Great week in store

By Ronan Groome

It is finally here, after weeks of anticipation and excitement, it is here, can you feel it? Well, you can certainly hear it. My God, those horns are annoying. If I was actually in South Africa, trying to watch a match and someone started blowing their vuvu-whatever beside me, I would waste no time in taking it off them and smashing it on the ground several times. Seriously, they are such a pain to listen to, they might make an atmosphere but they take a way the unique atmosphere that each set of supporters brings from different countries, instead we just get a taste of South Africa in every match, and the novelty of that wore off after five minutes of the opening game.

I am just happy that the show is on the road. Last week was an eternal struggle, spent in the jungle that is online poker, mowing lawns – you are really stuck for cash when you are forced into the garden – and looking for sympathy from friends and family, in trying to gather funds together. After weeks of mulling over stats, going through each team’s strengths and weaknesses and trying to effectively price up all the big outright markets myself, I got my outright winner bets on as follows; €205 on Spain at 4/1 with Setanta-bet who have a money-back special if Brazil are the winners and €15 each-way on France at 20/1 with Stan James, money-back if Spain are the winners. I just think this Spanish team could be one of the best we have ever seen, and it is hard to find any negatives. Usually the best side wins these competitions, go do the research if you’re one of those who do not believe in that. Spain has the biggest potential to be the best team. They have an embarrassment of riches in every position and their reserves would probably be good enough to get to the semi-final stage. I cannot wait until their first match on Wednesday. My other bet is on France.  Yes I am firmly in the get-over-it camp, some of the coverage in the media and in some companies advertising ‘A.B.F’ campaigns are just really sad, and besides that, there is no room for sentiment in betting. They have been fairly dismal in qualifying and in their warm-up matches, but cast your mind back to the last World Cup and their preparation was quite similar. I think their squad is as good as most of the other big teams, and they are not 20/1 shots in my book. If Raymond Domenech gets his act together and stops playing his big practical joke on the French public, I mean he is having a bit of a laugh isn’t he? He must be. He is just winding everyone up by not playing his big players, surely by their next group game he will come out to the media and say something like “lol, jk, here is my best team, let’s do it boys.” (‘lol, jk or laughing out loud, just kidding’ is the latest facebook craze for all you non-social networkers.)

My other bets involved the top goal-scorer market; €20 each-way on Robin Van Persie at 14/1 with William Hill, €15 each-way on Fernando Torres at 14/1 with Stan James and €5 on Kaka at 40/1 with William Hill. Holland are set up for Van Persie to score, their two wide men stretch defences allowing the Arsenal man more space in the middle with Wesley Sneidjer able to supply the balls through. Torres has no right to be twice the price of favourite David Villa, as they both get the same service and Kaka is decent value as well considering he plays just in behind and will take most of the set-pieces.

The struggle to get my bets on during the week, left my powder fairly dry for the weekend’s action, which was not such a bad thing because the racing was fairly average, no surprise given that Royal Ascot begins this week. The Royal meeting this year looks filled with quality. Strangely, the best day is the first day, and the best race is the first race. The Queen Anne has just come in under the radar, so much so, that racing’s big-wigs have not had the opportunity to market it to the non-racing folk. Goldikova, Paco Boy and Rip Van Winkle go head to head bidding to be crowned the best miler around. It is perhaps a bit unfair for Goldikova, she has already proved she is the best, but like a boxer coming out of retirement, you have to do it all over again if you want to retain your image as the best of your time, given there will always be new challengers. The three share 13 Group 1 victories between them, but eight belong to Goldikova and she has every right to be a solid favourite.

It does not exactly go downhill after that, the rest of the card on Tuesday is sublime with two more Group 1 races including the intriguing Kings Stand Stakes which has become another form of great rivalry between England and Australia, the aussie sprinters seem to have an edge over the northern hemisphere still and Nicconi will be bidding to be the fifth Australian Kings Stand winner from the last eight years. The 2000 Guineas rematch is the next Group 1, in the St James Palace Stakes, the first three home at Newmarket clash again and it is quite difficult to split the three. After three consecutive top-class races there is a Group 2, which is fairly close to Group 1 standard, in the Coventry Stakes. From here it is likely we will get the first clear picture of next year’s Guineas market. The rest of the week involves more world class racing, but Tuesday just edges out as the best day, for me. The meeting may throw up a few decent betting opportunities, but I am mainly just looking forward to the racing as a spectacle, there are superstars everywhere you look.

By Ronan Groome