The Ostrich Position

By Ronan Groome

Saturday, May 8th

Getting out of bed early on a Saturday morning is not easy, not because of an explosive, boozed-up night out in cosmopolitan Navan, but because of a five-a-side weekly in the local astro-turf pitch. I seem to lose all knowledge of my severe lack of fitness and pour blood, sweat and tears into the weekly event as if there were lives at stake.

But last Saturday getting up was even more difficult than normal, as one of the dullest days of Saturday sport was upon me. With the season’s last set of Premiership games on Sunday and the Championship over bar the play-offs, and my golf players failing to get into the weekend’s action, I was going to have to rely on the tricky waters of the day’s racing action to provide living money for the week ahead.

I am proud to say that I resisted temptation to bet on most of the races during the day. Boredom can be an amateur punter’s greatest downfall. I always tell myself that I’m a gambler still learning, it provides me with peace of mind when things go badly. How long does it take to turn into a professional though?

I took up my weekly position on the couch alongside one of my mates, who was up in mine after renovations taking place in his estate had tragically mixed a wire up and rid him of Sky Sports, of all the pointless channels on television these days, to lose just Sky Sports, it wasn’t cricket.

On the day when the big races were more inclined to provide long term clues, sentimentally I wanted to see Henry Cecil and Tom Queally achieve a positive result in both trials after their desperate luck in the 1000 Guineas last week. I am not totally in the wrong decision camp, I just think they were desperately unlucky because the French filly did not look like she was getting past and only became the winner by default because Jacqueline Quest had moved over to her under pressure, as a result of Queally having his whip in the wrong hand. It was like a rugby player sprinting for a line ahead of the chasing pack, only to decide to veer to the right and get caught by an opposing player. Anyway, let’s not get into that debate again.

Cecil and Queally had two chances to get back on track. The first was in The Oaks Trial with Timepiece, a filly who was already top of some bookmakers’ lists for the Classic. She travelled up well and looked set to land her short odds of 4/7 before wandering around in front, and she got passed by John Gosden’s Dyna Waltz. At first it looked as if she did not stay, but it may have been that she just idled when in front on her own, nevertheless she remains a very decent filly and will have plenty of options at 10 furlongs if it does not work out over 12. Next up was Bullet Train, a name that will have commentators like Simon Holt and Richard Hoiles getting very excited if he hits the front inside the final furlong at Epsom. In front from the start, he travelled well and took command up the straight to win comfortably and is a 12/1 shot for the classic next month. A slight bit of compensation.

I was doing so well against the boredom factor but I could not resist a bet on the evening’s Spanish football. My funds were restricted to Betfair and when I tried to get my €15 double on and was met with “account over current exposure”, I was truly baffled. I rang the chaps up to find out what was going on and a nice man called Roger explained to me that my account was in negative exposure as a result of laying long-term ante-post bets back to get money into my account, that I could not use this money to bet on multiples, but it could be used for anything else. After asking why for the sixth time, failing to understand this silly rule again, I gave up. Perhaps, it was a message from the gambling gods, helping me out, allowing me to see the benefits of keeping my money in my pocket. It worked for about 10 minutes until I turned to some twenty-twenty cricket, England were playing South Africa and I thought a bet on over 35 fours would be sufficient enough for my entertainment as cricket legends, forgive me but I can not remember their names, had predicted a free flowing match with high scores in store for both sides. As K.P. smashed one boundary after the other, I was cheering with delight, but after South Africa’s truly pitiful score of two boundaries after six overs, I sat back down with all hope diminished. I thought twenty-twenty cricket was meant to be entertaining? Those six overs were about as entertaining as watching a Fair City Omnibus.

Sunday, May 9th

Waking up Sunday morning proved equally challenging and this time, yes, a result of a drink-fuelled night, which involved watching two of my mates who are from England and are slightly hooliganistic in that English football kind of way, getting pinned to the floor by a flurry of bouncers as a result of a silly row they started with some rather unpleasant Navan folk. There is nothing like flashing your handbags to show how much of a man you are on a night out. Truly entertaining stuff.

It was the last day of the Premiership and I was determined to enjoy it. Motivation is always a huge factor on the last day, but in general it has become important in nearly every match this season which is annoying because it makes it harder to get a read on games. I tried to only bet in the matches that really matter. I toyed with the idea of backing unquoted score in the Chelsea match, which means anything over 3-0, at a skinny enough price, before deciding against it. Instead I found a tasty betting opportunity in Darren Bent scoring first in the Wolves-Sunderland game, Steve Bruce’s star man has scored first a whopping 15 times this season, was chasing a Golden Boot award and a place on the plane to South Africa. Definitively enough motivation for me. I had €27 on at 5.6 before going goal-scorer crazy and having €20 on Salomon Kalou in a double with Manchester United’s Nani, priced at around 7/1 and having another €20 double including Bent and Tim Cahill, who incidentally did not play. It was probably a bit silly and looking back it may have been as a result of being slightly under the influence from the night before. Goal-scorer bets are like drinking pints, you just don’t feel like a man having only one.

After a couple of the well thought out “value” selections went down at Leopardstown, I gave up on the racing in the hope that the football would once again save my bacon. A rough start to the day when Sunderland went one up and much to my annoyance, Gillette Soccer Special reporter and former player Alan McInally who was watching the game, managed to mention Bent’s name three times before eventually assigning the goal to his strike partner Kenwyne Jones, which had me hopping around my living room in expectation before falling to the floor in deflation. After that, things became quiet, I had already lost a sufficient amount of money and was clinging on to two goal-doubles to provide me with cash for living in the week ahead. A real professional I am. However I rejoiced when Kalou rounded two hopeless Wigan tackles and slotted home from five yards, only to be disgusted when Nani missed a one-on-one two minutes later.

Ten minutes later he missed a header from two yards and that brings me nicely on to an explanation of the name of this blog. The Ostrich Position is something I associated myself with, when reading a Steve Palmer blog in the Racing Post one week. An ostrich buries its head in the ground when danger looms, as if it cannot see it, it’s not happening. The human equivalent involves going up to your bed and burying your head under pillows providing a nice, safe, peaceful place away from all the stress and worry that you unnecessarily put yourself through.

By Ronan Groome