Midsummer is the hardest time of year for a favourites punter. Big fields on fast ground, two year olds nobody has seen, handicaps where half the field are unexposed, and prices that move all morning as the money comes in late. The turf flat in July is a lottery with better scenery.
Which is why a fair bit of my summer book is on the sand. Southwell, Wolverhampton, Lingfield, Newcastle, Kempton. People turn their noses up at it, and I understand why if you go racing for the day out. I don't. I go for the form, and on the all weather the form holds.
The ground is the same every meeting, so a horse that handled it last time will handle it this time. The fields are smaller. The same horses meet each other over and over, so you've got a proper line through the form instead of guessing how a Newmarket maiden winner will handle the Curragh. And because the serious money is on the Saturday turf, the all weather prices are set by fewer people paying less attention.
Southwell in particular has been good to me. I don't want to make too much of it, because a course doesn't make a horse win, but the fibresand there, and now the tapeta, sorts horses out in a way the other tracks don't. A horse that's won round Southwell has shown you something. One that's won at Wolverhampton has shown you it can go round a bend.
The bet I'm looking for on the sand is the one I'm always looking for, just easier to find. A horse near the front of the market whose last turf run was poor on ground it hated, back on a surface it's won on, at a price that's still carrying the turf run. The form book says 7. I say the 7 was on soft ground at Haydock and this is Southwell. Those are the bets members get through the summer, and the ones that keep the book ticking when the turf is a lottery.
The summer book is quieter than the winter one. Two horses most days, one some days, none on a fair few. That's not a problem. The jumps come back in October and the cards get busier. Until then the sand pays the bills.
Lee
PS: Nottingham, on the other hand, owes me money. Every punter has a course like that. Mine is the one by the Trent.
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More from the notebook: The courses I leave alone · Mojito Des Mottes, and the best month in the book