Always back the horse named self-interest, son. It'll be the only one trying
February 27, 2024 The time-honoured Cairns Amateurs Carnival will take on a new twist this year after celebrating its Sapphire Jubilee. Over the past 65 years, Cairns Amateurs has served as one of the state’s most iconic regional events under the auspices of the Far North Queensland Amateur Turf Club. With hundreds of thousands of […]
Ten years ago the then QLD Racing Minister Steve Dickson – the man who famously declared that QLD racing was half a furlong in front of the southern states – announced this worthy initiative to integrate young riders from Korea into Australian racing. Sadly like a lot of Minister Dickson’s grand ideas it faded away […]
The QLD Racing Appeals Panel came into existence in March last year, after having been created to address the long delays in the previous appeal body QCAT handing down decisions in racing matters. After almost a year, the panel appears to have been a success. It has heard 49 matters so far, and all of […]
Isn’t it interesting to learn from the QLD Stewards that apprentice jockey Bailey Moffat is a Siamese twin. He’d just about have to be to have the ability to ride two horses in the same race wouldn’t he? According to the stewards Moffat was almost dislodged from Adashan in the first race at Mt Isa […]
Any time soon a very famous name in racing is set to join the apprentice rider ranks in Queensland. I refer here to trainee apprentice Julie Busuttin, daughter of Castletown’s (pictured above) former trainer Paddy Busuttin, and younger sister of current gun Victorian trainer Trent. Julie has just kicked off riding in trials, and had […]
Queensland’s iron horse, the fabulous Fab’s Cowboy, took his career win tally to 51 when he smashed them in the Open Plate at Mt Isa on Saturday afternoon. Although I can’t find any records to confirm it, I believe from memory of a conversation with Fab’s trainer Billly Johnson a year or so ago that […]
At 6 out of 1o the past ten TAB gallops meetings in QLD there have been six horses pre-race swabbed. The most samples taken were 7, which was only once at Rockhampton, which makes sense because milkshake drenching has long been rife amidst the trainers at the track by the Fitzroy River. Three was the […]
Can anyone tell me how the hell that jockey Scott Sheargold (pictured above behind the barriers yesterday at Cairns) went from riding a horse in race 1 at Cairns yesterday to working as barrier attendant for the rest of the day? Wouldn’t there be an ever so slight conflict of interest there? I am not […]
Can anyone in the world explain why a lowly Saturday night meeting at Toowoomba required six Stewards to officiate at it, when the main meeting of the weekend at Eagle Farm only needed four? An even better question is why six stewards could only oversee the pre-race swabbing of three runners on the card? Is […]
If last night’s Albion Park stewarding is any indication, the current disenchantment-driven malaise in the QLD racing integrity ranks appears to be a virus that has spread like a web across all three codes. As at the gallops and greyhounds, far too few pre-race samples were taken from horses running at the meeting on which […]
