A quiet week up here and just a couple of snippets of news. The dry late winter and early spring has meant Aintree has begun watering in advance of the Grand National meeting in a fortnight. The aim is to ensure Good to Soft ground for the meeting. Speaking of the National, quite a few scratching at yesterday’s forfeit stage including, not surprisingly, Gold Cup winner INOTHEWAYURTHINKIN but JP McManus retains a strong hand as does Gavin Cromwell. New favourite is INTENSE RAFFLES at 7/1 who won last year’s Irish National and ran a decent second last time over 5200m at Fairyhouse. Quicker ground is a concern with all his Irish form on soft or heavy turf. Last year’s winner I AM MAXIMUS has to carry 6 lbs more and was beaten about the same distance by GALOPIN DES CHAMPS in the 2025 Irish Gold Cup as in the 2024 renewal. IROKO looks the best of the British at 8s and he was only four lengths behind INOTHEWAYURTHINKIN in the 2024 Mildmay Chase at Aintree. The ground should be fine but his jumping has been a concern though the Aintree fences aren’t perhaps the factor they once were. Others well fancied are Cheltenham winner STUMPTOWN and the winner of the big handicap at the Leopardstown Christmas meeting PERCIVAL LEGALLOIS.

The Michael McCarthy trainee heads east after two on-the-board finishes at Santa Anita Park. This will be just his third start out of 13 away from California. Lord Bullingdon has improved his finishing position in each of his last three races.View the full article

Journeyman jockey Francisco Arrieta equaled a career high March 14 at Oaklawn Park, winning five races on the day's 10-race card to garner Jockey of the Week honors by the panel of racing experts.View the full article

With the May 3 Kentucky Derby (G1) a little less than a month and a half away, stables have been mulling their plans for the final two weekends of major preps on March 29 and April 5. View the full article

Sought After posted two wins and a placing in six races for O'Sullivan and Scott.View the full article

Yes have noticed the changing divs when the race is on, seems odd when those divs are unachievable, should be better with the tech available these days, all a bit of a have I reckon

Maybe he had a serious gambling problem many do 

Going to Waller I believe.

Yes there are parents out there who are negligent, but all kids should be given a chance in life. The fact remains that Seymour is all mouth, and he has fucked up the whole school lunch system.  

Pivotal Ten is also likely to be sent to be trained in Melbourne. There's been a big exodus of talented 3yos to Australia this season.

Use both and pick and choose promotions and when to effectively use the betcha toolbox.  Every punter doing fixed betting and multis should use betcha for at least some of their daily activity solely for the 11 perks on offer.

The fixed odds on Betcha are taken straight from the TAB fixed odds. Betcha do not have their own fixed odds pricing team. The fixed exotics are automatically calculated from an algorithm based on the fixed odds price. The Betcha algorithm is set for a lower payout than its TAB NZ counterpart. And the TAB NZ exotic payouts are on average 30% lower than the actual tote dividend for the same bet type. So the exotic payouts are terrible on both systems but the Betcha payouts are almost tantamount to robbing the punters in my opinion. All the bonus bets and bonus cash that get handed out can only be used on fixed odds bets. If you want to have a exotic bet with your bonus cash even though the bonus cash seems good, punters are actually getting shafted by the algorithm. Most of the big moves in the market happen in the last few minutes as that is when most of the big money is taken and quite often the dividend changes halfway through the race I have found.

There are probably plenty but the problem is they had kids when they shouldn't have.

Well it seems their decision was more drive by the lack of opportunities here in NZ.  Which is a sad indictment in itself.   “He will follow the same pathway and go over to Peter and Katherine for a bit, between Lance and I we looked at things and there’s not many options here in the immediate future,” Mark Chittick said.  “All parties agreed that we would give him the opportunity over there and see whether he measures up.  

Just wondering how those fixed odds are set, I know I got shafted taking tote odds at 32, dropping down to 26s on race start, fixed odd changed from 34s to 51s 7 seconds or as the horses were behind the mobile not far from start, were almost unachievable for me being on course an betting via the window, with modern technology, shouldn't divs be more accurate earlier, or am I a bit of a sore loser, even though I was a winner, any feedback be good, thanks, I'm a bit lost on the betcha thing as well, have seen the hoopla at the races once, lots of people lined up, for what I didn't gave a clue. 

Here's an example of the need for ACT councilors   $22 million just on advice re the Town Hall  The WCC has spent more money just on advice (not construction) on their gold plated town hall upgrade than the original overall budget for it.  

IF YOU FINISHED IN THE TOP 8 IN QUALIFYING YOU DON'T NEED TO SUBMIT PICKS THIS WEEK.   The rest of you should post picks. For this week: 1.  Either pick two horses in each race listed below - you will have $10 each way on both and a $2 quinella; or if you'd prefer to pick just one horse in any (or all of the races) you can do that and you will have $20 each way on that one runner,  but you will forego the quinella. 2.  You will have two best bet races where your bet is doubled.  They can be any two of the 12 races listed below. Posting deadline this week is 2.00pm  This weeks 12 races are as follows - focus mostly on Ellerslie - a good card and good weather forecast (no cyclones in the neighbourhood) 1. Trentham R7 2. Trentham R8 3. Trentham R9 4. Rosehill R2 5. Rosehill R6 6. Rosehill R7 7. Rosehill R8 8. Rosehill R9 9. Moonee Valley R7 10. Moonee Valley R8 11. Moonee Valley R9 12. Moonee Valley R10 Please enter horse numbers, not names and remember to nominate two best bet races, and some form of punctuation between your two numbers is very helpful - thanks.  Regular scratchings - it is up to you to replace any scratchings prior to the posting deadline.  If you don't then you will have only one runner in the race, unless you have two scratchings or a single pick is scratched, in which case you will have no runners in that race. (and for the avoidance of any doubt if you pick two and one is scratched the single remaining runner will be a $10 each way bet). Late scratchings - any late scratchings will default to the TAB sub (and second win favourite if you already have the sub or both your runners are late scratched).  In the event of equal second win favourites the second sub will be the horse with the lower saddlecloth number.  If you have a single bet and it is late scratched, you will have a single bet on the TAB sub. Abandoned races - we need a minimum of 6 races to be run for the results to stand.  Any less than 6 and we will re-run the round next week.  If you had a best bet in an abandoned race you can change best bet races up until the posting deadline - after that it is just the rub of the green.

Ok I'm calling this one now so I can get an entry thread up for Saturday.  Closing a tad earlier than 6pm but the result is highly unlikely to change in the intervening period.  Regular (Pairs) format it is.  Thanks for taking the time to vote.  

What a terrible shame their fukn morbidly obese tattooed P smoking parents can't make the kids lunch instead of crying about Seymour delivering the lunch. What sort of human being can't look after their kids?

I note the first claim they make above is to "Deliver the Basics Well". Yeh Right! Clown Seymour cannot even get the kids lunches delivered. He needs to get that sorted before he screws up anything else.