A week that went pear shaped!

First of all apologies (to my one reader) about the lateness of the blog this week, have just been so busy studying so many different betting markets the last few days that I havent had time for anything else until now. Not that it has done me much good as its been one of those weeks where most things seem to have gone pear shaped, I had just been thinking everything had been going too well so suppose its not entirely unexpected as I got the feeling it was overdue.
At least I won my final league snooker match of the season (on the black, no miscues this time!!) although it didnt do our team much good as we slumped to a 4-1 defeat. We'll have to see how much damage that has done to our league position when the tables are published as I was hoping we would hold on to fourth place which would be a decent season though it looks rather doubtful now after a poor run-in.
Anyhow personally I managed 13 wins out of 19 including cup matches so thats quite respectable though a bit down on last year when I probably won a few more of the close frames.
Back to the betting and it was all going pretty well until around half way through the week, a couple of the wildcards had obliged at decent odds in the China Open and my three gaelic football bets had all done the business too.
There was some disappointment when one of my favourite dogs Jemmy Doodlebeag appeared to get injured in his heat of the Easter Cup at Shelbourne, he missed the break, then went out of camera shot around the bend and didnt cross the line but have been unable to gain any details since. He did me a good turn by winning the John Casey Open earlier in the year at big odds so do hope he can recover though clearly it doesnt look good if he was stopped in his tracks so suddenly.
I have dropped a line to the owner giving my best wishes and asking for any news but we'll have to see if anything is forthcoming, the money is of secondary importance to me in such matters anyhow.
Ante post favourite College Causeway also crashed out that night, being knocked to the ground in his race and this weekend Ballymac Bondi also failed to qualify. I do have Faypoint Man and Shelbourne Aston however, and also added Tip and Tin plus Oran Classic in the meantime.
In the dogs version of the Grand National at Wimbledon, I have three representatives in the final via Nebuchadnezzar, Platinumlancelot and Distant Legend and also added Hotdog Jack today as he has drawn his favourite rail position and is now jolly with a few of the books so backed him to save my stakes on the others.
Also the Scottish Derby at Shawfield got underway and while I got Slip The Lark, Head Iton Ellis and Cabra Cool through to the semi finals, a couple of others have been lost, namely Ballymac Ruso who made a shock first round exit and also Ja Mann in the second round.
But as you can see it was going reasonably on the dogs until I went and spoiled it by experimenting on some lower class graded racing at the weekend (I usually bet mostly in open races on dogs you can see in action either on the net or TV) and made a fair loss though it may have been different but for backing four second placed animals. Plus the couple of winners I did have I had lesser stakes on than some of those who were beaten, hence I didnt really get alot of benefit from them.
In future I will stick to the tried and trusted, as this only exacerbated a rather disappointing China Open snooker event from a punting prospective. I've maybe started to pick a few too many in the outright markets just lately, or perhaps its because I've backed a couple of them each way but my outlay here was a little higher than it should have been and as none of them threatened to win it, I was always going to be up against it in the match betting.
This took a turn for the worse when Gerard Greene who I had backed at a juicy 9/4 against Neil Robertson, couldnt hold on to a 4-3 and thirty point lead in the next, apparently getting a kick on the pink which cost him the frame as Robbo cleared up thereafter to take it into a decider.
Also Mark King showed no signs of the very mediocre form he produced in the recent Championship League winners group as he ran out a convincing 5-2 winner over Mark Williams, who I had backed to overcome a minus 1.5 frames handicap.
I followed the two winning wildcards through to the first round proper too and although Tang Jun and Yu Delu put up decent fights again, this time they couldnt quite manage victory against Ebdon and Dott respectively.
I also chanced Fergal to grind it out against the Rocket but at massive odds of 4/1 he too succumbed 5-3.
The second round odds didnt appeal too much yet I still managed to squander a sizeable sum when Neil Robertson capsized 5-1 to Shaun Murphy, who he had usually done well against in the past and then, against my original thoughts, due to popular consensus on the forums I joined in with backing Dave Harold to beat Peter Ebdon, which as I had half expected he didnt!!
Kicking myself somewhat for this I then decided to try and get it back by backing Ronnie O Sullivan to win 5-1 or 5-2 in the correct score market against the young wildcard Xaio Guodong but he ultimately failed to do the latter on the final black in frame seven before getting home 5-3 in the next, which is what tends to happen when things are conspiring against you.
Stuart Pettman dragged some back by upsetting Graeme Dott at 9/4 but in the final I lost about the same amount by backing John Higgins -1.5 frames and then inplay when a frame down at the half way stage in the final against the previously out of form Ebdon, who to be frank I wouldnt have picked in a month of Sundays for the outright.
It just goes to show how risky it is punting on the World Championship match prices before this event was played out as for instance Ebdon was being looked upon as somewhat of a spent force but now he has a bit of wind in his sails again, while Ryan Day similarly after a lean patch must have gained some confidence from his run to the semi finals.
There was also a massive shock in Aintree's Grand National (for the horses this time!) with the 100/1 shot Mon Mome keeping the bookmakers happy, though if you look far enough back in his form, he did finish second in a Welsh National a couple of years ago so for those that delved a bit deeper there would have been a great reward awaiting. Unfortunately, I'm currently a bit of a part timer on the gee gees so didnt go to such depths, and the half dozen I narrowed it down to (had a bit on each) never really seemed to be in the thick of things, though My Will ran a decent race in third place under a fairly high weight. It was asking a bit much to pick the winner for the fourth year in a row I suppose but it heaped a bit more misery on a woeful few days punting.
Hopefully I can get back to basics and things will swing back in my favour. Still would like to get back into the horses full time but dont want to bite off more than I can chew and with the snooker, the dogs and the gaelic games all on the roster (along with a bit of aussie rules) its difficult to devote enough hours to the nags but thats what I'm trying to do, though still have a backlog of form videos as ever which has gotten even bigger during this latest snooker tournament and will probably be astronomical after the World Championships!!
Anyway gotta find time for some sleep now!!
All the best
Rick
Update: Good news at the end of the week anyhow. The owner of Jemmy Doodlebeag contacted me to say that the dog is fine, he just cramped up coming out of the traps and couldnt finish the race, hopefully he will soon be winning more races pretty soon.