Day one of the Festival kicked off in style with a pretty spectacular race, 9/1 Summerville Boy came from behind to take the lead on the home straight to show just what I was saying about being able to get winners with decent odds at this Festival. My selection didn't do too well, it had a good start and was in the mix for a while but then made a couple of mistakes with the jumping before pulling up. Thanks to the offer from Skybet though my stake was returned to me in the form of a free bet.
Source Summerville Boy picked up the first race win of the festival
I didn't bet on every race of the day due to my wariness when it comes to short priced favourites and in the 16:10 race was a perfect example of why I don't like to bet on them. Apple's Jade looked a dead cert to win that race but ended up coming 3rd in a close contest and was even pipped to 2nd by a 33/1 outsider! Short priced favourites did have some success with Footpad winning the 14:10 by 14 lengths!
Source 16/1 selection Melon head to head with a short priced fave
The other short priced favourite to win was in the 15:30, my selection Melon saw it's odds drop from 16/1 all the way down to 7/1 by the time the race started leaving me really pleased with my choice as the odds moving so much meant there was a lot of other people betting on it too which is usually a very good sign. It gave a cracking ride but was just beating at the later stage of the race by the favourite but was still a nice victory.
My other selections didn't do so well with one falling and the other pulling up with an injury meaning I only just managed to end the day in profit thanks to the offers from the bookmakers, the football has provided me a good opportunity to convert the free bets received into actual cash thanks to matching them on the exchange and when the games are over I will end up with about £15 more than I started the day with, give or take a few pence. Not the big money I was hoping for but there is always day 2!