Over The Line

We managed to get all 9 squares revealed in Game 1 before Gemma guessed correctly and I fancy our chances of stringing this one out too. Prove me wrong though and a €/£50 free bet is yours!

Some simple rules to give everyone a chance.
1. No matter which saying you think the image actually portrays, it’s our answer you have to match.
2. Only one guess per person per square revealed, until the entire image is revealed and then it’s a free-for-all.
3. Complaining that the image is too vague, unrelated, badly made, artistically without merit, will be ignored.
4. You need to have a Paddy Power account to get the free bet.

A quick note: Please make sure to use the same email address you have registered with your Paddy Power account when you’re giving your answer here.

Result: Peter Rickard got in there first with Down To The Wire…Congratulations, the free bet shall be in your account shortly.

Say What You See
Declare what you Discern!…hmmm…doesn’t have quite the same ring to it

Win a €/£50 Free Bet

After being inundated with requests and inquiries, and by inundated we mean one person mentioned it on the blog yesterday, about our annual Cheltenham Katchphrase competition it’s back for 2010! There’ll be at least two games a day, depending on how quickly they get solved, with a €/£50 free bet on offer each time. And we’ll put it in to your account right away. The first game starts about 9.30am every morning, with one square being removed every 15 mins until somebody guesses correctly.

Some simple rules to give everyone a chance.
1. No matter which saying you think the image actually portrays, it’s our answer you have to match.
2. Only one guess per person per square revealed, until the entire image is revealed and then it’s a free-for-all.
3. Complaining that the image is too vague, unrelated, badly made, artistically without merit, will be ignored.
4. You need to have a Paddy Power account to get the free bet.

We’re starting off nice and easy to get the old grey matter warmed up but we reckon we’ve come up with a few doozies this year. Be careful, we’ve thrown in some red herrings just for the hell of it too. Will we Katch you out?

We have a winner!!

Gemma correctly guessed ‘Diamond In The Rough’ and won the first €/£50 free bet of the day. Next game starts at 12!!

Yay! The big day is finally here, the Cheltenham Festival has arrived and more importantly, so has a sarcastic blog to keep you up to date with events in the Cotswolds. It’s going to be the same as always with a few minor changes. First of all, the Hell Of A Horse Count will now be known as the Hell Of A Horse Total due to the previous name being only one typo away from an immediate sacking.
 
Hell Of A Horse Total: 2
Sightings Of Paddy Enjoying Corporate Hospitality At Cheltenham: 2
 
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5.10pm: PS … Ganguly wasn’t top Kolkata Runscorer, so our Pun v Pundit competition rolls on to this evening’s football from the Champions League and the Championship.
 
5.04pm:: And with that victory, Ruby becomes the joint most successful jockey at the Festival of all time. It’s a title that doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, but he looks certain to lose the ‘joint’ part of it tomorrow with another strong book of rides.
Will he take the title in his own right on Day 2?
How far beyond this mark can he go?
And will we ever get a taste of that delicious lasagne he probably learned how to make years ago in home economics class?
We’ll get the answer to some of these questions on Paddy’s Day.
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And the results are in for Day 1 of the Pun v Punter competition. It went down to the wire, but while Nottingham Forest turned our Championship treble into a dead duck with a terrible opening 12 1st half minutes in Preston, Kevin’s was on the other side of it have included Preston in his treble. He has landed a £50 Free Bet for his efforts. Well done Kevin, 1 out of five ain’t bad and it’s significantly better than none out of five.
 
If you fancy being our pundit for Thursday or Friday, see below for details on how to put your name forward.

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We’ve got our match-up for Tuesday’s Pun v Punter competition.

It’s the might of the Paddy Power Pun Department versus Kevin Hughes.
 
Kevin is a charming young man who enjoys reading, thinks David Beckham being injured for the World Cup doesn’t really matter a toss because he was hardly going to play anyway and one day he’d like to bring world peace to all mankind. None of that may be true, but it’s the type of thing they say on quizzes so I thought we’d run with it.
 
The events we’re asking Kevin for tips for are:
1. A 1st Goalscorer bet for the Chelsea v Inter Milan match.
2. A Correct Score bet for the Sevilla v CSKA Moscow match
3. The winner of the Cross Country Chase at Cheltenham
4. A Top Runscorer bet in the Kolkata Knight Riders v Chennai Super Kings IPL match
5. A treble on the Championship matches on Tuesday night
 
The tips we’ve shoehorned into a pun are as follows (see the homepage for the full beauty of the puns):
- Michael Ballack 1st goalscorer @ 12/1
- 2-1 Sevilla @ 7/1
- Freny’s Well to be placed in the Cross Country Chase @ 4/1 (4 places)
- Matthew Hayden to be Chennai Top Runscorer @ 5/2
- Coventry, Reading and Notts Forest all to win @ just under 10/1
 
Kevin’s gone with a selection that sounds far more likely to happen:
- Didier Drogba 1st goalscorer @ 7/2
- 2-0 Sevilla @ 11/2
- L’Ami to win the Cross Country Chase @ 10/3
- Sourav Ganguly to be top Kolkata Runscorer @ 7/2
- Preston, Leicester and Reading @ just over 8/1

If Kevin gets more profit to a £1 stake than us, he’ll e-walk away with a £50 Free Bet.
 
If you just want to show off your tipping skills or warm up for an attempt later in the week, you can leave your tips or comments below. Alternatively, you can try to get in on the action and put your name down for the draw to be Wednesday’s punter by emailing competitions@paddypower.com with the subject line ‘I’m Going To Kick Your Pun Loving Asses‘

Everyone’s really busy getting ready for Cheltenham, so what better time to launch a vague and complicated competition? In fairness, it’s not that complicated. Regular readers of the paddypower.com homepage will have noticed our quality tipping mixed with pun-work. Well, maybe quality isn’t the right word, but they’re there none the less.
 
It’s called Pun v Pundit and as the name suggest it pits your tipping skills against our pun/tipping skills. We’ll ask for your tips on a selection of events that we’ll be punning up on the homepage. If you end up with a bigger profit to a £1 stake for your tips than our homepage stories manage, you’ll get a £/€50 Free Bet. Simple as.
 
Email competitions@paddypower.com with the subject line ‘I’m Going To Kick Your Pun Loving Asses‘ and we’ll draw one lucky person to play for each day of the Cheltenham Festival.
 
Stuff you need to know:
- We’ll need to use your real name.
- You’ll need to have a paddypower.com account to play.
- We’re going to need your answers before 10am on the day itself.
- Prices will the settled at the price the selection is at 10am on the day.
- It’s our ball and we reserve the right to walk off with it in a strop if things don’t go our way. Not really, but our decision is final.
 
We’re going to pick our first contestant on Monday evening and then we’ll reveal what events we need your tips for.

I’ve stayed well away from most of the handicaps for the time being. They can be a bit of a minefield and conditions on the day and other factors come into play - like money. I’ve still managed to come up with a list of horses to avoid have a look at. I reckon I’ll have at least one winner this year. I’ve a fiver on seeing pigs fly over Cheltenham on day one too. If nothing else let me know your strong fancies and good luck next week!
 
Quick Links

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Not sure if this one will make it as far as your telly boxes - but sure you can enjoy it here!

If this clicks, Tom’s getting fired.

We’ve got a VIP trip for two to the Paddy Power Imperial Cup on Saturday 13th March up for grabs.

Our lucky winner and a guest will receive a pair of Premier Enclosure badges, a champagne reception, a four course meal AND a complimentary bar. And what’s more we’ll stump up £100 spending money although given everything is thrown in I don’t know what you can spend it on.

The Imperial Cup is always a great days racing and guaranteed to get you in the mood for Cheltenham, not least because the winner of the big race has the oppportunity to pocket a tasty £75,000 bonus if he or she goes on to win at the festival.

With that in mind there is a special Cheltenham Festival Panel after racing- so if you want to get the latest knowledge from the likes of Nicky Henderson, Andy Stewart and even Paddy Power himself (I suggest you ignore him) then that’s part of the package too.

All we need you to do is answer this simple question:

Which trainer won the 2009 Paddy Power Imperial Cup

a) Nicky Henderson

b) David Pipe

c) Phillip Hobbs

To enter email us at competitions@paddypower.com with the subject line “Imperial”. Include your answer and remember to include your username, name and a mobile phone number so that we can contact you if you win. We’ll probably announce the winner publicly, so if you’re not cool with that don’t enter! Final date for entries is Tuesday 9th March. Good luck!

If this carries on we’re going to have to keep him under lock and key and most definitely well away from intoxicating liquor.

Just when we thought we were running a proper grown-up business, Mr Paddy Power himself had one too many at a Cheltenham preview at the Goat Inn last night and promised the crowd we’d refund all losing bets on the Supreme Novices Hurdle if Dunguib won the race.

A quick call around and a few terms and conditions later and we’ve decided it just about makes some sort of sense - we’re going to honour the promise. We did something similar (if less idiotic) last year with Cousin Vinny so it’s not like we’re in totally unexplored territory. However right now Dunguib is 4/6 for this race so by my reckoning you would be absolutely crazy to bet anywhere other than Paddy Power if you’re interested in any other horse in the race.

OK, plenty of opposition has been scared off by Dunguib but Oscar Whisky for one hasn’t been off the bridle either and at 12/1 - and knowing I’ll get my money back if Dunguib wins the race - he certainly sounds like at least one worth serious consideration.

If you’ve got any other possible outsiders for this race or indeed any other Cheltenham tips (paddy power employees  bet as well after all) please share. And while we’re at it feel free to tell us what you think of Paddy’s genius / lunatic idea.