Post-Kingston Town Classic thought… Why the hell can’t Pat Carbery ride that well on Wednesdays when I bloody well back him

For goodness sake Pat, a Belmont maiden and a Weight For Age are no different to me when there’s shekels to be made.

Still, I’m just glad the angry mob at Ascot, which included my dear friend Half Price and his punters club, didn’t burn down the Grandstand the moment Regal Power ran down Western Empire, as Bob Peters + Grant and Alana Williams completed the historic hat-trick of Perth Group 1s with another Cerise & White quinella, although not in the order everyone wanted.

Poor old Western Empire, $1.20 in a Group 1, and yet he was stuck in the Swan River most of the journey… Still, it’s not quite Ajax starting 40 to 1 odds on in the 1939 Rawson Stakes at Rosehill, having won 18 consecutive races, only to be beaten a half length by Spear Chief.

On another note, I may have mentioned this back in the winter, but one day at the Waterford TAB, Gordon, the Englishman from Portsmouth, introduced us to this utterly brilliantly stupid concept he had called ‘The Sex Pick’ , where he picked Race 6, Number 9 at any meeting in Australia, obviously with the stipulation that Race 6 had more than 8 runners.

69… yageddit.

We thought it was just a laugh at first because it didn’t happen too often, then last week at Caulfied the 6-9er went off with Blue Army, and you wouldn’t believe it, today at Rosehill and Pakenham… RACE 6 WAS WON BY NUMBER 9!

TWO 6-9s in a day… Most people don’t get that lucky in their life!

And if that wasn’t enough, The Gabster would’ve blown a fuse out at Ascot seeing the amount of No.8s that bolted in across the country today…. There were 4 at Rosehill alone.

So all up, thanks to Lyrical Lad’s mighty performance, it was a successful finale for the Random Picks in 2021, with Crazy Craig due back next weekend, and in what turned out to be my only bet for the day, I decided to stick with Revitup in Race 1 at Ascot, because a few weeks back you’ll recall he was the Random Jerry Harrison Pick, but he didn’t quite run out the 1100m of the Crystal Slipper and ran a narrow 2nd.

Today, Dion Luciani dropped him back to the 1000m, and thanks to a 10/10 front running ride from Holly Watson, he deadset won by 5 lengths eased down.

In fact, that’s my victory tune for this week – She said let’s ride, Revitup Revitup little boy and ride!

Random Eminem Pick: Lyrical Lad in Race 1 at Pakenham = WINNER ($2.40)

What a perfect way to start my morning – I miss the first at Pakenham by 5 minutes, then I flick on Racing.com to see that Lyrical Lad has deadset laughed it in, to the delight of the locals out at Pakenham, because Phillip Stokes has his training set-up at the track.

Great ride and a great training performance – To use a cliché, it’s not easy to go from smashing everyone on a Heavy 10 at Cranbourne to running on a Good 4 in the space of a fortnight, but Lyrical Lad’s done that now, and in some style.

So to celebrate, here’s some more Eminem:

Random Michael Jordan Pick: Baller in the George Moore Stakes at Doomben = 2nd

Just when they looked all set to jump at Doomben, the well-supported second favourite Shooting For Gold went off in the barriers, with the gelding flipping over and dislodging Boris Thornton, and that meant he was a near instant late-scratching, as was Simply Fly from Barrier 8, who simply got caught in the fracas.

So that meant Baller, who was originally my quasi-Value pick for the day, jumped a second favourite in a race that Tony Gollan had by the gonads with Zoustyle basically one out in his own private Idaho, and it should be said Baller ran home very well and was taking ground off Zoustyle, but Zoustyle is unbeaten in Queensland for very good reason, and all told he was never going to lose once Shooting For Gold had his incident.

Good run, absolutely nothing to be disappointed with, but not quite enough to spring an upset.

Random Shirley Bassey Pick: Bright Diamond in the Jungle Mist Classic at Ascot = 2nd

On Friday afternoon, I was weighing up if I should change the Random Shirley Bassey Pick from Bright Diamond to the more appropriate WELSH LEGEND in Race 7 at Rosehill, but I decided to stick with Bright Diamond, just to give Ascot a bit of representation.

As it turned out, I would’ve finished a narrow 2nd regardless of my decision, because as you can see in the Tweet, Bright Diamond was mown down by Angelic Miss, which kind of summed up William Pike’s winless day at Ascot, which got a bit worse 40 minutes later, while over in the east, Welsh Legend looked home for all money at the 200m, only to get pegged back by Huetor to lose by a neck.

There’s my lesson for the day – Next time I try and make a random pick based on a great Welsh singer, I should probably stick with Sir Tom Jones.