The big race has been run and won, with an (almost) clean sweep of the pools for the mugpunter team! 4 of the mugpunter team ventured out for lunch to the ultimate gambling venue, Crown Casino. Betting slips will be lodged as proof in an attached post once a scanner comes to handThe betting. First up is Willy Holdon - an obvious omen bet for Willy the Pimp at $30 for the win, so a large $1.50 each way is plunged. The Mug, who has collected on the previous at Ballarat with a pick from the datehole, has gone hard at the favourite, Opal TJ, with $10 on the nose. The Lawyer plunges an each way bet onto Nothings Easy (a reflection of Scottish heritage?) while DJ plumps for $2 each way onto Beat the Cheat. The team then larges into a 4 horse box tri for $24 on these numbers - the 3 favourites and Willy Holdon.

The Mug takes responsibility for filling in the tickets and places the bets with 3 minutes to go. Money spent, I return to the table to prepare for the race and it’s disaster!! I’ve put the bets onto the Geelong harness meeting for that night! Luckily, lovely Marie at the Crown counter feels my pain and refunds my tickets replacing them with the Warragul tickets - disaster averted.

Onto the race:

The track is a gluepot - the Sloppy going from the US dirt track a perfect description. It looks from the big screen at Crown that the crowd must number between 100 and 200. themugpunter.com name is scrawled across the biggest screen in the southern hemisphere. Mr Pokies is singing his inane song in the background. They line up across the track to a tape start (I want to know what happened to the car with the retractable gates). It all looks pretty haphazard, then all of a sudden the tape drops and they move off like an ocean liner setting off from port - lots of intent but not much speed.

A couple of laps of the track and it’s William’s Dream leading Nothin’s Easy and Willy Holdon leading the way. My brief foray into The Score had me thinking that this was the likely finish. But I hadn’t understood the subtleties between pacing and trotting. One of the apparent facts about trotting is that the horses are much more likely to break, and so this fact came to the team’s advantage. Running up the back straight William’s Dream has died and is out the back (maintaining lifetime prizemoney of 0). It’s now Nothins Easy and Willy Holdon. Round the final bend, Willy Holdon, who’d gallantly led for the prior 3 minutes was dying on his run. Opal TJ, who’d been patiently kept 5th for the entire run had surged to the lead and was clearly going to win. Nothins Easy has stayed strongly into second and Beat the Cheat was in the sprint lane running into 3rd. Then it happens - Beat the Cheat breaks and goes backwards at a rate of knots. Suddenly, Willy Holdon is back in 3rd and shaves it by a nose from some fast finisher. A $40 trifecta is transformed into a $240 tri. Beers all round!  (To see the result and listen to the full race, go here and then click on the link to listen)

Great Job team!!!. And a big thanks for DJ and co-present givers for a fantastic gift. Having your own race - a joy of joys.