is Big Easy (Cheltenham 3.00).
It is hard to believe that after nearly two years of holding my own against the bookmakers, it all fell apart so badly over the last couple of months.
But it's worse than that. Having launched such ill-advised money at such abject losers as Silviniaco Conti, I did, on Sunday and Monday, have a sequence of five consecutive winners. I couldn't look at a card without picking them out with a gimlet eye but when your confidence is shot to pieces, you just play with small change and even landing a treble on Monday only thus paid out larger amounts of change.
But one doesn't completely surrender. It's a tough game. I wouldn't like it if it was easy. Which reminds me how little I had on Big Easy when he won the Cesarewich. It would be awful if Katkeau were to win tomorrow because I did follow him with some faith to no effect over his last three races a couple of years ago.
As Amy Winehouse sang, most poignantly, Love is a Losing Game. And, yes, gambling can be, too. But the inglorious wonder of the decadent slide into self-pity can feel almost as glamorous and, heaven knows, one day we might get it right.
David Green
- David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I publish booklets of my own poems, or did. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become. It keeps me out of more trouble than it gets me into. I hope you find at least some of it worthwhile.
