Kenny is gay

Well, to be perfectly honest, I am devastated that I haven’t found a winner yet. I was annoyed by a few things yesterday and I was in a crap mood all evening as a consequence. After thrashing the hell out of Mario Strikers and Baseball on the Wii and sinking a few tins, I feel invigorated!

To further enhance my chipper mood, here is a picture of Kenny wearing a skirt, a woman's dressing gown and nail varnish. The big queer. I believe you can enlarge it by clicking on it, to show him in all his homosexual glory.

Anyway, enough sinning and let's start winning. My bets tomorrow will be as follows:

Nottingham 14:55 - Cabinet. Matt Doyle has alerted me to this. Whenever I'm feeling in need of a winner, I turn to the Pharaoh of the Form and although his own form isn't exactly form-idable (!) at the minute, the RP are napping this too, which led me to believe it was worth a look. Matt reckons that this is the one nag in the field that will be "better than a handicapper" in the near future and goes on to point out that his 207 days off the track shouldn't be an issue as he won on his seasonal reappearance last time out and that the ground will suit. Good spot Matt. My own research tells me that, although it's pretty profitable to follow this trainer/jockey combo, it's not been their best few months and they're not great at all at Nottingham, so I'll be approaching this with a shade more caution than Mr Doyle et al.

Punchestown 16:15 - Kicking King. This is the race of the day, so I just have to have a bet on it. I think Neptune Collonges is probably going to win, it did well to come third in the Cheltenham Gold Cup and of course, it's the defending champion. But Mossbank is a real threat and I'm seeing 2.5 on the exchanges just now and I don't like that at all. Kicking King is a classy old horse and the word is that last time out, when he was massively disappointing, it was down to a back problem that the trainer reckons is now completely sorted. It's more than a bit GAMBOOOL to trust that the old boy does still have what it takes, but it'll be fun watching him try and if he DOES still have it, the two clear market leaders will have a hard time. A small e/w punt to keep it interesting.

Punchestown 16:50 - Ballyagran. This horse beat Clear Riposte comfortably on April 12th and of course, Clear Riposte narrowly missed out yesterday (by a nose from a brilliantly timed run by whoever was on board Bambootcha) which helps to back up the form no end. Although I couldn't see any real trends to the winners of this race, the last 3 winners have been eight years old (as is Ballyagran) and jockey Paul Carberry has won this race before, back in 2000, on Amberleigh House, so he ought to know his way round. The forecast 5/1 price makes it an attractive each way prospect.

I'm going to hang about until the morning to see what the prices are like, so don't be surprised if I remove any of these bets. Will also have a look at the 20:50 at Kempton as Al Khaleej could be worth a punt for my A-Z game, though it'll be hard to see past Resplendent Nova. I will leave that for now.

14:55 Nottingham
Cabinet @ 2/1 (Coral)
3 pts
OMG A WINNER!!!11! WTF?! Never got to see the race so I can't comment. Thanks to Pharoah for highlighting this, feels good to break my duck. Return: 9pts.

16:15 Punchestown
Kicking King @ 9/1 (Ladbrokes)
0.5 pts e/w
Mammoth performance by last year's winner and the punters were steaming into it before the race. It went off odds on and never looked troubled. Another big race by Snowy Morning to get second. Kicking King travelled nicely initially but when the front runners took it up, he was unable to keep up. Time to put him to bed, I think, I don't think we're ever going to see the KK of old.

16:50 Punchestown
Ballagran @ 5.8 to win, 1.93 to place (Betdaq)
1 pt e/w
I was quietly confident about this and was delighted to see punters hitting it just before the race, it shortened to 4.5 on Betdaq and Oedipe drifted to 5.5, pleasing me no end. As for the race, the selection travelled quite nicely but I noticed it was sandwiched a few fences from the end and another horse bumped it over a jump, I wonder if that's why it didn't dig in at the end. Came 5th, just outside the place spots. Oh well, unlucky.

Update: You win some, you lose some. I'm sure I'm not imagining it, I'm certain I remember Cabinet being at 3.7 on Betdaq last night and now it's 2/1 best price everywhere. That's pretty annoying. I'm now upping the bet to three points.

A-Z: I can't make my mind up on Al Khaleej, though I was surprised to see it installed as favourite. I expected Resplendent Nova to be favourite. It's a tight little race, that one, I don't think Al Khaleej can give 10 stone to the likes of Titan Triumph, either. I am going to go with Arctic Shadow in the 17:35 at Worcester. It dropped down in class for it's last outing and won under this jockey, who takes off a handy 5lbs. It's run a win and two places from 3 starts so far in 2008 but I'm quite concerned by Militant Man, so I will just back it each way as I can get 9/2, which all but returns the stake should it place.

17:35 Worcester
Arctic Shadow @ 9/2 (Ladbrokes)
0.5 pts e/w
Was at work so didn't see this, but it seems to have won by almost 4 lengths! So that's a bit of a result. Return: 3.7 pts.

A-Z total: -3.30 pts
Days passed: 3

"Real" total: -3.00 pts