Congratulations are in order……
Well done Warrnambool – for the second year running you didn’t kill a horse. Terrific.
And Banna Strand won the Grand Annual. He won his owners $159,250. To win this his jockey struck the horse so many times the Stewards fined his jockey for ‘excessive use of the whip’. How much? Well $500. Sheesh, that’s a lot of money isn’t? That’ll teach him.
And as for the fall of End of Time, who cares? We didn’t think he should even have been in that race. The poor bugger just isn’t good enough, as you’ll see below:
Here he is again, crashed, but enjoying himself anyway! He’s won three pissy events from 21 jumps starts, including a four-horse hurdle at Gawler and a six-horse steeplechase at Coleraine. This fits him for a Grand Annual over 5500m? We don’t think so, but then what would we know?
Anyway, here’s the betting analysis as we see it for days 2 and 3 of the carnival. Nothing much changes – the flat races still pay for the jumps.
Betting Investment: Warrnambool Carnival Day 2 May 1st 2013
(Win/Place/Quinella/First 4/Exacta/Trifecta) Source: Vic TAB
The Quadrella attracted a whacking $559,606 on races 6-9 (conveniently, all flat races).
Aggregate betting on the only jumps races $183,176
Aggregate betting investment on 8 flat races $2,677,948 Average $334,743 (that’s 83% more!)
Here’s a comparative-worth evaluation
The only jumps race, placed as race 5, returned the lowest betting on the day.
Betting Investment: Warrnambool Carnival Day 3, 2nd May 2013
(Win/Place/Quinella/First 4/Exacta/Trifecta) Source: Vic TAB
The Quadrella attracted $765,578 on races 7-10 (conveniently, all flat races).
Aggregate betting on 2 jumps races $414,578 Average $207,289
Aggregate betting investment on 8 flat races $3,303,907 Average $412,988 (that’s 99.2% more!)
Here’s our comparative-worth evaluation:
How’s this for a return on the betting dollar: The Brierly $2.29, The Galleywood $1.83, The Grand Annual $1.27. The major flat races: The Wangoon $4.30, The Cup $3.78. Bit of a difference!
The Quaddies? – All free of any jumps races! Fancy that during a jumps carnival.
One more thing – Reckless Rat. We’re somewhat saddened to report that poor Ratty didn’t do well. He contested the Hammonds Paint 0-120 Hurdle Thursday and ran fifth of six runners. Well, perhaps that’s not exactly right – one horse didn’t finish, so Ratty actually finished stone-motherless-last. Remember, Ratty had been entered for the Brierly, Galleywood, the Grand Annual and the Hammonds Paints 0-120 Pissy Hurdle. He was robbed of a start in the big races, but finally got his chance in a minor hurdle and finished last.
Can you see the difficulty we have with fathoming jumps races? We try hard. Hell, do we try. However we believe poor Ratty wasn’t up to the job, something we’d sort-of worked out prior to the carnival.
We could only think of the golden words jumps trainer John Wheeler: “these horses are brave, the riders are brave – and the trainers are crazy” (Ron Reed. He’s top Banana. Herald Sun May 3 2013)
Interesting to note that 125 horses raced on Wednesday (10 races) but only 107 yesterday (10 races).
Jumps racing. You gotta love it coz the horses do.
thrillsnspills 