You’d have thought with a name like Elephant, he’d have been able to get his trunk ahead in a photo finish:

20 years after Northerly won the Feehan Stakes, another West Aussie in Superstorm won the storied race to earn the automatic exemption for the Cox Plate, and coincidentally, both the Fighting Tiger and Superstorm were ridden by the one and only Damien Oliver, AND, both times a Kiwi-trained horse ran 2nd – Elephant today, and Sunline in 2001.

A big win for Bob Peters’ horse after getting a lovely rails run from the jockey that The Gabster calls ‘The Thief’, which was a common theme for winners on the Soft 6 deck at The Valley, and meanwhile up at Randwick, the Concorde Stakes featured Nature Strip turning into an actual Concorde and jetting away to a First Class win:

In the Tramway, Zaaki proved that although his name starts with the last letter of the alphabet, he’s the first cab off the rank when it comes to Cox Plate contenders, and it was so big that according to Darren Flindell, it was one step above a demolition – A DEMOLATION!

Another great win occurred down at the Waterford TAB today, as some bloke never before encountered by Mr Alfonse and myself put $8.50 on a Mystery First Four on Race 6 at Newcastle, he got 23.7% out of it, and wouldn’t you know it, Whasir at $26 beat the odds-on favourite The Denzel, Big Short ran 3rd at $34, and Believe So ran 4th at $17, resulting in a First 4 of $23,911, giving him 5 grand and change from an $8.50 bet, which would amount to at least a 658% return on investment.

Still, if anyone had the First 4 in Race 6 at Randwick, which paid a mere $90,117, I’d bloody well shake your hand.

Pick of the Day: Portland Sky in the McKewen Stakes at Moonee Valley – 2nd ($1.26 place)

The tale of this race is quite consistent with the history of Australian fauna since 2019….

Animals were consumed by the raging Inferno.

I thought it was a good run by Portland Sky 1st Up, but he just found one going much the better, and lucky it was a 1000 metre race, because September Run was coming home 3 to his 1 and only just missed 2nd place by a metre.

Looking back now, I’d say the absolute pick of the day at The Valley was Mr Brightside in Race 2, and unlike Crazy Craig, I didn’t miss the boat on that one and actually backed him.

Each-Way Pick of the Day: She’s Ideel in the Chelmsford Stakes at Randwick – 7th

She’s Ideel…. more like She’s Not Ideel!

Fancy that – Crazy Craig jumps off Think It Over after he missed the placings 1st Up in the Winx Stakes, and wouldn’t you know it, the gelding gets a massive jockey upgrade going from James Innes Jnr to a champion like Nash Rawiller, and he gets every last bit of performance out of the horse and wins the race right on the post, blousing Riodini in the most brutal possible way.

He also jumped off Degraves after he did nothing at The Valley on the 21st of August, although that was a situation where the horse went from having a (former) champion like Jamie Kah in the irons to having the supposed disadvantage of a 3-kilo apprentice in Alana Kelly, but as it turned out in Race 5 in Melbourne, the apprentice out-smarted everyone and hugged the rail to win in a photo.

SERVES YOU RIGHT, CC, SERVES YOU RIGHT.