Friday, March 13, 2009

Autumn Racing Carnival 2009 – Week 7

Last week’s Super Saturday panned out as expected and was entertaining and interesting to watch on free to air television, which indeed was how I occupied myself last Saturday afternoon. It was heart warming to see Craig Newitt win the Cadbury Guineas on Heart of Dreams and exciting watching Gallica and Gold Water fight out the Kewney Stakes, in which Gallica triumphed. Niconero pulled the same trick as in the Futurity the week before, pipping Theseo at the post to win the Australian Cup.

I was immensely impressed with the run of Typhoon Tracy. There is a touch of Sunline about her - she likes to lead and has a sensational finishing sprint like the great Sunline in her day. Typhoon Tracy blew away the rest of the field of older mares and won easily, after starting from a wide barrier. Also impressive on Saturday was Rostova who won in fine fashion and dispelled any doubts about her ability after her disappointing run in the Blue Diamond where she was later reported to be have had breathing problems after swallowing her tongue.

Melbourne’s part of the autumn carnival wraps up tomorrow with the running of the Group 2 Blamey Stakes a race over 1600 metres. Former New Zealand stayer C’est La Guerre will be having a practice run but is not expected to win , so the focus will probably be on Time Matters and Rockpecker, though the form of Tasmanian galloper, Conquering looks too good to overlook. Also in the picture is Light Vision, Marching and Playwright, all well performed in the past.

From now on the racing focus will be on the Sydney racing carnival. The Group 1 Randwick Guineas (1600 metres) for three year olds will be run tomorrow to kick start the carnival. I’m really interested to see if Mic Mac can make it five wins in a row. He’s a stable mate of Apache Cat and is trained by Greg Eurell who must be counting his lucky stars to have another such promising horse in his care.

However, Mic Mac will be facing his stiffest competition so far with talented colts like Caymans, Predatory Pricer and Youthful Jack having good claims. Also one mustn’t forget the Bart Cummings trained Roman Emperor, who could pull a surprise.

The very interesting Serenissima is also racing tomorrow. A daughter of Lonhro she is unbeaten over two starts and hasn’t raced since December.

I was encouraged last week to see that some of my tipping prowess has returned, but I probably will not be risking any money just yet.

Music Interlude

Tonight I’m off to see
Old Crow Medicine Show at the Forum. OCMS are a five piece outfit from Nashville. Reports say that they are a sensational live act, so it should be a good night – when isn’t it? OCMS play “their own brand of American roots music with a rock and roll attitude”, as reported on their website. They will have two support acts, the ghastly Tim Rogers to whom I took an instant dislike when he supported Gillian Welch and David Rawlings back in 2004 He will be juxtaposed with the sweet and mellow duo Fireside Bellows

This week I also picked up two new CDs, these being the new Buddy & Julie Miller album
“Written in Chalk” and the brand new Justin Townes Earle CD “Midnight at the Movies”.

I’ve only had a chance to listen to them once, but that was enough to convince me both CDs are winners. The Buddy & Julie recording has some very beautiful and achingly sad Julie Miller songs – exquisitely sung by Julie. As for the new JTE CD – it has so far struck me as being even better than his debut effort The Good Life.

Anyway I will report back tomorrow on my evening with the Old Crow Medicine Show, with photos hopefully.

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