SIMON NOTT BETTING BLOG: Royal Ascot Thursday

Ladies Day at Royal Ascot started with a 7am doorbell ring from Ian ‘Ricky’ Rixon half an hour early for his #BettingPeople interview, writes SIMON NOTT.

It was a cracker too, what a lovely bloke he is, the video should be live soon.

Things got even better when I was given a traditional Australia hat by Australian bookie Peter McCormack, which was very nice of him; it’ll see active service on course for sure, just not this week.

Regular readers will know that Star Sports were so far doing their cobblers at Royal Ascot, £250,000 give or take a few quid but with three days of top class racing to come, the hope was it had only been let. Time would tell.

Today’s teams were unchanged apart from the absence of Flynn who was plagued with traffic problems and had to abort his journey.

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2:30 – Chesham Stakes (Listed) (Class 1) (2YO only)

It didn’t take long for the action to get heated in the opener, a face backed Aix La Chapelle, evidently confident staking £20,000 to win £55,000, well this is Royal Ascot after all but you’d probably not beat this punter over time. That was followed by £40,000 – £5000 South Dakota, a monkey on Sea Venture at 8/1 then more money for Aix La Chapelle £1100 – £400, £2500 – £1000 and £4000 – £2000 plus £2500 – £500 Nola Soul.

Very late on Ben’s team laid £100,000 – £40,000 Aix La Chapelle, minutes later, he was withdrawn resulting in a 25p in the pound rule 4, not what you want on the opening race at Royal Ascot, what was better, 11/2 chance Nola Soul won the race. The field money had been reduced to £12,077 Nola Soul copped £4000 of it.

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3:05 – King George V Stakes (Heritage Handicap) (GBBPlus Race) (Class 2) (3YO only)

Next up and wallop, a whopper £100,000 on Cannes at 4/1 laid on the top rail care of Ben. The firm proceeded to take a further £5010 on top of that bet across the three pitches.

The message on the Star Sports messenger told the story, ‘Even Dancing Brave couldn’t have won from there.’ Star Sports got it beat and got £98,948 back.

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3:40 – Ribblesdale Stakes (Fillies’ Group 2) (Class 1) (3YO only)

OK, so like London buses, no sooner had the firm got a chunk of the first two days’ losses back, they were asked for and accepted a bet that could put them right back in it or pretty much have them level, not in this race but the Gold Cup, £300,000 – £120,000 Scandinavia.

This race didn’t disappoint either, a bet of £100,000 – £11,000 each-way, that’s 9/1 with the fractions kicked things off, followed by £7000 – £4000 Legacy Link three times, and £3000 at the price, plus loads of bets that would normally make the blog.

At the off the book held £48,503 with three bad losers in the book. Professional punter Alan Potts was kind enough to email with a well-thought-out case for Johanna Walsh winning this. Alan was nearly right but had victory snatched away in the shadow of the post by Earth Shot, both were winners in the book, copping £40,255, another cracking result for the firm who were starting to believe they could turn this around.

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4:15 – Gold Cup (Group 1) (Class 1) (4YO plus)

The earlier bet £300,000 – £120,000 Scandinavia had already made this a make or break race, but continued to attract money, hardly surprising, I know, as this was the Gold Cup.

Another bet of £30,000 at 9/4 Scandinavia deepened the shade of red in the book, there was opposition to lesser but still decent money, £5000 and £3000 Trawlerman, £24,000 – £4000 Caballo De Mar, oh, and another £3000 at 9/4 Scandinavia.

They were off, the book held £177,119. What followed was agonising, a stride-by-stride gamble landed, Scandinavia wore down Trawlerman to win on the line. The book lost £360,000.

Ben left the building.

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4:50 – Britannia Stakes (Heritage Handicap) (Str) (Class 2) (3YO only)

Talk about business falling off a cliff, the three pitches combined took £5916 between them and won £243 when 13/2 chance Moonfall won from Outback Heat.

A big shout here to Neil Channing, who had tipped the first and second to his Betting Emporium clients following on from yesterday’s similar feat in yesterday’s Royal Hunt Cup.

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5:35 – Hampton Court Stakes (Group 3) (Class 1) (3YO only)

Next up, the penultimate and the hope that business might pick up with a short one in Endorsement, it did, bets on the jolly included £15,000 – £10,000, £7500 – £5000 and £6000-£4000 plus smaller bets, it was all about the jolly but a monkey at 13/2 Maho Bay at least stopped the one way traffic, albeit briefly.

At this point, I’d better mention Star’s elderly clerk and firm stalwart Tony, who came second to a car boot unpacking the gear this morning, if only he’d been wearing his topper like he was supposed to!

Back to the betting at the off, there was £33,702 in the hod with the jolly losing £39,014, it looked a likely winner at one point but 18/1 chance Generic came to the rescue, the book copped £23,339.

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6:10 – Buckingham Palace Stakes (Handicap) (Class 2) (3YO plus)

A crime was committed in the lucky last, a punter asked for £3000 on 33/1 chance Defence Minister, but did not add the words ‘with the fractions’. Should the horse win, the punter will cop £99,000 which would have been £100,000 with those three little words.

The bookmaker hedging knew all about fractions when he called £10,000 – £650 Blue Brother, 15/2 with the bits. Proper job. There was no fraction for the £40,000 – £1000 bookie hedging The Lost King. There were certain to be some huge liabilities, it was just the hope they missed them.

The Wizard of Edge was another popular selection, with bets of £2500 and £400 at 12/1 and £850 at 11/1 all each-way.

At the off the book held £27,267, Mezcala the 9/2 favourite won the race, though the SP was very strange it was 6/1 behind with Paddy Campbell and 11/2 with Star Sports at the off, come racing.

Neil Nostradamus Channing put up the winner and got the forecast again for his clients at Betting Emporium. This time it went the way of the firm, copping £14,278 on the race but blowing £178,851 on the day.

Another chastening afternoon on the turf for Brighton and Hove’s finest bookmaker, but it’s not over yet.

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Views of authors do not necessarily represent views of Star Sports Bookmakers.

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Simon Nott is author of: Skint Mob! Tales from the Betting Ring
available on Kindle CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS

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