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Sandown Zipping Classic

November 16th, 2012 0 comments

There are lots of my old mates here today. Jumpout Joey has jumped out of the woodwork, and look, there’s Jungle Ruler, and hey, there’s Rockpecker, and look at Zipping! He looks as if he’s spent the last two years in a knee-high paddock of lucerne. Just enter “Zipping” into the search box to see what he looked like two years ago!

The Classic should really be called the Williams Classic. And you have to give team Williams some credit, even if you do tire of Nick’s speeches. They have pioneered the use of two strappers with all their horses and have turned it around from being a negative variable ten years ago, when the book was published, to a positive one today. Clearly, the book does need an update, and I am slowly working on it! Mourayan was the favourite but had the glue on shoes. The new sort are virtually impossible to detect by eye, but if you look carefully at the photo (click it a couple of times to blow it up) you will notice a slight colour discontinuity at the distal (big word) end of the hoof. Team Williams also routinely employ a pony with all their horses. No wonder they have a mortgage on this race. Mourayan was busy kicking and pawing on his new shoes in his stall so he was a definite lay, but I was too busy backing Exceptionally for the place to worry about it. 

For the last few months or so I have been printing out the list of gear from the Racing Victoria website. Previously I just used to look at the published gear changes, but the complete list is quite useful. However, the more I compare my notes with the official list the more discrepancies I find. Horses have the wrong gear, no gear or additional gear. Occasionally $50 fines are handed out, but there seem to be heaps that get under the stewards’ radar. Maybe there are announcements at the track and I just don’t hear them. Chasm was meant to have bar plates but blowed if I could see them behind the can of Jim Beam. Life as a horse watcher was never meant to be easy!

And the boys were there in their Hawaiian shirts and silly hats.

 

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