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Royal Ascot betting review

By Matt | June 23, 2009

A Cunning Punt had a shocking week betting on Royal Ascot last week. Where did our once-positive balance go to?

Before the Queen Anne Stakes kicked things off last week, we were a reasonable minus 11 points according to our betting history. By the Get-Out Stakes, we were more than minus 35 points – a twenty-four-point loss.

And it wasn’t just that: I had a punt on Sweet Sonnet, a nice 14/1 shot in the Albany Stakes, that I’d seen run at York – another loss.

To be fair, Angus had a win with Scenic Blast in the King’s Stand, but didn’t bother tipping it. And Bernie and I were at a wedding on Friday, which saved further losses.

The real damage was done by the big Ballydoyle winners, Mastercraftsman and Yeats. Laying favourites to lose can prove expensive – especially at odds like the 9/4 we took on Yeats.

But long-term I think I’d lay those same horses again (well, perhaps not Yeats, which proved to be one of the great racehorses of all time in demolishing the Gold Cup field for the fourth time).

Mastercraftsman only just pipped Delegator to the winning post, which I’d see as a moral victory to anyone who backed Delegator at the odds of 9/2 or bigger that were floating around. It’s easy to see that in many more races the 10/11 shot would have been beaten.

Laying favourites is one of the biggest reasons for using Betfair though, and we’ll be doing it again. And we’ll be backing some cunning punts as well. There’ll also be plenty of losers – and that’s the joy of betting, whether it’s at Royal Ascot or anywhere else.

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