Winning Post

This week in Winning Post

This week's Winning Post is now available online here.

Group 1 racing returns to Flemington with the running of this Saturday's Makybe Diva Stakes.

Warm favourite in the Makybe Diva will be rising star mare Sheza Alibi, a strong-finishing first-up second to champion mare Autumn Glow in last month's Group 1 Winx Stakes.

A feature again on the Makybe Diva card is the Archer Stakes (Hotham Handicap), long run on Derby day and offering a golden ticket into the Melbourne Cup. Other supports at Flemington include the Let's Elope, the Bobbie Lewis and the Exford Plate.

In Sydney the action is at Rosehill for the Theo Marks Stakes and Run to the Rose, while it's W.H. Wylie Handicap day at Morphettville. The Brisbane racing is at Doomben for the Well Groomed Raceday.

Our form coverage kicks off on Friday with fields, colours and tips for all five TAB meetings.

The metro racing this Saturday is at Flemington in Melbourne, Rosehill in Sydney, Morphettville in SA, Doomben in Brisbane and Belmont in Perth.

Winning Post carries full-colour liftout guides for all those meetings plus Donald (Vic/SA/Tas edition), Kembla Grange (NSW edition) and Gold Coast (Qld edition), as well as fields, tips, ratings and/or colours for other TAB Saturday cards.

On Sunday we've got liftout formguides for three more TAB meetings including Bathurst Cup day, as well as fields, ratings, tips and colours for a stack more Sunday and Monday programs.

Don't forget Winning Post now carries trackwork reports for all four Melbourne training tracks, all three in Sydney, Morphettville in Adelaide and a general Brisbane report.

The printed edition of Winning Post ($7) will be in shops at the crack of dawn Friday.

... More

Download the calendar .................................................................................................................................................

Podcast: Makybe Diva day .................................................................................................................................................

Tasmania: Chloe claims three, Instinct stuns punters .................................................................................................................................................

Wimmera: Eishaa in form, Ingelse on fire .................................................................................................................................................

NSW country: Ible eyes Coongy for 'backward' Barren .................................................................................................................................................

More Stories

Inside Winning Post September 12 edition you'll find liftout form guides for:

Saturday:

Caulfield, Randwick, Morphettville, Eagle Farm, Belmont, Echuca (Vic/SA/Tas edition), Newcastle (NSW edition), Gold Coast (Qld edition)

Sunday:

Bendigo, Bairnsdale, Nowra

Eye Catchers

Each week Paul Richards identifies horses from recent race meetings that he believes are ready to win. Here we update you when they are about to have their next start.

There are no Eye Catchers this week

Letter of the Week

Protest dismissed

I note that Racing Australia has officially given up. From October 1, protests on the basis of breaches of the whip rules will not be allowed.
The rationale for this gutless change is laughable.
“Determining a protest for an alleged breach was largely subjective with any objective component not readily achievable,” read RA’s statement.
Seriously?
What protest result does not involve a subjective judgment by the stewards’ panel?
When a horse gets bumped at the 200 metres, do the stipes get out an abacus, set square and protractor to work out how much ground it lost?
If anything, coming up with an objective assessment of the advantage gained by breaching the whip rule is much easier.
Winning margins these days are expressed not only as short heads, long necks and so on, but in lengths, down to two decimal points (i.e. one-100th of a length).
Meanwhile, a certain number of strikes are allowed at certain stages of a race.
Racing Australia could simply arrive at a figure, expressed in hundredths of a length, for each whip strike above the maximum.
Deduct that figure from the official margin, and hey presto. Horse gets relegated, or doesn’t.
“The removal of the whip protest rule will not diminish any whip use deterrent effect having regard to the severe penalties that stewards can impose for flagrant and significant breaches of the whip rules,” says RA.
Right. And yet jockeys continue to breach the rules, deterrent or no.
It comes down to fairness. What good does it do the owners (or backers) of a horse that gets beaten by a jockey who’s breached the whip rule (effectively, cheated) if that jockey loses their entire percentage or gets rubbed out for a year? Money still gone.
Take the Everest. The difference between first and second prize for the owners and slot-holders is $4.1 million, less $615,000 for the trainer and jockey, so $3,485,000.
The winning jockey’s percentage is $350,000. You could fine the jockey double that, and you don’t reckon the owners would cover it?
The reason jockeys keep breaking this rule (to the detriment of racing’s social licence) is that stewards never take races off them — and now they never will.
Introduce a hard-and-fast rule along the lines above, and suddenly you might find jockeys can count after all.

Mitch Matheson
Castlemaine (Vic)