Glorious Goodwood 2012 Review

Glorious Goodwood 2012 Preview / Tips

Well, what a fantastic week of sport – and betting – that was!

Glorious Goodwood is always a highlight of the racing calendar for me, and this year it was even more so. Normally, I only get one day at the track, but this year I was lucky enough to have two days there; and normally, I only win a few quid, but this year I was lucky enough to win a bit more than that. 🙂

So, how was it for you? Well, if you followed the Geegeez picks, you probably did somewhere between OK and very well.

Tuesday saw us get off to a flyer as Landaman, nominated in the first race, won at 12/1. It was less straightforward after that, with seconds and thirds in all of the next four races, before a blank in the last two.

I was actually travelling home from Wales on the train on Tuesday so missed the racing.

Wednesday was saw an opening 4th at 9/1; followed by an 11/4 winner and 80/1 (!) third; then Frankel beating Farhh (the exacta actually paying a huge £1.40, CSF paid £1.11!); 16/1 second and fifth; 11/8 winner; a blank in the sixth; and the 12/1 winner of the last. Phew.

Highlight from a sporting perspective was obviously Frankel’s latest demolition job of a legitimate Group 1 horse, this time by a whopping six lengths. But other notable performances came from Olympic Glory, who had an extremely troubled passage but was still good enough to win the Vintage Stakes, and is progressive.

Trend Is My Friend also had a horror run in the big handicap and he’s a horse to follow in upcoming starts. He’s not got any entries currently, but a handicap over a ten to twelve furlongs will be of deep interest next time. My Queenie also did well to win the penultimate race, when denied a run on a couple of occasions. Again, she’s probably better than the bare form, and it will be interesting to see what the handicapper does now.

Thursday was a live blogging day. And a good number of you joined in for that, with over 120 comments, and a few tweets to boot! Of course, finding plenty of winners also helped the mood…

Specifically, on Thursday, there were good mentions for Grandeur (won 8/1) and Blue Surf (3rd, 14/1); Heavy Metal (won 9/1) and Master of War (2nd 3/1); Saddlers Rock (won 2/1); a blowout in the fourth (costing me the placepot!); Botanica (2nd 10/3); Stirring Ballad (won 8/1) and My Sharona (3rd 13/2); and Silver Lime (won 7/2) and Marshgate Lane (3rd 10/1). Yikes.

I thought Saddlers Rock was impressive in a race which was not necessarily run to suit, and Stirring Ballad’s acceleration to get into contention marks him down as a horse ahead of the handicapper, to my eye at least.

As if that wasn’t enough, Friday was better still… especially for one Geegeez reader.

We kicked off with Quest For Peace (won 5/1) and Dandino (2nd 13/2); followed up with Trumpet Major (dead heat 1st 6/1); Fulbright (won 7/1, my personal best bet of the week having taken 14/1 on Tuesday); blowout in Ortensia’s race (cost me the placepot!); Janoub Nibras (3rd, 9/1); Sunday Nectar (2nd 16/1) and Appealing (3rd 16/1); and finally, Jwala (dead heat 1st 8/1).

By crikey!

My personal highlights were a) screaming home Fulbright, and b) chanting ‘Jer-wala’ drunkenly at my annoyed mates for about ten minutes after the last race… I’m such joyous company when inebriated… ahem.

Congratulations to Darrin, a regular reader / occasional contributor to Geegeez, who managed to snaffle the placepot using a mix of the Friday preview content and his own skill and judgment. As you can see, it was a rather nice return:

Big placepot payout 1

In case your eyes are as bad as mine, that’s a return of £5,665 for £64 stake!

As if that wasn’t enough, Saturday saw another bumper placepot winner. Yes, incredibly, even more bumper than this Friday winner. In fact, twice as bumper!

This time I can claim little credit, as I merely provided the ‘bet builder’ tool which Tony used to frame and stake his bets. All of the picking was his (and just as well, because on Saturday it’s fair to say I couldn’t pick my nose, and when your nose is as outsized as mine, that’s saying something!)

In any case, Tony put together seven tickets in his placepot perm, for a collective stake of £57. His total return was… £10,621.45.

I do actually have images of the tickets (put on at Coral in Bridlington!), but I couldn’t work out how to get them off my phone and onto my ‘pootah. Sorry about that…

It’s actually true that most people I know have had their biggest wins on the placepot. Even my great mate Gavin, over a NagNagNag, had his biggest win on a placepot (over £13,000).

It’s a fantastic bet, and is possible to win big for fairly small stakes.

Anyways, that was Goodwood – glorious in every respect – and a beautiful sideshow to the main event of the Olympics, which have been simply spectacular.

There’s little of note in the racing calendar – in terms of British Summer Festivals at least – until York’s Juddmonte International meeting, when a certain Mr Frankel will be stepping up to ten furlongs for the first time. (He’ll get it standing on his head!)

As such, I’ll be taking a few days off from blogging. But there’s still a ton of stuff here for you, including Well I Declare (Tuesdays), Punting Confessional (Wednesdays), Trainer Stats (Thursdays), TV Trends (Saturdays), and of course Ian’s excellent daily news content, and Chris and my Stats of the Day.

So do stay tuned to Channel Geegeez! 😀

Matt

p.s. if you’re not following me on Twitter, why not?! Just click this link to add me.