equinoxx.info: The Hat-Trick

On Thursday afternoon, I was looking through Amazon's 99p deals on Kindle eBooks and came across one titled 'Mania'. Seeing that word made me stop to check whether it was a book about wrestling. I clicked on the cover to get a better look.

Nope. It's an autobiography written by Stuart 'Woody' Wood from the Bay City Rollers.

I browsed on.

Later that night, I was in a name that tune trivia chatroom I play in and one of the people playing music happened to play a Bay City Rollers song for us to guess. I found it quite funny for one of the band's songs to come on a few hours after seeing that book.

Fast forward to yesterday morning

I received another free horse racing bet from Paddy Power. I could use the £1 to wager on any horse running at Epsom Downs on the Saturday card.

I did what I usually do with the free bets: I pick the first horse with a name which stands out to me. I have nothing to lose by doing that.

I looked through one race. Nada. I then clicked on the 2:40pm and one name caught my eye.

Bay City Roller!

After the coincidence of Thursday, it was a shoe-in. Four horseshoes-in at that.

I placed the bet and then went about my day.

Oh, and I also told everybody at home about what I had done because I have been very fluky with these free bets lately.

By the afternoon, I had forgotten all about the bet. I came downstairs and my dad told me 'you're a lucky bugger'.

Bay City Roller had won.

As always, I placed the bet each-way so I had a £6.88 return.

I know hindsight is 20/20, but - after seeing the name of the horse which won the Epsom Derby - 'Christmas Day', I am quite sure I would have backed that name had I ventured further into the card.

But Bay City Roller it was.

That was the third consecutive 'win' I've received from a Paddy Power free bet. All via the fluke of running with the first names which stood out.

Last month, I had been watching a video about Tommy Lister, who starred as Zeus in the Hulk Hogan movie - No Holds Barred. An hour or so later, when looking what to spend the £1 free bet on, I came across a horse named Zeus Olympios.

It had a triple meaning to me. First, I had watched the Tommy 'Tiny' Lister clip on TAFKA Twitter earlier that day. Second - Zeus was one of my favourite Cardiff nightclubs during my misspent youth and third - I went to school with a couple of brothers with that surname.

The horse placed, so I won.. 35p! That's thirty-five pence from zilch.

The good run began with the craziest win, however. I wrote about it on April 12th, but I'll repeat it.

During Aintree, I was given a free £1 to wager on any of the races on the Friday meeting. Two names stood out, so I placed them in a 50p each-way double.

The horses were 'Jet to Vegas' and 'Indiana Jones'. The former stood out because it was a week before WrestleMania 42 from Las Vegas. You'll probably think I chose Indiana Jones because of the Harrison Ford character, but that's partially why. It's the nickname of the Indianapolis Colts' quarterback - Daniel Jones.

Jet to Vegas was 25/1 and Indiana Jones was 150/1. I genuinely didn't think they'd get anywhere, but....