Good morning all,

I was in a bookmakers in Central London yesterday when I watched a guy trying to pull the wool over a cashier's eyes with cashback – paying for bets on his card but wanting the winnings paid in cash, and wanting cashback as well! Kept kicking off and was eventually told he couldn't have a bet!

These days tricks like that are tried in order to get one over the bookies, but back in the day the slow count was part of the conman's armoury, and I remember the day someone tried it on me very well. That, plus one from Warwick, on the main piece.Read More »The Slow Counter….

Good morning all,

Twitter has once again come alight with the old “is there such a thing as value?” argument after one or two Tweeters basically said that it's only value if they win.

Whilst it's true that getting value doesn't put bread on the table, there's surely a counter argument to that, which is one I try to make (again) on the main piece today.

Plus one from Market Rasen that should be a bit fitter than he was when I saw him at Southwell last time out. Read More »Value – Is It A Myth?

Good morning all,

Any hopes of a trip to Worcester were dashed first thing (well, in the night actually) and a temperature at 38.3 kicks in and frankly I can barely move. Just feel absolutely washed out and I'll be back in bed as soon as I've written today's piece. Apologies if it's not the usual standard but I'm really not up to a lot this morning.

Absolutely gutted I didn't put Mariah's Legend up as the selection yesterday. She was one of my ten to follow at the beginning of the season (if you've not got those and want them, drop your email in the comments) but hadn't progressed as I thought she would, mainly because she wasn't settling. There were no issues on that score yesterday and she looked a different horse, scooting up at 33-1. Now she knows what it's all about she should win more.

Three races looked at today. Read More »Sick As A Parrot, Brian.