thoughts to avoid this boxing day.

​I am not a bettor. If I could afford to lose, I would bet. I would not, though, ever become a gambler. Gambling is as foolish as messing with rattle snakes. Why risk everything to fate, even when you have taken the luck out of it by studying form to the point when you could make a stage act from the knowledge engrained in your brain? It is you bloody gamblers who gave politicians the excuse to ‘worry’ about gambling addiction and set in train the ‘Grumbling Commission’s’ affordability checks and government oversight into personal financial affairs. Drunks can drink themselves into oblivion but a loyal customer cannot get ten-quid each-way on at 10/1 because he took too much out of the bookmaker’s satchel a few days before!
Just bet. Do not gamble. And bookmakers’, stop getting into bed with the governmental mafia.

I will not be visiting either of our local bookmakers’ today. Nor do I have a betting account. Nor do I have a mobile phone. I do, though, have thoughts on today’s racing at Kempton Park. Let us hope trainers are not scared-off by ‘good’ being in the ground description. Remember, in most trainers’ eyes ‘good’ is the new ‘firm’. As Monty Python might have said. ‘I’d have snatched your arm off for good ground in my day. Used to race on ground as hard as the road back in the good old days before racecourses had irrigation. Clerks used to force their staff to pee on the landing side of obstacles in my grandfather’s day.’ You get my point?
I am sweet on Leave of Absence in the first, though we must hope he leaps mightily but does not bounce as it is his second run after a long leave of absence. You might get 10/1 about him.
I fell in love with The Jukebox Man at Newbury, even though my New Year’s Resolution last year was to never fall in love again. Apparently, he was not 100% fluent over his fences at Newbury. I suspect at one down the back he was so mighty, leaving the ground well before the wings and stretching like a lifeboatsman trying to reach a drowning child to make it safely to the landing side, that his jockey lost consciousness, which accounts for him not being as impressed as I was. I am slightly concerned that he did not run away with the race, with the second, opposing again today, closest at the line. He lost the 3-mile novice at the Cheltenham Festival in the final few yards after leading the field a merry dance and it might be he does not quite see out the 3-miles. But on a day of equine stars, he pretty much stands out to me.
The King George is, thankfully, and for once, highly competitive and I hope the declared eleven all face the starter. It is good ground when all said and done; the sort of ground that does no harm even if some horses can only win when the mud is deep. I am instinctively drawn to Banbridge, ridden today by Paul Townend, an inspired, if logical, booking. He was unlucky in the Hilly Way as he was coming, at least to me, to win his race when jettisoning his jockey at the last. It will be a fast race with the French horse and The Real Whacker to set the tempo and the slowly-slowly-catchy-monkey tactic of coming from behind might be the way to win the race. If the ground were softer, or soft, I would be all over L’Homme Presse with the Venetia Williams team in such vibrant form. But the ground is not soft, it is lovely and good, and I am bold and brave enough to suggest Banbridge to put another gold star on Joseph O’Brien’s c.v. His dad must be green with envy by now.
Kientzheim is a good thing in the fifth race, though I cannot say why. It is just a Nicky Henderson horse, fresh from France, ridden by Nico de Boinville, at Kempton Park. All the ingredients you need not to have to bother with the form book.
And King of the Road for one for the road.

The mixing things up in Ireland with the abandoning of some races and changing dates for others on St. Stephen’s Day has turned the day’s racing into something rather ordinary. We, or at least the Irish, have to wait until Saturday for the fuse to be lit.