VAAL- Race 4, (Tuesday, 02 October)

 I see local PA’s have been more or less behaving over the last fortnight with only a R2100 at C/Wood last weekend then the predictably unreliable Eastern Cape yesterday- R3600 (the last four races were all roughies by the look of things...)

This punter has been avoiding most forms of gambling due to an on-going bad luck run second only in pain terms to that of  'a particularly small framed woman giving birth to a set of healthy & overly large septuplets!?'

Then on Tuesday of this week (02/10/12) I ventured into my local Tote to wager a few Rand at the Vaal (Oh Lord, why the Vaal..?). Am I the only one who’s noticing that the Totes are even ‘deader’ than normal at the moment? I had pre-filled in about fifty bucks worth of PA forms but due to what can only be explained as ‘laid-back Cape Town timing’; I missed the start of the second race by a few minutes. Had I just walked away I would have essentially been up R50.00, but NO, one just doesn’t do that, do we..?

I picked up a few bucks on Race 3 swingers where the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th favourites, on the race card I was using, ran the quartet- should’ve played a percentage on that, it paid R2286- not bad?

Enter Race 4!
Striker Strydom (yes Pierre, you..?) is on the favourite, #1, Sebastian Bolt at about 18/10 SP and for reasons I didn’t quite understand the #14 (A novice if memory serves?) was similarly priced and favoured! I took a few swingers with the top 4 or 5 horses and, very regrettably, a slash quartet throwing in a few ‘roughies’ to try find some value... Boy was I a million miles out!!!
So to was the rest of the country, I’m sure.
Even if I had got to the Tote in ‘Joburg-like time’ and played my PA’s timeously, my money would have been lost ‘cos I would not have chosen any of those donkeys in Leg 3 of the PA! Remarkably the PA for the day only paid R264, I think a lot of guys caught it with ST Remy.

As you can see on the photos below the tipster on my card had chosen the quartet four perfectly together in sequence. (circled in red ink) The only problem was that his choices were numbers 9 thru 12 in favourite terms and then to the four choices were perfectly INVERTED!? That’s right, choice twelve (#10) came first followed in sequence by choices 11, 10 and 9!
I ask you with tears in my one brown-eye, how can anyone choose those four to win the race..? Money gone, bye-bye! smallpunter also gone! Geez!

Even more remarkable for this day was that with that donkey #10 (Chestnut Charger) winning that first leg of the Jackpot, it paid only R1110!? If anyone outside of the ‘connections’ of this nag, or guys who play F/1/F/F-type bets collected on this jackpot I will buy your whisky supplies from here to eternity and venerate at your wizened old throne! Absolute Horse Sh_t, that’s what that result was! (QT- paid R135k, probably to a couple of people whose very lucky numbers are 10, 3, 11, 6!). Where were the #1 and 14?

As I have asked in many previous postings, what is the point of us punters studying lineage, form, C&D, jockeys etc., when, more often than not, results like this take the wind out of your sails & the money out of our pockets?

F...ing nightmare! Aint been back since...

Good luck on the weekend boys!

smallpunter (increasingly smaller...)