s Blue Wave (9/1) to grind out a battling win from the front (as he had done on his last two wins – the notes both read ‘made all’) you were correct for every stride of the 1 mile 3 furlong 200 yard race, bar the last one.
The events that unfurl between starting stalls and winning post often lie beyond the prediction of the mortal mind.
