Life changing Cheltenham Festival Yankee…

Multiple bets – Bookies and punters alike enjoy the old multiple betting approach, although for very different reasons obviously!

One of my NTF subscribers and regular tweeter Shane (@milltown79) asked me last night what my life changing festival Yankee for 2012 was. The facts were I didn’t have one (or at least I hadn’t placed one at that point).

In my early days as a novice punter (one of those who was clipping most fences on the way round before falling in a heap at the last!) I probably lost count of the amount of potential ‘life-changing’ bets I would place. As I became a more experienced punter I realised these were possibly (I now obviously realise they WERE) a drain on my profits and over the years the multiple bets became less and less, to the point now where I very rarely place a multiple bet.

However, Shane’s question to me last night got me thinking about the time I did in fact land one of those ‘life changing’ bets. It was the 2003 Cheltenham Festival, I was in my student days and although I was winning decent enough money on the geegees I was also on the p!ss most nights with my buddies! The winning bets were basically paying for the nights out…and some food…although the drinking was far outweighing the eating! That’s what students do? right!?

Anyway these were the 2 winning Yankee bets I placed that, at the time, changed my life –

*Bets were placed 1 or 2 weeks before the fest – prices are roughly what I managed to get

Yankee 1

AZERTYUIOP (Arkle) 7/4

YOULNEVERWALKALONE (WH NH Chase) 14/1

ONE KNIGHT (RSA Chase) 12/1

BEST MATE (Gold Cup) 6/4

Return – £2,800+

Yankee 2

AZERTYUIOP (Arkle) 7/4

ROOSTER BOOSTER 4/1

YOULNEVERWALKALONE (WH NH Chase) 12/1

ONE KNIGHT (RSA Chase) 12/1

Return – £4,000+

Obviously there were a clutch of losing slips as well but along with some chunky-ish singles on the likes of ROOSTER BOOSTER, MOSCOW FLYER, ONE KNIGHT and BEST MATE (when I say chunky it was chunky with regards to how much I could afford as a student!) it was safe to say Cheltenham 2003 will live long in my memory!

A £1 Yankee meant a lot to me in those days, I mean £11 was eleven drinks in some places on certain nights of the week!!

Anyway these large wins are probably (almost certainly) the reason I do what I do today. This was the point in my life where I decided I was good at this racing game. I had actually spent a substantial amount of time studying those 2 winning Yankee bets (I was meant to be actually ‘studying’ but what the hell!). I had looked at the RSA chase in so much detail that I could see no other winner than ONE KNIGHT. I was convinced that for one reason or the other KEEN LEADER, JAIR DU COCHET & IT TAKES TIME simply could not win this race. The race had ONE KNIGHT written all over it. Thankfully I was right.

The strange thing was this was the point where I decided the multiple bets were a drain on my profits (odd thing, I know, considering the amount of money I just collected!) but the fact all my hard work and ‘study’ had paid off made me even more determined to get disciplined and focus on the racing from a serious, profitable angle. In honesty it took me a little while to fully eradicate the multiples from my system but once I had it did give my punting and profits a more solid and less fluctuating look.

I must add here that I’m not trying to tell you all to ‘STOP BETTING ON MULTIPLES’. Not my style. If you enjoy them and look forward to placing them every weekend I’m certainly not going to stop you. Hell if you can make them pay then even better! In fact in a bid to grab back the feeling of March 2003 (and thanks to Shane for putting the idea in my head!) I’ve dusted down my old Yankee rule book (that doesn’t exist by the way!), raided Mrs NTF’s BETFRED account (thought it would look pretty impressive if I could populate her account with a few thou!) and dived head first into a 2012 Cheltenham Festival life changing Yankee!

Here are the lucky 4 for 2012…..

TETLAMI (Supreme Novices’) 14/1 (watch me talk about Tetlami on the free Cheltenham Festival preview video)

SIR JOHNSON (Bumper) 20/1

CHAMPION COURT (Jewson) 8/1

MONKERTY TUNKERTY (Foxhunters) 10/1 (hear me talk about Monki Tunki on the free Paddy Power podcast)

Potential payout of £42,183

If this monster lands (and its probably a big IF!) then I will donate some of the winnings to Greyhound Rescue Fife.

Can I recapture the glory filled Yankee days of 2003? At those odds I bloody hope so!!

and talking about Yankee’s…

 

Betdaq Cheltenham Festival Yankee offer

I’m turning into a Yankee at this point! Anyway an email popped into my inbox yesterday telling me of the BETDAQ Cheltenham festival yankee promotion.

My usual thought is ‘not for me’ but I decided to take a little look. To be fair to them its a tempting carrot.

Essentially the offer is this –

Place a £1 Yankee (£11) on the Cheltenham Festival and the highest paying Yankee of the day wins an extra £2500 bonus. Added to that the highest paying yankee of the week gets another £2500 on top of that.

Now if you are going to fire a yankee bet at the festival each day (I know plenty of you will) then it’s well worth doing it through Betdaq. If your bet wins you get the winnings (obviously) with the added spice of an extra £2500 on top if your one is the highest paying Yankee of the day (and another £2500 if it is the highest paying of the week).

As I said, if you were going to place the bet anyway then no real harm doing it through Betdaq.

If you are an exchange bettor and don’t have a Betdaq account it may be a good idea to get one just in case Betfair have one of their famous crashes at some stage during festival week!

Check out the BETDAQ offer here.

 

NTF Cheltenham Festival service

Many thanks to those of you that have already joined NTF for Cheltenham week. You should all have the stat attack guide now and I will also send out a little ‘pre-look’ at some of the races this Sunday.

If you are interested in joining the NTF National Hunt service just for Cheltenham week there are still places available  – Join NTF for Cheltenham

 

The Daily Punt

Just a quick thanks to the guys at the ‘DAILY PUNT‘ website. They kindly added our Cheltenham Festival preview videos to their site so big thanks and make sure you check out their site – The Daily Punt

 

Ben (NTF)

ps. Just to let you know how I spent my 2003 Festival winnings; it went on rent, partying, clothes, AN ARMY HAT, a Playstation (PS2 maybe?), pointless stuff from the gadget shop, more partying, a holiday, some stuff that will forever remain unaccounted for, a trip to the Ayr Scottish National and the Perth Festival plus a bit more partying. The rest I just wasted! I wonder if this Yankee lands Mrs NTF will let me buy an army hat and go partying for a couple of weeks…..