The Impossible Race - a punter's nightmare?

Published: 26 May 2014

Inspection of The Race Guide Preview for Race 4 over 1200m at Royal Randwick on the weekend showed it was a tricky race to pick. The analyst team found real difficulty in summarising an event with three favourites that looked to have chinks in their armour and no obvious challengers either. Both You'll Never and Specific Choice were hard in the market, but were Chris Waller horses perhaps looking for slightly more ground. The other favourite, Inside Job, was burdened with top weight.

An excerpt from the Preview is shown below.

"A very challenging race for punters here with some horses out of form and others on the comeback trail. Two well-performed gallopers head the market - Inside Job, who raced solidly first-up in a harder race, and You'll Never, a run on type that is good enough to win but needs luck. If they are swooping down the outside, Chris Waller's horse will be one that the 'speed mappers' will be putting the money on. The pace should be fair with Tralfaz a horse that likes to lead, and if looking for genuine 1200m speedsters, he and Rastro are near the top of the list. Otherwise there are simply a long list of questions on this race. Will Zin Zan Eddie find his best after some fair trials and 400+ days off? Can Breakfast In Bed return to form after a freshen-up? Can Specific Choice race put his heart into a much awaited win? And, has Swooning adapted to Australian racing conditions after no trial and training in Melbourne? A real puzzle."

Social media feedback

With so many questions we opened up the race for debate on Facebook to see if any insights could be added to the picture. Two of the responses are shown below.

Gav Duncan made a good case for Living On a Prayer based on a form-line through quality sprinter Shamal Wind, while Shaun showed some faith in a horse that has more than a few convictions - Specific Choice. Neither tip proved very lucky in the event, with Living On a Prayer almost falling when clipping heels before the turn and Specific Choice unsuited by the way the race was run.

What happened?

In the running - BECKON rolled to the front and wasn't challenged, this meant he could control the race and set up a SLOW TEMPO. INSIDE JOB got to a position outside the leader and TRALFAZ, SWOONING and BREAKFAST IN BED were just behind the leading pair. ZIN ZAN EDDIE was stuck wide with no cover midfield and CORRYVRECKAN missed the start (3L) and ended up at the back of the pack.

The result - BREAKFAST IN BED (1st) and TRALFAZ (3rd) steered a course closer to the inside as the pack drifted wider into the straight, the mare finished best to get the prize. BECKON (2nd) fought on after controlling the race.

The interest - A race that was heavily impacted by the slow tempo. Very difficult to determine the best runs in the race, but there are clearly some excuses for ZIN ZAN EDDIE, CORRYVRECKAN and YOU'LL NEVER. SPECIFIC CHOICE wasn't suited by the conditions of the race also and will be better over slightly further. He also didn't get much attention from the jockey in the straight, with just one light tap with the whip delivered at the 100m. INSIDE JOB looked disappointing, but he isn't the most dynamic sprinter and would have preferred a better tempo. It seemed as though TRALFAZ didn't quite finish the race off and could be better suited at 1000m - 1100m in the future. The import, SWOONING, was genuine enough in the run home and it would have been a concern for connections to see how much speed was lacking. Forgive  ZIN ZAN EDDIE, CORRYVRECKAN, SPECIFIC CHOICE (over further) and YOU'LL NEVER (over further).

The verdict

While the race looked impossible on paper, a wide open market and risks on the favourites presented the opportunity to make big returns. A $23,000 First 4 was the prize for anyone who took the right direction, or even simply a strategy of negative sets against the favourites paid good dividends.

So despite what looked like the impossible, the race was far from a nightmare. Finding a race in which there is real value is what punter's dreams are made of!