And Xtravagant Star throws her hoof in the ring for a 4th place finish in next month’s Golden Slipper

Chances are we still haven’t seen the Golden Slipper winner run this Autumn…. Such is the nature and the history of the game.

So that’s the first Saturday of February done and dusted, and for the first time in a few weeks, it was snake eyes for Crazy Craig as all of his picks ran like busted arses, despite all of them presenting well enough on the run, which was the polar opposite for jockey Jye McNeil, who rode 5 winners at Caulfield and was a length away from ending the day with an old-fashioned six-timer.

To think he hadn’t ridden a winner for 2 whole weeks before today.

Yes, so it must be relieving to a few people to know that I won’t be blasting out Lucky Lips on whatever device they’re reading this on, but I believe we can simply attribute today’s poor performance from Crazy Craig to the fact that he isn’t all there, and will occasionally misread an entire day’s racing.

Pick of the Day: Renosu in Race 4 at Caulfield = 7th

So as it happened, Damien Oliver was stood down from riding due to that incident at The ‘Bool on Thursday, which meant another expat West Aussie in Fred Kersley got the ride in his place, although I don’t think the rider on Rensou’s back made much difference to the colt’s performance, because Sebonack was still way too good on debut, and Renosu looked like just another Spring 2-year-old racing inauspiciously in the New Year.

Say, where have I heard that repeated piece of advice about not betting on 2-year-olds in 1000 metre races….

Oh, that’s right, The Gabster!

Random Go West Pick: Witchfulthinking in Race 6 at Caulfield = 5th

When I saw Witchfulthinking had decided to take up the lead, I got very nervous for the Random Musical Pick, because these kinds of things rarely work out.

When I noticed at the 400m that none of the backmarkers were any hope of making up any ground at all, I thought “Sheezus, she’s half a chance of winning this!”

When I saw she was still kicking on at the 200m and only got headed at the 150m by Takissacod, I thought she was still half a chance of running a place.

Then they got to the 50m, and the poor little bugger just didn’t have enough in the tank, and got caught late to drop from 2nd to 5th, beaten under a length by Takissacod, who won at 42-1 and destroyed a considerable number of Melbourne quaddies.

I guess you could say I had a claim to being the King of Wishful Thinking instead of the King of Witchfulthinking while watching the race, although I also felt that final 100m looked like this scene from The Simpsons:

Perhaps the most surprising part of that result is that my mate The Critic, who is famous for always landing 3 out of 4 legs of whatever quaddie he takes, went slightly wide in that 1st Leg and threw Takissacod in his numbers, then he successfully put Race 7 favourite Desert Icon one out in Leg 2, and victory was then assured as he went Field & Field to end the day, with the Melbourne quaddie paying $8400, which he had stuff all percentage of.

Value Pick of the Day: Lancaster Bomber in Race 9 at Randwick = 5th

Another honest performance from Lancaster Bomber, who wasn’t disgraced despite not being nearly good enough against the Trifecta combination, who just happened to be the first 3 horses in the market (Maotai, Silent Impact and Rustic Steel), which means this result isn’t quite that scene from the Dam Busters when eight of the Lancaster crews in 617 squadron got shot down during their bombing runs.

It is a shame he didn’t at least place, because then I could’ve gone for a deep dive and tried to find that scene when they breach the dam:

Let me just say this – Without the Arvo Lancaster Bomber, you don’t get Star Wars.

How?

I’ll let you find out.

Fancy that – Crazy Craig had two picks finish 5th on the 5th of February!

That’s a piece of Numerology, right there.