As I said when I wrote yesterday about backing this horse, I am not a betting man, far from it. In fact I am still very unsure and insecure in a bookies office.
I don’t even have the right sort of stubby pencil and always receive contemptuous looks from the staff and the other punters.
Consequently about ten years ago I signed on to a telephone betting service so that should the whole betting thing be essential I could do it from the privacy of my home.
I think I used this exactly twice before I lost the card and the number.

Now the youngest daughter, a most ungrasping child, is basically putting herself through a Masters in Cardiff.
She had been instructed by me, as I have a horror of recent graduates starting life with huge debts, to come to Daddy if the going should prove tough.
On the phone the night before the Grand National she had admitted that a grand transferred to her bank account would find a happy home.

This factor was strongly in my mind when, at Síle’s suggestion, I looked at the list of runners yesterday.
All those with short odds, even with compelling names such as Irish Invader (surely a direct reference to our French venture) were immediately discarded.
I wasn’t prepared to put out more than twenty Euros and had to make a thousand Euro. The price had to be fifty to one or over.
The fact that Mon Mome’s name spoke directly to my skilled betting instinct was only half of the story.
(it means My Brat, or Kid and was obviously intended by the Gods to be a direct reference to France and the Grandson)
Equally relevant was that his price was sixty six to one.
Thus he would yield the thousand for the daughter with a small bit over for the holiday in France next week.

I rang the phone betting people and said could they take the bet for me,
Not without the number on the card said the man.
“If Mon Mome wins” said I to him “I’ll find you and haunt you”
He laughed easily, he wasn’t to know.

That was it then I thought. He has saved me twenty pounds. I won’t bother now.
I was also sure I didn’t want to beard the betting office.
As it happened I had to drop Síle into a rehearsal for her concert at 2.30 and driving back I had to pass William Hill’s in Barrack Street.
I suddenly realised that if the nag actually won the race I would not be able to live with myself.
I went in and did it.
The girl behind the counter asked did I want the price at sixty six to one or the starting price.
She wasn’t going to fool me.
I had done the sums.
Sixty six to one gave me exactly what I needed.

I then went home, alone, blogged about my bet and proceeded to watch the race.
Once Mon Mome came into the parade ring I felt I was doomed.
He was not at all as glossy or sprightly as the other horses, and kept his head down as if in shame.
His starting price instantly went to one hundred to one.
I felt that I would have had a better return from the twenty if I had thrown it out the window.

Then the race was on.
All the rejected horses immediately took over the running. I had plenty of time to think that I had made a stupid decision.
But, my horse did not fall, that I noted, and also, even though he was too far back to be mentioned, I felt that I could see his green shirt keeping up with the posse all the time.

Then after the last fence out he came, and into the lead.
At that stage, home alone as I was, I was kneeling with my face pressed to the tele,
COME ON MON MOME! COME ON YOU BUGGER !
(My neighbours may never recover their hearing)

It worked.

I rang the daughter in Wales, I had texted her before the race to tell her I was backing a horse for her.
Her screams of joy when I told her we had won reached across the Irish Sea to Waterford.

Within a half hour I was down at William Hills Bookies.
There the smiling staff (I was only one of two people who had backed the winner they told me) counted out one thousand three hundred and forty Euros for me (they had to clean out all their tills to do it)

And that concludes the betting history of Martin for at least a few years.
The daughter will get her thousand and I will easily spend the remaining three hundred in France next week.