MY CALL - PRE-POST GAMBLE IS A TOUGH BATTLE-FIELD

By David Fowler | Tuesday, May 22, 2012

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.

It's a tough battle if you're betting pre-post on our big gun Carnival races this year.

Already, some have fallen at the first hurdle after they snapped up between $3.20 and $2.80 about Manighar in the Doomben Cup.

Rock solid at $1.7 when the starter hit the button, he ran third and they will have difficulty in recovering from it.

As we cast our mind to this week's 10,000, another drama looms … weather.

With the prediction of showers until Thursday and rain periods on Friday, it's the punter's worst nightmare.

Add to that the on-going saga of Buffering's fitness and just how good is Pampelonne? At least Buffering can cope with a potentially wet track.

The Oaks is brimful of genuine chances, I've got no idea about the Derby (have you?) and the Stradbroke is going to be a real snakes and ladders game.

Horses such as Mental and Solzhenitsyn will be live chances but are no guarantee of leap-frogging into the race.

Despite all this betting doom and gloom, I've come up with two runners we can back … right now and at the right odds.

Sometimes the Queensland Oaks is not won by the best horse but by the best stayer at the 2400m distance.

A filly called Hula Lua created an excellent impression winning an open three-year-old over 2150m at Ipswich last Friday. She has stayer written all over her.

I reckon she looks more than reasonable value at $21 in Tattsbet fixed odds betting.

And I am warming to Wealth Princess at $13 in the Stradbroke.

A tendon injury kept her off the racing scene for almost two years, but the old dazzle is certainly still there under the care of Darren Weir.

A good thing beaten first-up in the Wangoom at Warrnambool, she made light work of the Group 3 Glenlogan Park on the weekend.

Sure the time wasn't flash, but it was really a perfect hit-out for the mare with little pressure on her.

She will now run in the Dane Ripper as her last hit-out before the Straddy.

As a rule it’s a helter-skelter pace and you'd have to think she will be coming like a speeding bullet at the finish.

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All the talk last week about changes to our Carnival were a little off the mark.

The "right" people have no dramas with its structure although concede it may be a tad long.

But what do you cut off? The five meeting Brisbane Racing Club contribution fits nicely between the Gold Coast opener and the provincial features which rounds it out.

If there is a suggestion for change, it is delaying the start to allow the stand-alone
Hawkesbury meeting and the two-day Scone carnival to run before we start.

There is some merit in that because this would allow our features to drift into the middle of July. No problem there because it is the only month left which is free of interstate opposition.

What it would do would knock the "Super Saturday" out of the long weekend time-slot.

Is that a good thing?

Sydney grappled with the same dilemma with Doncaster-Derby day being removed from its ironclad Easter spot. They bit the bullet and did it and it certainly hasn't affected the impact of the Autumn carnival.

Feature race programming is a real juggling act nowadays with July, as I said, the only month where the country is feature race free.

So maybe a shift to a middle of May start is not such a bad idea after all.

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