Nine bets in Royal Ascot week, seven winners, and the book is half a point down. None of the nine were at Ascot. Two years ago in the same week I had eleven bets and made four points, and the only one at the meeting itself was the one that lost. This year I didn't bother with the meeting at all.
Seven from nine is a fine rate. The trouble was that the seven were all place bets between 1.14 and 1.46, which pay pence, and the two win bets, both at half a point on the ordinary cards, got beaten, one of them in a finish at Ripon on the Thursday. A losing week with a winning rate. I keep writing about those and I'll keep writing about them, because it's the shape most people never see coming. Members had the nine, pennies and all, and the week's shape is on the results page.
Ascot itself was lovely and I didn't have a bet in it. The same reason as always. The prices at the royal meeting are the most honest on the flat, which means they're the shortest, which means there's nothing in them for someone whose whole edge is a price the crowd has got slightly wrong. The crowd at Royal Ascot gets very little slightly wrong.
I did have a fiver on a horse on the Tuesday because I liked the name and the colours, and I'm telling you that because it's the difference between the book and the afternoon. The fiver isn't in the book. It lost. The afternoon was worth it.
June is ten points up overall, which is a good June. The summer the sand paid, last year, was fourteen, and this one has a week left. The point stays at £150, the bank is comfortable, and July usually comes good for reasons the book has never explained to me.
Lee
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More from the notebook: Eleven bets in Festival week · Royal Ascot, the week I watch