Well, the surest thing of the day, the one that was so well in at the weights, it was going to be a procession.
Even I joined in and waxed lyrical how it was going to pissoir in, but was, alas, overturned and Happy Era looked more like an Unhappy Error as Dougie Whyte had the horse at the back, then last, then wide and by the time all this drunk driving was taking place, Little Timmy Clark had steadied Richard Gibson’s Fabulous November and pounded it home to win the Griffin Trophy.
For a Hobbit, he sure is a strong Oompa Loompa. He might not have the prettiest riding style to watch, but to those who backed the horse, who cared about style?
It was getting the horse home at 12 to 1 and beating the 1.3 favorite- another very hot one ridden by the Durban Turban that has bitten the dust and fried the short and curlies of the jockey’s followers this season who responded at the result with Hong Kong punters’ short and sweet theme song called, “Diiiiuuuuu”.
It’s not exactly music to anyone’s ears and has a certain guttural sound like clearing one’s throat and spitting out the word in disgust.
Earlier, the gorgeous Fast Tracker whose tipping has been consistently good was bang on song by also naming either Howard Cheng or Tim Clark to win the Jockeys Challenge at 5.50.
Though the Hobbit’s run was short-lived, by the end of Race 4, The Duckman had ridden two winners and eventually ended up winning his second consecutive Jockeys Challenge.
Race 2 was a complete wipeout with horses without names filling the first three places in an extremely slowly run race and where The Duckman on the favorite Hurry Hurry Up looked to give it a very Slowly Slowly Ride- but it’s a crap horse.
ItIt was a ridiculously slowly run race and where many almost seemed shy to win it: You go, no you go, please, no you etc until someone went, fuck me, I’m here in front and can’t stop the horse.
As predicted it was helluva tough day at the office and various orifices with Six Up and Triple Trio jackpots rolled over to next weekend which will probably roll over punters again.
Frankly, I want to see one humongous Triple Trio jackpot that builds until Chinese New Year. The days of punter attacking this bet has dropped drastically and it needs a boost.
The ride of the day went to Richard “Rudolph” Fourie who won on Great Sky for owner Santa Wong and which made Christmas come easy.
For a dirt race, it was better than any of the turf races with Fourie and Weichong Marwing, two South African jockeys fighting out the finish.
Other than that, I kinda half dozed off staring at some of the rides and the riding tactics in Race 2 still haunting me while a few of the other rides were either unlucky or simply dreadful. Maybe everyone was tired. Or bored.
Even the usually effervescent Trackside team sounded as if they needed mouth to mouth resuscitation or just a few drinks to perk themselves up.
In Race 10, the much-touted Lord Sinclair from the Sean Woods yard took its place as the favorite and was another one given four thumbs up to win like a good thing.
Alas, the lord was not with the Lord today which was never sighted. As I had tipped the day before as did Jenny From The Paddock today, the Tony Cruz-trained Happy Index, which is incapable of winning on anything but the dirt, led all the way for Gerard Mosse.
When in the mood or when riding in a big race or riding for old mate Tony Cruz, Gerard Mosse rarely let’s the team down. He is one world class jockey no matter what his knickers and knockers might say.
And so we came to the last race on the card and where Green Manners which has had five starts for five seconds was all the rage to break through.
It didn’t and came second again with Tye Angland very unlucky not to win the race when the “winner” of the race, Benefactor, seemed to cut him off at the pass while Speedygonzales, definitely not good enough to beat the real winner and whatever was runner-up was given a very polite ride by Tom Quealy. But Deep Thinker really should have won this race. But it didn’t.
It was the perfect imperfect ending to a strange day of racing and I left without knowing if Green Manner might have won by default. Did it?
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