MY CALL - YOU CAN HEAR THE KNIVES BEING SHARPENED AS THE ELECTION APPROACHES
By David Fowler | Tuesday, December 20, 2011
David Fowler is the principal thoroughbred caller for Radio TAB. David, who is a keen form student and punter, has enjoyed a lifetime involvement in the racing media. His personal blog, ‘My Call’, appears exclusively on HRO.
The knives are going to be out good and proper in the forthcoming state election.
And the racing industry will be right in the thick of things in the campaign period.
In fact, "unofficial" campaigns have already been raging on both sides of the fence for some time.
I write this already feeling the heat from a recent "letter to the editor" in a harness racing publication accusing the program "Blinkers Off" which I co-produce and co-host on digital 31 as running a "political agenda".
Our mortal sin was to interview LNP shadow minister for racing Tim Nicholls at a recent Albion Park race meeting.
For crying out loud, the election hasn't even been called yet and they're screaming bias! Everyone will get their turn when the campaign proper begins.
But the ALP has sanctioned Racing Queensland as its racing mouthpiece so what's on the RQ table is what they support. It's too late to jump out of bed now.
Racing Queensland has certainly polarised the racing community on several issues and there is no risk these issues will be played out even stronger than they are now in the weeks and months ahead.
Hottest tip is the election date will be February 25 with the call made at the end of the school holidays in late January.
And the LNP remains at $1.15 with the ALP at $5 in most corporate bookies' markets.
Yes, interesting times ahead and expect the mud to fly.
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Is there a consistent policy with horses who are involved in barrier incidents?
It's hard to say yes if my recent observations are any yardstick.
Two city runners in the last fortnight clearly played up just before the jump but were not vetted. One of those won and the other ran unplaced.
And who makes the call for the vet to run his or her eye over a troublemaker or one involved in trouble … chief stipe, starter, vet at the start. I don't know.
But surely all horses who make contact with any part of the barrier partition should be vetted.
Consistency is so important in matters like these.
I'll follow this up with Wade Birch and report back next week.
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The Magic Millions puzzle became no easier after the weekend's racing.
Sizzling and Snipzu, considered the Sunshine State male and female benchmarks, lost some gloss with their defeats or maybe, to be kinder, brought them back to the field.
I doubt Sizzling would lose any admirers. He doesn't have that brilliance for the 1000m scampers and Chris Munce began revving four wide from the 700m.
His last 600m sectional was excellent and a more sedately run 1200m seems tailor-made for him now.
I reckon Snipzu has to find something extra to be a serious MM hopeful but, in contrast, winner Discreet looked every part a serious MM player because the further she went the further her margin increased.
And there was nothing wrong with Noogoora Burr in the colts, a youngster who makes his own luck and can handle wet or dry.
There are several southerners on the way north but my spy tells me the Sydney and Melbourne winners might look OK but that important factor of running time has largely been missing.
The jigsaw should be fitting together with only three weekend opportunities left but it's still too hard for me.
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Hope you all have a great Christmas day and the day is everything you hope it to be.
See you next Tuesday.
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