Climate change has a lot to answer for. Melbourne is so tropical now, hot and humid, with thunderstorms in the afternoon. It feels as if the whole town has moved 1000 km north. I’m still feeling tentative, and the forecast for 50 mm of rain overnight is not encouraging. I don’t know how much Flemington copped, but it’s very squelchy underfoot down at the parade ring and the rubbish bin for my lunch scraps is half full of water. It doesn’t inspire much confidence. Mister Milton’s flowerpot doesn’t inspire much confidence either. I enquire as to whether he’s a biter, but it seems he doesn’t bite strappers and prefers to nibble on himself. Maybe that’s why he’s 150/1? Compare him with The Cat. Now, there’s a fine head!  The times for the first few races aren’t too bad and vary from Slow to Good until I eventually decide that the track is probably a genuine Dead. Probably bettable.

The Lightning Stakes is an interesting race. Hay List looks physically impressive and the leg wound that I tried to photograph in the spring looks to have healed up OK. Apparently he jumped into a water trough and lifted a flap of skin on his off foreleg. The mare Black Caviar looks well, with some improvement to come, and Warm Love, who I’ve backed twice recently, looks very smart in those spiffy ear muffs. My selections are Hay List to beat Black Caviar and Warm Love. The mare is a bit short at $1.00 for the place so the question is who to back for second – Hay List at $1.50 or Warm Love at $7.30? With minus 30 seconds to go, while they are still mucking around with King Pulse, I go for Hay List. The mare wins by a street from Hay List, with another street to a dogged Warm Love. At least Hay List payed more for the place than the mare for the win, but I’m very disappointed that the dividend is chopped to $1.40. I’m even more disappointed when checking the TAB website to find the dividend declared as $1.50 and I was payed at $1.40!

Not much other action to report. I backed a loser (Goldstone) and a winner (Rubinacci) for the sake of exercising my money.

When will it stop raining? I need to speak to Al Gore.

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 I’m feeling a bit tentative, what with five or six inches of rain at Caulfield over the week. The track is a Dead 4 with a cold southerly breeze and I watch the first couple to check the times. They seem to indicate a genuine Dead, although it probably pays not to get too far back. I’m looking forward to the two-year-olds to follow up on Sepoy from Australia Day, but the $1.04 for the place is asking a bit much. The horse won well. Running Tall did a good job for second, despite carting a fifth leg around the mounting yard, even with the jockey up. I’ve always thought an erection was a serious negative in two-year-old colts, but quite a few of them seem to be confounding me lately. I did my money on Eramor in the fifth, which was racing well near the lead but burnt out in the straight.

And so to the sixth race. I’m watching the favourite Zelsnitz in the parade ring. The horse is unsettled, changing stride and tossing its head around. The strapper uses two hands to control it. A possible laying opportunity. A quick check on Betfair. $1.68 the place. In the mounting yard they have called in the reinforcements, a second strapper. And hey, what’s that. The filly has broken out in a serious sweat. A no-no when it’s cold. I whip out the iPhone and offer $1.56 the place. The bet is matched! Normally I wouldn’t lay a horse until one minute before the off, and here it is, what, ten minutes till the jump? And normally I watch the races in the bar, but for this one I ascend the stand. Zelsnitz jumps to the lead but collapses in the run home for a flagging fifth. I’m feeling a bit cocky. It’s my third successful lay over the last few weeks.

The field for the Orr Stakes is outstanding, but no bets. The champion wins well, but I’ve never really been a fan. She doesn’t carry her head like a champion, always twisting her neck and with her head down. I feel like yelling out “Posture”. In the last I like Das Machen. The horse seems to be headed near the line, but holds on for third at $3.40. Not a bad day.

Stop press: terrible news out of Newbury, UK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y85kwV2Mkt4

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Abandoned!

The reason why!

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I quite like the two-year-old races, mainly because nobody has a clue as to how they will run. And I didn’t have much of clue either and ended up crossing them all out for one reason or another. But I thought the chances of Decircles could be slightly reduced because he was curling his upper lip in his stall. This is the classic flehmen response.

Decircles

 The photograph doesn’t quite capture the extent of the curl but gives you the general idea. There is quite a good description of flehmen in that  indispensable punter’s bible – Watching Racehorses. The behaviour is generally thought to be involved in sniffing out mares on heat, not something we want our two-year-old colts to be doing before a race. Despite the distraction the horse ran on OK for a pleasing seventh.

I backed Lohnreign for a place in the third, even though Under The Eiffel looked outstanding and had won convincingly last time out at Sandown. But I was happy with $2.00 for second place. I gave it back on a miserable Testalux in the fifth and came in to race six all square.

Jumpout Joey reckoned Spacecraft was the lay of the day on fitness grounds and the horse’s behaviour certainly left a lot to be desired. He was very unsettled, head up, changing stride, fast gait, circling in the yard, gaping, flared nostrils, showing me some teeth, sweating copiously behind. I had already noted that the vet had blood sampled him in his stall, but horses handle that with no drama. I laid him for the place at $1.60. My selections were Rockpecker and Wealthy Lad. Because I’m such a Rockpecker fan I backed him for the place at $1.90, but he was crunched into $1.50. I think all of Stony Creek must have been on him. The horse showed great determination to win from Wealthy Lad. There was a minor moment of panic when Spacecraft looked like squeezing Barwon Express out of the finish but Barwon Express fought back well to grab third.

A successful back and lay in the same race! That’s enough excitement for one day!

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The nice man at Betfair has fixed my account problem. You’ll remember my consternation when I discovered that I didn’t have a funded account. It turns out that I wasn’t bankrupt after all. It seems that the iPhone app iBetMate needs a transaction every now and then on the Main Wallet to keep working and all my money is in the Australian Licence Wallet. It’s a bit of a fiddle but the problem was solved by transferring one dollar into the Main Wallet. So I’m all set again to lay some horses.

A beautiful day at Flemington, but warm and sticky. The first race is made for me: two-year-olds and only seven runners. Two place dividends, if you can find that second horse. Redangelo is the red hot favourite, comfortable and relaxed, and I’ve crossed out all the other horses. The books have it at $1.45 for the place so it looks like no bet, but with 20 seconds to go it’s holding up at $1.90 on the tote on a small pool, so I go for it. The horse fights on well after being headed in the straight for a strong win. I’m happy with $1.80.

In the second I like Winged Charm and the $2.00 for second makes it two from two. Gail looked the goods in the third, a big strong looking mare, but too short at $1.40. I liked Port Vell in the fourth, but the favourite Cabeza looked very good too, so no bet. In the fifth Pergola was sweating up badly, but I regard that as a positive on a hot day. However, I didn’t like it resisting the jockey. I had Cheerful Jury on top from Olympic Win and Pheromone. Cheerful Jury was $5.00 the place with the books which was too tempting to resist, but the horse shamed me by finishing tailed off 12 lengths last. Olympic Win won, and Pheromone got a sniff for third at $4.10.

In the sixth Big Spirit sported some lovely orange winkers for my picture library. And the filly, Warm Love, was a stand out, with Grand Duels the only danger. Normally I would discount Grand Duels chances because of his bandage, but he has won so often with it that I now ignore it. Warm Love was $1.55 with the books but with 10 seconds to go hit $1.90 on the tote. Grand Duels just grabbed the filly on the line. The final dividend of $1.70 for second was under my threshold $1.80 but I was happy to collect. No bet in the seventh. Voile Rouge was sweating up copiously and won convincingly. The horse clearly demonstrated that sweating up on a hot and humid day is a help and not a hindrance. King Diamond was a picture of perfect fitness in the last. He won like a good thing and I had a very modest win bet on him just to round out the day.

A good day, with three out of four winning place bets. And in the end I didn’t lay a single horse.

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Like the rest of Australia I’ve been totally washed out, but not so much by floodwaters, more like Montezuma’s Revenge. I’ve never been so wasted. I suppose it’s the price you pay for all that feasting over Christmas. My back ached, my head ached and my body couldn’t find a comfortable position in space. All I could do was lie about moaning. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t watch TV, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sit, except for rushed visits to the throne room. And I couldn’t even go to the races! That’s how sick I was! That’s pretty sick.

So a tentative and conservative return to Flemington, with no betting intentions. The track seems to have coped remarkably well with all the rain and is posted a Dead 5. The race times suggest it is Good. My eye is taken by winkers. I don’t score blinkers because they are common and noted in the racebook, but I have been keeping stats on winkers for some time now. I’m still not convinced they are a positive. I suppose the standard is your regular basic black, but there are some amazing colour variations about.

Arkham’s pink winkers looked quite gay. She was listed in the book as having ear muffs, but Warm Love, the race winner, must have borrowed them. And a nice slinky, shiny leather set they are too. Selma Spur had postbox red winkers, but I’m not sure what the horse thought of them. Horses do have some limited colour vision. They are generally regarded as dichromats, which means they are sensitive to light of only two wavelengths, blue and yellow, compared with humans who have trichromatic vision. So horses probably see the world much as a red-green colour blind human would, and those red winkers would appear to be a murky, sickly yellow. The grey Liffeybel had white winkers but seemed intent on shaking them off.

There are a lot of differences between the horse and human visual systems, including the anatomy of the eye and the structure of the retina. My own vision is plagued by floating black dots caused by vitreous detachment. The jelly bit of the eye has separated from the retina. But for now, I’m just glad that I can watch horses again. Happy New Year.

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I’ve been meaning to write a review of iBetMate for some time now. This is the new app for the iPhone for betting on Betfair. It’s totally awesome! Readers who have persevered with this blog may recall some of the trials and tribulations I had with using mobile Betfair earlier this year. The main problem was that you were logged out after a few minutes and then had to re-enter your account name and password. And that’s not always easy trying to remember your Mother’s maiden name when you are under pressure in that last hectic minute, and you seem to have four thumbs and one finger. With iBetMate you stay connected all day, even when you turn your phone off. If you accidently close the app you only need to enter a four digit password to restore the session. And you can see more than just one lay and back column when you turn the phone sideways, as well as the market percentages and your own position. Terrific stuff. I think I’m in love.

So to the first at Flemington. Lucky Eighty Eight looked a clear standout, but I was paying attention to Command Prince. He had that interesting triple gear combination of winkers, nose roll and tongue tie, which rankles someone like me who prefers cleanskins. What’s more he was kicking out when the jockey climbed aboard. A possible laying opportunity. So I fired up the iPhone and …oh, no….the dreaded error message: “product requires a funded account”. Punters in my near vicinity thought that this was a huge joke – that my Betfair account was bankrupt. But surely this could not be possible, because I’d had a collect on The Wingman in the last at Caulfield on Wednesday. Maybe someone has hacked my account and cleaned me out? After all, Julian Assange is out on bail.

Lucky Eighty Eight was a mile too good and Command Prince laboured into second last, four lengths from the winner. Not a good start. Isn’t it amazing how quickly you can fall out of love. But things improved. In the third I liked Pins On Ice. Lady Gaga was too aroused, Casual Friday was dumping all over the yard and sweating up voluminously, and Sassy Bay arrived in the yard led by Mr Patterson, the Clerk of the Course. I always view non-arrival of a strapper as a bad sign! Pins On Ice was only showing $1.45 the place, so I broke my cardinal rule and backed it to win! Wow. Never in doubt! And in the fifth I couldn’t understand why Toorak Toff was the favourite when Rick Hore-Lacy said he wasn’t suited at the distance and he wouldn’t be backing him. Éclair Mystic looked a standout and won like a good thing. But I gave some back on a disappointing Easy Cash in the seventh.

Home and a quick check of my Betfair account. It hadn’t leaked! I got onto Mike at Betware but he said it’s a Betfair problem. I hope they can fix it. I’m itching to fall back in love.

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You’d imagine that a seven-year-old entire stallion that has had 84 starts and has won over $700,000 would handle race day in a breeze. And you would also imagine that this is a horse that I would have seen being saddled before. And of course you would be wrong, on both counts. For the first time in seven years I watched Jungle Ruler being saddled. I suppose one reason that I haven’t seen this before is that Jungle Ruler is a dead set wet tracker and I avoid wet tracks like the plague. So our paths probably seldom cross. Today I noted that he was restless in his stall, was kicking and had a stallion chain. So I had already crossed him out for unruly behaviour. But to restrain him while he was being saddled the strapper used a twitch. This causes immobility of not just the head but the whole body.

I looked up that marvellous reference work Watching Racehorses to see what it said about twitches. Apparently, the principle is to apply pressure to the sensory nerves of the upper lip, near the incisor teeth. The usual explanation for its effectiveness is that the pain and discomfort it causes diverts the horse’s attention while it is being saddled. It is a similar technique to pinching and twisting a handful of skin on the neck or behind the shoulder, or the ear twisting method used by barrier attendants on recalcitrant horses.

There is no doubt that a horse can cope with and quickly recover from a short burst of pain, but I still regard it as a bad sign. Obviously, the horse has an underlying behavioural problem. There has been an interesting Dutch study of the twitch which found that it reduced heart rate and the behavioural reaction of horses to a painful stimulus – a needle prick. So it is possible that the twitch may activate some of the mechanisms involved in pain relief, since it appears to induce both analgesia and sedation, and it may be more akin to acupuncture. If you look carefully at Photo 1 you will see that Jungle Ruler has his eyes nearly closed.

Jungle Ruler finished tenth, but obviously wasn’t suited by the Dead 4 track. I wandered past his stall again after the race and overheard a strapper describing him as “the meanest horse in Melbourne”.

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11.15 am. I’m still at home and in two minds about going. There is a Members Christmas Cocktail Party on from 11 till 12, but the MRC has sent me a letter to say that the party is fully booked and that I am not welcome, even though I had sent in my RSVP promptly! So that makes me feel unwanted and very sluggish. Not that it matters since I’m off the grog, and have been for six months or more. And the track is a Slow 7. I’m hopeless in the Slow. The phone rings and Jumpout Joey reminds me that the first race is a two-year-old fillies with five horses – my favourite bread and butter race. The place dividend for the second horse is often outrageously good value. And what’s more, he’s going – probably for the first time in over a year – I guess because petrol is a bit cheaper at the moment. So, I’m off.

I grab my straw hat at the last minute! Thank goodness I did because it’s hot, humid, sunny and sunburny, with a strong northerly. Maybe the track will dry out a bit? My train spends 10 minutes parked in the Flinders Street rail yards and I finally arrive at 12.40. They’re in the mounting yard. And the track is a drying and bettable Dead 5! The first horse crossed out is the much touted favourite Tatum. The horse is unsettled, gaping, tossing its head up, changing stride. And to my eye, not fit. The fittest looking horse is the 3, Joyeux. And relaxed, lobbing around the yard with her head down, but occasionally distracted. The Hayes horse is secreting bodily fluids at both ends, saliva and lathery sweat. That’s generally fine and positive, especially on a hot day, but I like my two-year-olds to be clean and dry. So with 30 seconds to go I back Joyeux for a place. The tote attendant queries my bet. He can’t believe I’m betting the place on a five horse field. So I have to reassure him that there are two place dividends. Joyeux hits the front on the turn and is run down on the line, but hangs on well for second. $2.40 the place. Incredible.

I meet up with Jumpout Joe and Sam Hyland doing the rounds out the back. Sam is doing the mounting yard reports for TVN. He studies the form as well as the appearance of the horse and is doing a very good job. He has a good eye for a horse. He pays a lot of attention to coat condition, which is something I probably neglect a bit.

Not much action till the last. I liked Lucky Angel in the three-year-old fillies race, but the $1.30 for a place put me off. She ended up paying $1.50 on the tote for third, but that’s still way below my new threshold of $1.80. And anyway I was saving myself for the mares race. Tom Hughes’ horse Miss Octopussy looked a clear standout and Tom looked pretty perky himself. Miss Octopussy streeted them. Her front running style was ideally suited to the pattern of racing on the day, not that I know anything about track bias. The books were offering a miserable $1.45 for the place but the tote paid me a very respectable $1.90.

On leaving the track Jumpout Joey corrupted me into entering the Tabaret. I was hot, dry and thirsty and broke my drought with two delicious, ice cold, light beers. Oh – alcohol – how sweet it is! I staggered home at 7.30. The Missus thought I was drunk – but no – I’d just had a very good day.

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When will it end?  Heavy 8, Heavy 9, Heavy 10. Do they have Heavy 11? Sandown in the wet – a punter’s graveyard. I was an early scratching. A definite no show.

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