I’m feeling a bit rusty with no racing for three weeks so I plan to get there nice and early for the two-year-olds at 1 pm. I’ll need plenty of time to look at the babies. But at Flinders Street station I’m confronted by scenes of chaos. There is a fault at Caulfield station and all trains to Caulfield are cancelled! A harassed official explains that my only options are the number 3 tram, if I could get on one, or a train to Darling, and then the dreaded replacement bus. A tram to Caulfield? I reckon it would take a week to get there, so I opt for the train. Darling? Who has ever heard of Darling? It turns out to be on the Glen Waverley line and the train stops all stations to Darling where a thousand stressed punters hop off to cram into a single bus to Caulfield! Ah, the bane of my life, the replacement bus! I arrive just as the babies jump at 1 pm.
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- The bane of my life
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- Urban Ruler
It always takes a while to recover from a slow and difficult start and I don’t open my wallet until the sixth when I was quite taken with a relaxed Bint El Bedu. I was quite happy that the mare was sweating up since it was over 23 degrees and I was sweating up too. The horse rocketed home from the back to grab third. It was $2.50 with 30 seconds to go but was crunched into $2.10. Don’t you hate that?
In the seventh I took a set against Urban Ruler. I don’t like bar plates so I laid the horse at $2.20, despite some bookies offering $1.85 for the place. Phar Lap wore bar plates in that race in Mexico (see Watching More page 70) so they can’t be all bad, but then again Phar Lap was a freak and in a different class to Urban Ruler. Home early on the train. Thank goodness they fixed that fault. Two out of two. I think I’m on a streak.
In Sydney, Under The Thumb in R2 looked relaxed with head down, despite some neck twisting, and squeaked into 3rd at $6.40 a place! In R4, Sir Jester looked very relaxed but ran poorly. Stewards reported that he lost a plate. I’m not sure how this can cause a horse to run 9 lengths behind the winner. Maybe if a plate is only partially dislodged for a few strides it can throw a horse seriously off balance for enough time to lose all chance. How do they find lost plates on the track? Metal detectors? In Melbourne R5, Portion Control looked fairly relaxed on my iPhone (still no racing.com screen at Randwick) and ran on okay into 4th without much zip. In R6, Bint El Bidu looked relaxed and alert (noted by Geoffrey) and paid $2.30 here.
Lost plates are usually picked up by the stampers, those blokes that walk the track after each race stamping down the divots.