This page has been designed to give you a few ideas on what to look for when you are at the races and looking at horses in the flesh. It is always a good idea to go to the stalling area on course and take a good look at the horses before a race, if at all possible.
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We made the trip to Canberra, the nations capital, on the 15th July, 2016 to catch up with a few old mates at the races. The two horses parading here are Bitburg (No.2) & McLennan (No.4). Note the arched neck of McLennan (positive behaviour) but also the strapped hind leg & winkers (negatives). Both paraded quite well, but what we haven't shown is that these two were by far the most settled & relaxed horses in their stalls compared to the rest of this field. Sure, it was a 5 horse field & there wasn't much competition, but the difference in their demeanour compared to the others was like chalk & cheese. Bitburg was in the wrong stall, but we quickly identified him by asking the strapper nearby. They ran the quinella in Race 2. As a side point, on-course bookies offered as much as $2 for Bitburg.
In Race 3, we went & had a look in the stalls & watched them parade, but got a bit distracted & forgot to get some footage. We did tweet our observations though, as you can see above. Now bear in mind, this was a 15 degree day & more often than not you could see steam coming off the horses as they stood in their stalls before they went out to race & yet here we had Manatassee sweating badly & quivering noticably. It was clearly a nervous wreck - yet was $6 fixed at this point. It actually firmed into $5 by the time they jumped! Note our first tweet was at 1:09pm & the race was at 1:25pm.
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We then watched the horses parade. As the horses entered the parade ring, Rock On Zariz was the $1.55 favourite. Yes, it was a bit short, but it was parading in outstanding fashion. It was clearly prancing around the yard & was snorting loudly at least once a lap. Despite this, you can see that it blew quite noticably out to $2.15 fixed ($2.25 with on-course bookies)! Both Cumberland Range & Hercegovka were very relaxed in their stalls & paraded nicely as well, so we mentioned them as the horses to fill the quinella & trifecta - which they managed to do! Poor old Manatassee finished 6th beaten 4.7 lengths from the winner. |
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The video on the left shows a horse called Polyphemus. He went around in Race 8 at Canberra on the 15th July, 2016. This video was taken around 2 hours before he raced, but we had noticed him behaving in this manner for a good 1 hour prior. We took the video as an example of some 'fractious' behaviours that do not serve a horse well. It continually tried to chew on the chains that it was tied to, not to mention regularly pawing at the ground. Both are restless behaviours that are not indicative of a coming winner that day. Unfortunately we did not widen the camera lense, otherwise you would have seen She Zar (it has the number 6 saddlecoth in the video). It was very still & calm in comparison, & by chance, won Race 5 that afternoon. Polyphemus was a $10 chance & ran a good race under the circumstances, but finished 4th beaten 1.6 lengths.
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