Well friends, the New Years racing is done and dusted, and what a fantastic edition of the Perth Cup that was, as Neufbosc and Truly Great had the Ascot Grandstand rocking, but Truly Great getting caught 3-wide and the big weight pull in favour of Neufbosc (60kg vs 54kg) helped get the expat French horse over the line by a nose, in a finish that dear old cob Darren McAullay shooting his bolt.

The Perth Cup isn’t the 3200m classic it used to be, but it was great to see a finish like that – Made me think of the King Of Saxony vs Rogan Josh fight of 1999.

I noticed another big run from that race – Trap For Fools somehow stuck on for 4th despite bombing the start, being 3-wide the whole way, and having to make a mid-race move, and he was actually making ground on Midnight Blue, which goes to show how bloody tough Trap For Fools is.

Anyway, here’s the photo:

It’s not often you see William Pike go down in a driving finish, but today was incredible – He was involved in 4 photo finishes, and finished 2nd in Race 2, 2nd in Race 4, a dead heat for 1st in Race 5 aboard Platinum Bullet against Weaponson, and Truly Great was nudged out late by Neufbosc.

Needless to say, I reckon that Perth Cup was the best race of 2021.

Overall, it was one of those days where all the winners I had weren’t in the Friday Chalk Eaters, as I had a late scratching and 3 shithouse results from the 4 tips, whereas I got 2 winners and a 2nd from 3 bets, all of them being at Ascot – Storm Whisper ran 2nd in Race 1, Ration Ally won Race 3, and Indian Pacific was just about the pick of the day in the Summer Scorcher/Race 7…. at $1.70.

So that said, The Chalk Eaters will be on break next week, then I’ll probably put together something for Magic Millions Day on the 16th, then we’ll have another break, and it’ll be back to business as usual on the 30th.

Impecunious in Race 1 at Caulfield – Late Scratching at the barriers

Superb, our first collect of the year!

Here’s the report from Racing.com:

“Damien Oliver remained aboard Impecunious for her second start but he didn’t have the pleasure of a second race ride as the New Zealand-bred filly was kicked by a rival runner on route to the barriers and scratched after a brief veterinary inspection.”

“Oliver told Racing,com he believed Impecunious would be ‘okay’ and supported the decision of veterinary staff to err on the side of caution.”

Fair enough, I’d much rather get a refund in a situation like that, than watch the thing get passed fit to run and perform like a busted arse…. which has happened many many times.

Edison in Race 5 at Randwick – 4th

For the first time in 2021….

****IN’ 4TH AGAIN!

Yeah, at the end of the day it was a Heavy 8 on the Kensington track at Randwick, and the 3 horses that finished ahead of Edison were all noted Heavy track winners and just handled the ground better than he did.

Palladas in the Vo Rogue Plate at Eagle Farm – 9th

As I said on Friday evening, I was probably cast when I made this pick.

Anyway…. 9th place you say?

I reckon I burned myself on this one – I was going to make a joke about Smart ‘N’ Sexy in Race 5 and play “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Rod Stewart, which would’ve been a winning pick, then at one stage I had Athiri in the last, but I figured his name was just a bit too hard to take the piss out of, so I figured I’d go for a bit of value with Palladas, which went as well as Sir Joh for Canberra.

As you know, Athiri saved ground and went home 2 to their 1 to finish off the Eagle Farm card in some sort of style.

Still, even if I’d taken Gotta Kiss in that Vo Rogue Plate, it still would’ve been a loss, because none of those nags could match Apache Chase.

Mr Delegator in Race 9 at Ascot – Arsecrack end of nowhere (11th)

Clearly, like your average office employee who does nothing (Aka me), Mr Delegator delegated the lead to Baramagic on the corner, then Baramagic deleagted the lead to Ouqba Ted at the 200m, who won and won well to shoot a few people out of the quaddie in the last leg.

Anyway, Ouqba Ted backed up his last start win over the 2200m, and gave apprentice Kristy Bennett her 3rd winner of the day, or to be more specific, she had 2.5 winners if you correctly count the dead heat.

I tell you what, Bennett’s performance today was an underrated highlight on what was a very good day for the lady hoops of Australia – Jamie Kah was Jamie Kah at Caulfield and rode a lazy 3 metro winners for the second day running, Steph Thornton got a feature winner at Eagle Farm, Rachel King and Kathy O’Hara rode winners at Randwick, and Kayla Crowther rode a hat-trick at Gawler.

Deadset, in the unlikely event that we ever get Hollie Doyle down here to ride from the UK to ride here for a few weeks, she’ll have some serious competition.

Crazy Craig’s Tip Of The Day

Terbium in Race 8 at Caulfield – 4th

When Terry Bailey mentioned Turbo Terbium was getting going on the rail, I knew he was up Schitt’s Creek.