THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: EXAMPLES SHOWING WHY BEING A PUNTER IS SUCH A TOUGH GIG

By Graham Potter | Friday, February 9, 2018

As every punter knows you can sometimes feel hard done by when the horse you have bet on does not win the race.

On some of those occasions you might have a valid case to feed your disappointment. At other times it might just be that you are looking through biased coloured glasses when you cry foul but, either way, some defeats are clearly more difficult to follow than others.

Of course, for every disappointment there is also a celebration.Somebody wins. Somebody loses.

You probably won't find two more extreme examples of that divide than the two incidents that occurred in successive races at Randwick on Wednesday which left some punters in despair and others counting their blessings

In the third race Prahaar went out as a $26 chance. Punters who found her at those juicy odds might have been a bit anxious earlly on when Prahaar got back but jockey Jason Collett rode patiently and he had Prahaar poised to strike as the widest runner early in the home straight.

And strike she did! Not in any particular spectacular manner but rather with a steely determination which saw her get to the front seemingly at exactly the right time.

Inside the last 100m and the finish line was beckoning when Prahaar took a sudden side-step to the left, hurling Collett from the saddle. That was the spectacular part but it added an unwanted twist to proceedings.

A certain victory had evaporated into a non finish as Prahaar's antics handed the race to the $2.35 favourite Swaffham Bulbeck who a moment earlier had only been racing for second place.

So, here, the followers of the favourite were in luck ... big time.

Fast forward one race though and this time it was the followers of the well fancied Invincible Quest who did their money cold.

At least this time there was no teasing, no dangling of the victory carrot in front of their noses. It all happened very quickly as Invincible Quest proceeded to buck-jump soon after the start and took no competitive part whatsoever in the race.

Being a punter is a tough gig and these are just two extreme examples of what can go wrong.

But, then again, I guess that is why they call it gambling.