3 minute read
We are in the heart of the winter but the Bletchingly Stakes is a nice reminder that spring is coming.
The Bletchingly is a race made interesting by the fact that the Monash looks so messy and so ordinary. A solitary length covered the first five home in the Monash; a margin spread around three times more dense than historical averages in the race.
Given that, it was perhaps no great surprise to see the time look fairly plain for horses of Monash standard but it was a surprise to see the closing sectionals just as ho-hum.
Ashford Street ran a surprising poor one and our fancy in the race, Oxley Road, was very plain as well. The ground was thrown up as an excuse, and maybe there is something to that, but early prices aren't tempting enough through that cold looking race.
It could be argued that the Moody stable are cold overall - at least in town. 0.66 winners for every expected winner in the city over the past six months is very chilly indeed and that is a point of interest going into Saturday where the yard saddle eight runners with six of those single-figure chances in early betting.
What to do with the yard out of the winners? Avoid the out-of-form yard or back them to revert to the norm?
Peter Moody hasn't forgotten how to train overnight and Saturday's squad are a fresh set with half of them resuming from spells and the others lightly raced as well.
We will back the yard in and hope the wider market gives us a roll for his form.
Pascero heads the betting in the sixth race which is a good three-year-old handicap where many of those at the front of the betting look like being better over 1400m - Pascero included.
Moody saddles two here and both are first up; Attractable and Pounding.
It is the latter that we are keen to side with. He was closing Pascero down at the finish at Sandown back in February in the middle of a six-run campaign where he won twice but shaped well in all six, regularly finding himself caught out by slow paces.
Pascero has already come back and run well behind a fast winner but Pounding looks one yet to really come good on the talent that he has and Jamie Kah looks the right booking to draw the best out of him.
Three go for the yard in the seventh, another 1200m handicap, this one for three-year-old fillies.
Sigh will have fans having had no luck at all last time, and she has a nice shot, as does the last-start Caulfield winner Chain Of Lighting, but it's the outside of the three that we are keen to have something on with $21 worth a bet on Forbidden City who resumes having won by a space at this point of last campaign.
The eight-length margin is nice but there was very little chasing (the runner up is now rated 80 and isn't legless) but the win was backed up by a nice timefigure and similarly positive closing splits.
She didn't go on with it in the two runs that followed but her ratings didn't drop away in better company and her string of ratings put her in the thick of the action on Saturday. She can hold a better chance than that early betting implies.
THE MELBOURNE MAIL
Bet Of The Day: Race 6 #6 Pounding @ $6.50
Each Way Play: Race 7 #14 Forbidden City @ $21.00
