Perhaps I should just run my fingernails up a rubber boot, or chalkboard or jump in a vat of fermenting horse shit.
In truth, I don't think I would take any of those options in favour of betting at my nemesis course.
Although, give me a year or two and you may find me standing on the edge of a highrise car park in Milton Keynes. I'll be babbling on about Brighton and holding a tuft of luscious, green grass in one hand and a losing betting slip in the other as I take flight plummeting like a stone.
I really do paint a rosy picture, hey. As dark as blood.
So, on a lighter more jovial thought, which racecourse do you just dread to bet?
Even if you have been following a horse, it's primed to win and even the trainer's wife gave you the wink as she breezed through the paddock in a flowing summer dress, you start to question the double gamble which you know is wrestling within the brain. Like a devil and angel on either shoulder, a tug-of-war where the rope enters your left ear and exits the right and the friction from all the pulling too and throw carves your grey matter like a pork cheese.
Betting on the said horse is a gamble but the fact it is running at your nemesis course is the kiss of death.
Now, for no particular reason, your despicable course may be different from mine. You may say Chester and I'm almost mocking you with the fact that I'm like a winning machine there.
Don't talk to me about Epsom Downs, I've never backed a loser.
It's so easy.
But Brighton...
I mean, I love the Royal Crescent.
But ask me to bet at Brighton racecourse and I go quiet. You can see my brain working overtime trying to resolve some crazy equation that even Isaac Newton would run from.
But you know what it's like...
I really fancy that horse today.
Trying not to think about the last twenty-five bets that went south. Trying to convince myself that some old, ghostly witch that had been following me around the course for years had finally died or given up the ghost (so to speak).
Let's face it, even the bubonic plague died off in the end.
So I chance my luck with a bet. I'm sure it will be ok. Just take a few deep breaths of the beautiful sea air and think pretty thoughts.
As soon as the stalls open I realise the old witch has climbed on my back, whispering words of death and pointing me in the direction of Milton Keynes.
I wonder, which course do you fear to bet?
