So kicking off this Saturday review, Gordon the Englishman from England has revealed that in addition to the ‘Sex Tip’ of Race 6, Number 9 (Yageddit, 69), he also likes picking Race 7 Number 11, in reference to the convenience stores.

It only went off once today – Race 7 at Goulburn was won by the 11 Pauldron, while there wasn’t a Race 6-9er in sight.

Moving on to the performance analysis, yesterday I had a look through justhorseracing.com.au to see what they had for Randwick, because I figured it’d be worth having a look to see if they could randomly pluck anything out at value (Which they have done in the past) for my regulation $30 bet of the day, and I came across Race 9, where they listed the danger horse as Vitesse when it was 20-1.

However, I neglected to back it at the time because I had already decided to follow Crazy Colin’s Pick of the Day in Degraves, who wound up being scratched on Friday evening, so after taking 6 hours to find that out before I went to bed, I decided to do the next best thing and follow his Each-Way pick Kordia when he was still 13-1….

Naturally, half the damn field was scratched from the race on Saturday morning, resulting in it being reduced to 7 runners and only 2 place dividends, and just to rub more crap in my face, Kordia was now the rank outsider at $16/$6 the place.

So with my plans already rooted, I sat the next to Mr Alfonse and watched as Kordia ran an alright 5th, not bad by any stretch but not good enough to challenge the favourites, and while the horses mere milling around at the barriers before Race 9 a half-hour later, I mentioned to my esteemed Spanish colleague at the Waterford TAB that I’d considered backing Vitesse, a fact that he can confirm.

To cut a long story short, there we sat and watched as Vitesse, who looked like she’d had her heart ripped out on the line by Think Free, SOMEHOW WON BY A DAMN NOSE AT $23.

I don’t even think the Triumph Vitesse had a win that good when it raced, mainly because the weight distribution was awful, so we can comfortably say that’s the best win by a Vitesse in recorded history.

60 kilos and three wide on a Heavy track… no wonder I didn’t back her.

Pick of the Day: Degraves was scratched from Race 6 at Flemington on Friday evening

Lloyd Williams has made a habit of screwing with punters at Flemington, mainly on Melbourne Cup Day, and he just had to do it to us again as Degraves, who had an argument for being the best backed runner at Flemington all day, was withdrawn on Friday evening for reasons unknown, be it the rain affected track or just something not being right with the Irish import.

Anyway, popular consensus would’ve turned to Dice Roll, but he didn’t quite have the gas in the tank to win, and it turned out everyone and his dog would be wiped out of the Flemington quaddie in the opening leg by Bartholomeu Dias, a horse who I backed in last year’s Kyneton Cup, and despite getting the most perfect ride you’d ever see from Jordan Childs, he somehow still lost by a nose.

And wouldn’t you know it, despite extending his losing streak out past 12 months, he bobs up and wins a Saturday race at Flemington.

What a funny old game we play.

Each-Way Pick of the Day: Kordia in Race 8 at Randwick – 5th

Not an awful run at all from Kordia, who I thought was unfairly demoted to rank outsider thanks to all of the scratchings, but the class difference told in the end as Blondeau but bullet holes in the field, while the favourite Oscar Zulu was a bigger flop than FIFA’s propaganda film United Passions, only beating one runner home.

The stewards report did note that Kordia jumped awkwardly and was shifted behind runners early in the race, but I’d have thought he would’ve gone back even if he’d had a clean jump, and he did manage to get a rails run, which was the best part of the track all day, but as previously stated, the other runners ahead of her were just better horses on the day.

So in summation, he ran like a $15 shot.