It has been raining cats and dogs in Melbourne so I’m feeling a bit nervous about the punt. I don’t bet if my racebook gets wet or if the track is worse than dead. It is rated a Dead 5, which is very borderline.
I’m there early for the first because I like the two-year-olds. And I’ll ignore that light sprinkle on my racebook. Is that really water? I cross them all out, except In Faith, who gets divine assistance and streets them on the line. I’m feeling quite smug because it’s the first time I’ve pulled off a back and a lay in the same race. I took an exception to the beaten favourite Tizona, who was very unsettled with the jockey up and didn’t keep four feet on the ground. So I conclude that the track can’t be too bad and I’m up for another go in the next. Again, I cross them all out except I Need To Fly. My place bet with the bookies, at $4.60 no less, flounders and runs home 12 lengths last. Back to where I started. There is obviously something wrong with the track! I check the race times with my chart of par times compiled by the late and great E.J. Minnis and discover that it is hovering between Dead 5 and Slow 6. Time to shut up shop.
In Race 5, the strapper of Still Me (who I later discover is the jockey’s father and trainer’s spouse) confides that the horse doesn’t like it wet. Still Me, who hasn’t won in three years, wins in a canter. Is this track wet or dry? I risk another bet on Silvercitymiss in the mares race. Fifty metres from the line and the horse is hopeless on the rail and going backwards. I turn away from the TV and don’t watch the rest. The track is too wet. Greg Miles says there is a photo for third, with Silvercitymiss in it, which seems impossible. I watch the replay and can’t even find the horse’s colours. The photo comes up and it gets third. How can that be? I look at the replay another four times. Two metres from the line she is fifth and then in a miracle, two heads up and one down, she gets the photo.
So, 1/2 backs, 1/1 lays. But the most interesting thing that happened all day was when I fired up the betting instrument it displayed a list of available networks, and there was the name “simon beasley”. That must be some comfort to Simon, to know that his computer can still come to the races, even if he has been rubbed out for four years.