Well friends, a day that began with the shocking news that Cox Plate winner Sir Dragonet had suffered a fatal leg injury during a track gallop at Moonee Valley turned into a good day’s racing.

There was the noise of human presence at Randwick, where Art Cadeau overhauled Handle The Truth with 20 metres to go in The Kosciuszko, then there was an Everest that actually delivered us yobbos a spectacle to enjoy, with favourite Nature Strip having to overcome the wide gate and being caught 3 deep for half the race as he trekked towards the summit, while having to deal with Eduardo and Home Affairs, plus Masked Crusader once again going back like a certain Grey Flash named Chautauqua in the same silks, much to his detriment, which led to Nature Strip praying for the post with 100 metres to go as Masked Crusader leapt out of the ground like a reanimated corpse, and the end result was Chris Waller and his merry band of sheep shaggers, including former All Blacks coach Sir Steve Hansen, who were $6,200,000 better off by a mere nose.

That running of the Everest reminded me of Nature Strip’s first Group 1 win in the 2019 Galaxy at Rosehill, when he had a massive duel for the lead (Against Redzel), which he won a long way out from home, only to get a bit leg-weary as Pierata jumped out of the ground, but Australian racing’s greatest headcase held on and made sure the missus and kids weren’t singing for their supper.

The other half of this fantastic day was the Caulfield Cup, and despite being drawn in Barrier 20 and being caught 3, 4 and 5 wide on speed at various points of the race, Incentivise made up for not starting in the red by pulling a 1997 Might And Power on the sorry arse field, making it 3 Group 1 wins in 3 starts with Peter Moody and Brett Prebble in Melbourne, and the expat Banana Bender is now a ridiculous $2.60 for the Melbourne Cup, a price unheard of for a Melbourne Cup favourite since So You Think went on that mighty Springtime tear for Bart Cummings in 2010.

Just a fantastic performance to rewatch over and over:

We could see Calcutta night records broken on the 1st of November if Moods skips the Cox Plate and goes straight the Cup with that Trojan warhorse…. And by golly I want to be there to see it.

Anyway, the best bit of news from the day….

THE PICK OF THE DAY WON, AND WE CAN SOUND THE LUCKY LIPS!

Pick of the Day: Colette in the Tristarc Stakes at Caulfield = WINNER ($2.45)

Crazy Craig said he wanted a mudder at Caulfield, and on what turned out to be a Soft 7 following a track upgrade, Colette proved once again that she is one of the best mudders going around, even as she got run off her legs in the first part of the race, which was almost certainly the product of not being able to run properly due to a foot issue just before the Turnbull Stakes that took her out of Caulfield Cup contention.

However, despite being 5 weeks between runs and being at least 1000m short of the distance that she was originally being trained for, Colette was still way too good…

Even as having to get stuck into the mare at the 600m cost Damian Lane a whip suspension and a few rides on Derby Day.

Still, I reckon the silliest decision of all in the Tristarc was me backing Colette when she was $2.50 last night, when 9 out of the original 10 runners were still in the field.

As it transpired, second-favourite Chaillot + Kahma Lass got scratched on Saturday morning for track-related reasons, meaning there were only 7 horses in the field and subsequently only 2 place dividends, so after effectively backing her at $1.95, Colette drifted back out to $2.45, the price which she eventually won at.

Still, at least I got something, and as the TV show used to say, some Mudders Do ‘Ave ‘Em.

Value Pick of the Day: Bargain in the Craven Plate at Randwick – 5th

Another wet race ruined by scratchings that cut out the third dividend, and much like the Tristarc, the thinning of the field pretty much cleared a path for the favourite, in this case Think It Over, who won yet another middle distance race in Sydney this Spring at the tomato sauce odds, and quite frankly if there isn’t an ATM in Kensington named after Think It Over, then the cashed up locals are kidding themselves.

With the Each-Way play made that much harder, Crazy Craig’s value pick Bargain was subsequently never in the fight for 2nd and had to try and salvage 4th, which I think was a fair reflection of her starting price (The $14 rank outsider), although the major surprise was that she was trying to run down Shared Ambition, who jumped on the second line at $4.40 and hardly fired a shot.

Could we say Heart As Big As A Pea?

Because Crazy Craig definitely would.