Luck Comes In Threes

Luck comes in threes. Not good luck obviously, otherwise I’d be able to tip winners in three consecutive weeks. In fact, having analysed the results of this blog’s selections for 2014, it seems that bad luck doesn’t just come in threes, it also comes in fours, fives, sixes and seventeens. 

Yes, there were seventeen long weeks between my selection, Rose Of The Moon, falling in the Grand National at Aintree and Intrinsic winning the Stewards Cup at Goodwood. Except that it wasn’t called the Stewards Cup, it was called the 32Red Cup, which upset traditionalists at the time - I was just pleased that Intrinsic managed to win it. 

Not that we’ve had an unlucky year. If you’d placed £1 on each of the weekly selections (£2 on each-way selections – one to win and one to be placed) you’d have made a profit of £14.25 – that’s a 26.4% profit on the £54 you’d have staked over the full twelve months.

In the meantime, the footsie 100 index increased by almost 1% (but not quite) - so now we all know what to do with our pensions. (Yes… past results are not an indication of future success; placing a bet is a bit like folding up a fiver and pushing it down the plug-hole, blah blah blah, etc, etc). 

Admittedly, if you missed the equivalent selection for this very week last year (Royal Boy at 9/1) and our selection for mid-November (Garde La Victoire at 10/1), you might have an altogether different perspective on matters: Perhaps you didn’t get the turkey wishbone at Christmas, broke a mirror, or mistakenly touched formica instead of wood.

In which case, you’re probably seeking a four-leaf clover (a bit too early in the year) or a rabbit’s foot to keep in your pocket. If you’re reading this in Thailand, you could try walking underneath the belly of an elephant three times. I’m assured that this brings the best luck of all and costs just 39 Baht if you can find the right elephant handler.  

The good thing about Sa Suffit (this week’s selection at Wetherby) is that he comes complete with four lucky horse shoes. The flip-side is that they need replacing every four weeks and that they cost about four times as much as a small child’s plimsolls. Fortunately, despite following his career with keen interest, I haven’t had to pay the bills for his footwear. He looks attractively handicapped and, even at the age of twelve, he hasn’t got many miles on the clock. Therefore, for his owner’s sake, I hope that he’s lucky on Saturday.

Now, where is that elephant?