Whilst the Doomben 10,000 was robbed of a lot of interest in the last fortnight with the withdrawal of consecutive pre-post favourites Black Caviar and Hay List, it still provided a great result for racing fans with the heart-stopping win of another perennial bridesmaid in Beaded. Having placed in her previous four Group 1's (and run a 0.4L 4th in last year's Stradbroke in her only other Group 1 start!), none would have begrudged Beaded her win at the highest level. She's a fantastically consist
Whilst the Doomben 10,000 was robbed of a lot of interest in the last fortnight with the withdrawal of consecutive pre-post favourites Black Caviar and Hay List, it still provided a great result for racing fans with the heart-stopping win of another perennial bridesmaid in Beaded. Having placed in her previous four Group 1's (and run a 0.4L 4th in last year's Stradbroke in her only other Group 1 start!), none would have begrudged Beaded her win at the highest level. She's a fantastically consistent horse, this mare, having amazingly only ever missed a place once in twenty starts (the narrow Stradbroke fourth described above), and now boasts over $1.2 million in stakes money - an owner's dream whichever way you look at it! With the tragic loss of Hot Danish still smarting, hopefully Beaded can return in the spring (after giving the Straddie a huge shake!) and fill a bit of the void left by Les Bridge's champion mare.
Black Piranha also ran enormous in the 10,000 and looks bang on target after a lackluster couple of efforts in Western Australia last spring, and can join household names like Anthony Stuart (pictured) (v Pakistan, MCG, 1997) and Eddo Brandes (v England, Harare, 1997) in the record books with his hat-trick. No horse has ever won three Stradbrokes in a row, but this seven-year-old son of Clang looks to have returned well and can be right in the finish again despite his topweight.
In other news, a couple of rough results was not the best way to endear myself to AFL punters in my first FOOT$IE week... I'm of course never one to blame the umpires when I do my money, but North Melbourne losing to Sydney by a solitary point and hence thwarting my H2H and 1-39 bets was solely the fault of the men in white, and nothing at all to do with my misreading of the match... The fact that Melbourne played 18 men behind the ball from the first bounce somehow still couldn't stop Carlton winning by over 40 on Friday, but at least there was some consolation when Geelong romped home at the -65.5 line, by the nice safe buffer of 0.5 points! Next week already looks more clear-cut, and redemption beckons...