So that’s of another Saturday of racing finished, and it’ll be remembered for the fact that William Pike rode 5 winners without breaking a sweat, and based on the result of the Railway Stakes, Western Empire is the greatest thing to hit WA racing since the last Railway Stakes winner that Peters owned, Williams trained and Pikey rode… which was this time 12 months ago:

“The Empire reigns supreme” – And if my memory serves me correctly, it’s got a decent symphony orchestra as well:

While Western Empire restored Imperial rule in Western Australia, another blowout victory at Ballarat came from Marabi, who made it 4 wins from 4 starts, and at least 3 of them have now been decided by no fewer than 6 lengths… I am not kidding when I write that:

Yeah, stuff Zayydani winning the Ballarat Cup, that was a performance and a half.

It seems the only major track I haven’t yet mentioned was Kembla Grange, where UFC champion Alexander ‘The Great’ Volkanovski was there to ring the ceremonial gong to start The Gong, and the owners of Count De Rupee will be counting their rupees for the next few days after his fantastic performance in the seven figure feature:

Overall, it was a very good day for the Crazy picks of the day, because I had already made up my mind pre-scratchings that I was going to take the Pick of the Day Dragonstone in Race 3 straight out for the win, and as you may or may not know, he absolutely walked it in, so that means that in Crazy Craig’s absence, I can SOUND THE VICTORY TUNE:

Lucky Lips, a very popular track at the Manning Bowling Club jive.

Another superb result I had was when Half Price sent through his ever valuable tips on Saturday morning, in which his best for Ascot was Angelic Miss in Race 9, which he attributed to her good draw + weight swing on the favourite Bright Diamond, and after carefully consulting my lack of options, I decided to follow him in, and down the Swan River side of the course I was crapping my dacks seeing her stuck on the fence, but Chris Parnham barely had to try to extricate her off the fence, and that finishing burst was the very definition of Angelic:

Angelic Miss might be the last winner I back this month, and I’m being serious.

Pick of the Day: Dragonstone in Race 3 at Kembla Grange = WINNER ($2.25/$1.40p)

He might be called Dragonstone, but he’s Diamond quality:

Drifted out to $2.50 then got crunched into $2.25… they knew.

Tyler Schiller could easily have ridden the favourite at 50kg with his claim, but he wound up only taking 1.5kg off the 52.5kg handicap to ride at 51kg, but most importantly of all, Schiller had the favourite planted in the 1/1 from the jump, and as the rain started coming down, the so-called ugly duckling walked on water, and being realistic, once he landed in the 1/1, they should’ve just cancelled the race and handed Mark Newnham the winner’s trophy, because he was never going to get beaten.

Absolutely textbook stuff to watch, and in fact, I should go a step further and stay well done to Tyler Schiller, because this wasn’t even his best win of the day, which was Eleven Eleven running down Malkovich to win the inaugural edition of The Warra:

They put Eleven Eleven’s unbeaten Kembla Grange record on the shoulders of a 3-kilo apprentice, against a red hot favourite in Malkovich, and young Tyler sat there and said “Hold my Toohey’s.”

Random Jerry Harrison Tip: Revitup in Race 2 at Ascot = 2nd

I found it strange that this took 12 minutes for the judge to get the photo for 2nd and 3rd so they could declare correct weight… Obviously someone spilled water on the camera.

Anyway, I blame myself for Revitup getting nutted on the line – I hit play on Spotify too early, and Jerry Harrison’s Rev It Up was playing the entire race while the horse was leading, and incidentally, I was shouting the chorus at the TV during the straight.

REV IT UP, REV IT UP, LITTLE BOY AND RIDE!

Value Pick: Outlaws Revenge in Race 10 at Ballarat was scratched on vet’s advice

Excellent, my third collect of the day!