In the spirit of full disclosure, below is the sad tale of 3 months on the punt.  Now admittedly the busiest 3 months of the year, but it never hurts to occassionally sit back and survey the damage.  You can click through for the whole unseemly mess, but to save you some calculation, the numbers unsurprisingly meet the TAB’s statistical norm.  A total of 1573 bet for 1424 returned - 90%.  Although I must say it’s a lot uglier without the Cup Day get out stakes motherload. 

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I couldn’t let the season go by without diverting my attention onto one of the great traditions of the Spring Carnival - the BBQ season. 

There is no doubt that, above all else and any enjoyment that may come from the event, it is detrimental to the punt.  Whether its the effort of hosting causing a missed trifecta or being sucked in to a series of hopeless shared bets where your analysis of the form is non-existent, these days just haemorrhage cash.  And they seem to coincide for me with my biggest betting days. 

No wonder the phone account is now officially empty.

If there has to be an example of a shoddily organised, badly run, poorly laid out pub tab, then the Grandview is it.  There is just not a redeeming feature to this place.  A big screen TV that has such a poor picture as to be unwatchable, the old guy at the ticket cue collecting his $3.50 win with 30 seconds to go before the Mackinnon, our seats being positioned over the cellar door meaning we had to move to beer to be refilled and a crowd full of blokes who looked like they were on their end of season footy trip but the best they could afford was Fairfield.

And this place is my local!!

There is just no point even reviewing this place - it is just consistently poor without being tragically comic in any way.  If you ever have any desire to stop there, don’t.  Just drive on.  2 km’s in either direction are other tragic pubtabs (The Tower going out of town or The Clifton Hill going in) but they at least have some soul.

Can you tell I didn’t have a collect for the afternoon?

Things have tightened up at the top, with 4 points separating first from 4th.  With the final 2 group 1’s this weekend, picking 2 winners looks like the only way to win, although a first and a second for dj would seemingly tie up a win.

Can the Hussler do the business from barrier 13 and carry its form 3 weeks in a row?

All the drama of racing on Saturday.  I wonder if Mark Kavanagh is a believer in cosmic justice.  As it was, only 1 tipster picked a scratched horse and no one troubled the scorers.  It seems that no one could believe that a horse that was winning a Class 1 a year earlier could win the Cup.

As expected, Derby Day looks like a crucial day with so many Group 1’s.  But the Plate is a ripper - so good, that it should be worth double points!!

Due to the tardiness of the Mug, a couple of tipsters missed out on the Thousand Guineas.   Tough!!!  The Mug was invested in Extension of Time and was almost yelling at the office computer with 100 to go.   Still, a place bonus point at $5.20

Get on to the Caulfield Cup now.  And don’t forget the bonus points for steering away from Maldivian

With DJ now sweating on the $41 taken on Maldivian 2 months ago, it was surprising that no one (except the noodle who submitted his tip yesterday) took it in the challenge.  In fact, there was quite some symmetry in the picks, with everyone taking the Madonna and only the late entry noodle taking Maldivian.

On to Wednesday for the Thousand Guineas …

A disappointing 4 tipsters for the first week, with 2 3rds the best that could be mustered.  Oh to have stuck with Devil Moon ….

The first Spring challenge race and what a doozy.  Surely better than any of the last 5 Cox Plates.

To make your selection, choose the link in the site marquee or go here  To see the rules, go here

Happy tipping

I’d like to see some agency come out and offer an option to back for 4th or 5th as a staight out bet.  We could all then back Murtajill every time it ran!! Has there ever been a horse that has run 4th or 5th so many times in a row.  I make it the last 6 starts, 4 of which it has started favourite

In reference to an entry from a couple of weeks ago, where I claimed to be surprised at Activation being allowed to run what seemed to be a team race so that there was a genuine pace for Efficient, I stand corrected.

In the back of my mind I seemed to recall that Activation was up for sale after last year’s Melbourne Cup.  Sure enough, he’s no longer owned by the great Lloydmeister, but was in fact sold to another racing heavyweight, Peter Rowsthorn.

The Mug apologises (even though no one actually picked this up, because of course, no one’s reading)