SELECTIONS - 23 December 2006

POOMA selections:

Ascot 4-2 Ravinia
Cheltenham 1-1 Soowee
Cheltenham 5-3 Bold Line
Colac 7-2 Cool World
Randwick 8-2 Innings

Non-POOMA selections (and ruffies in red below):

Gold Coast 2-1
Kembla Grange 6-1
Randwick 2-1
Sandown 4-2

(* Updates at Ascot, if any, before the first race there *)

Today: A good week so far with 10/15 selections (POOMA+non) getting home for a return of $35. Let's hope it continues today. At Ascot, 4-2 Ravinia was too good for Dante's Lady last time and even though there's a 1.5kg weight turnaround I expect her to be too good again. Cheltenham 1-1 Soowee won well last time when beating a well backed horse. He's up against a couple of Hayes' first starters, which means we'll probably get a pretty good price about a horse that will set the pace. 5-3 Bold Line is perfectly graded in this race. He led them up in the race won by Royal Ida and was only beaten 2L when finishing 7th. This is a weaker race and he should go close even though he will carry the top weight after the claims. Colac 7-2 Cool World comes from the 60%+ s/r system mentioned yesterday. He stepped up to 1600m for the first time and got home narrowly. He'll be improved with the run under his belt at the trip and this isn't an overly strong race. Randwick 8-2 Innings is bursting to win a race and drops in grade here, which will help his chances. He's drawn wide but will get back and run on anyway. He hasn't got a spectacular record, winning just 2 of his 15 starts with 8 placings but has a 3-1-2 record at the track and 4-1-3 record at the trip so you know he'll be there at the end with even luck. A couple of runners from the black book today starting with Colac 8-5 Bob'n'hop, which is a dual winner as a POOMA. He ran in one of those new Restricted races last time that throw up seemingly random winners and is very well placed in this race. Kembla Grange 6-3 Spinnrad settled back and wide at Warwick Farm last time, was under hard riding 600m out to make ground, picked up the bit before the corner and was coming into the race when he hit a slippery patch, lost his footing and nearly fell at which point Glen Boss eased him out of the race. The step up in trip will suit and he might be good odds today.

Yesterday: 3 from 5 yesterday with a 0.7 unit profit due to the winners all being short - $1.40, $1.90 and $2.40 - but they were never in much danger. They've sent search parties out for the other two selections, which ran well below expectations. I had a nervous half hour waiting for the MV protest result to come through, as I had the $9K quaddie with the winner but didn't have the runner up. Given that the 3rd horse, which lodged the objection, just about fell over when it clipped the heels of the winner I thought that there might be some chance of it being upheld. I was surprised by the $16 about the third leg winner, Sagwala, as it had been running around in much stronger races and it helped the quaddie quite a bit.