Sport is made for betting

Australian racing is right up there with the best of the world on many fronts - the flagship event of Aus racing, the Melbourne Cup gets a local (not national unfortunately) public holiday; the prizemoney at stake considering the number of race meetings held each year; the facilities at Flemington; the press coverage etc... But the one issue where it really stands head and shoulders above UK racing in particular is stewarding and the regard for punters. National stewards decide to put punters first in overhaul of rules STEWARDS from around the country emerged from a two-day conference in Launceston with the punter in mind. A revamp of betting deductions issued when horses are scratched late, an overhaul of the rortable jockey-challenge betting, the old commission-agent bogey, etc, were on the agenda. Leading form student and respected punter Dominic Beirne overhauled the antiquated betting system. ''It will be a much fairer system and most kind to the punter,'' Ra...

Change this week at Ladbrokes with a major internal reshuffle (a cynic might say of the deckchairs on the Titanic). Relatively new chief exec Richard Glynn has brought in several fresh faces and moved a few old names on. Definitely out with the old, in with the new. Asian bookie 12Bet who have major sponsorships with Sevilla in La Liga and snooker tournaments, will be acquired by Asian online casino and poker firm, AsianLogic , in a move thought to complement their existing range of products. Betfair's share price has taken a predictable tumble, dropping from the peak of around £15.50 during conditional trading to the current £13.95 as smaller shareholders wish to cash in their chips. No reason to think the price will fall much further, it was always going to surge briefly as the public got excited about it. Tabcorp held a record $107m on Tuesday's Melbourne Cup, buoyed by the form of superstar stallion So You Think, who started as the shortest favourite in decades. He...

It doesn't get any better than a horse race that has a public holiday for it. The Melbourne Cup will be run tomorrow (3pm local time, 4am GMT). This may be the strongest Cup ever, it's certainly the best in my era with Group 1 winners galore, but it also has a few that should have been excluded on recent form. So You Think is an absolute superstar. It showed on Saturday it can settle, go to sleep and then switch back on when necessary. That's what Saintly did to win in 1996, and only a rough trip in running is likely to beat him. From gate three, he might just squeezed and shuffled back a bit. Even still, very hard to beat him, no major concern about the distance despite not having run further than 2040m, High Chaparral's are flying in Aus at the moment and it would be fitting for the 150th Melbourne Cup to go to the master, Bart Cummings. As for the others: Shocking - won last year, goes up in weight, but loves Flemington. Was drawn v.wide last year so not bother...

Went to the races as a paying punter today for the first time in ages. UK racing isn't cheap at the best of times, flat racing doesn't have the excitement most of the year and it's rather cold during jumps season. TV coverage is decent enough if you can't get to the track as often as you'd like. The two main races today at Newbury, the Long Distance Hurdle and the Hennessy showed just why National Hunt racing is miles ahead of flat racing in popularity in the UK & Ireland. Big Buck's is the best staying hurdler in training, he won the top races at Cheltenham and Aintree in his class, and is going around again to repeat the feat. He faced a small, but quality field at level weights and won very, very easily. Special thanks to the bookies who put up 1/2. It is very rare I bet at those odds, but this horse should have been 1/3 at best, so the value had to be taken. The Hennessy is the best handicap chase of the season. Note that key word which some purists dete...

Just over 24hrs to go until the race that stops the nation, the Melbourne Cup. I'm busy doing the form and will have something late in the day (Monday UK time) if anyone wants to follow my tips. It will be broadast all night on ATR, and Betfair Live Video. The Cup is a great race, but remember, for punters, you can win or lose just as much on any other race of the year (unless you bet in tens of thousands), so don't go overboard. The support card is quite handy for a change, hoping to locate some winners earlier in the programme too. For the best formguides, try these: Herald Sun newspaper guide Racenet Racebook and my preference, the Best Bets guide which will cost you $4.40 (click Future Racing, Flemington,Racebook to get it)

Wow, I thought I'd see hell freeze over first but Betfair have successfully negotiated with Sky Racing to bring live Australian Racing to customers in the UK & Ireland, in addition to Melbourne Cup Day (where the broadcast rights are held by another network). Streaming Deal Just a day after announcing a deal with the VRC to stream Flemington meetings to Betfair customers on its wagering website, Betfair's chief executive Andrew Twaits yesterday revealed the betting giant had also agreed a deal with Sky Racing to cover the spring carnival. Twaits said the deal would enable up to 1.4 million Betfair customers in Ireland and Britain to see the best of the Melbourne spring carnival racing. It allows Betfair to have live streaming of today's Caulfield Cup meeting, the Cox Plate meeting next Saturday, three days of the Melbourne Cup carnival at Flemington and the Sandown Classic from Betfair Park on November 14. If you're interested in trading on it, the fastest audio fee...

Hooray, we won't have to put up with the depressing John Berry on AtTheRaces all night! Betfair to market Melbourne Cup overseas Betfair and the VRC today announced a landmark agreement that will see the VRC's Melbourne Cup Day races streamed online to Betfair's overseas customer base of over 3 million people. ... VRC CEO, Dale Monteith said, "We look forward to working with Betfair to maximize the returns to Victorian racing, from this exciting new initiative, which hopefully can be expanded in the near term to include days other than Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington." It's crazy that SkyRacing hold the international rights on Australian racing, yet the pictures shown in the UK are the rubbish which comes via America, complete with $50 pools and filler between races from two tracks. Get a deal done, get the proper stuff screened and give the UK bookies rebates for betting into the Aus pools (like they do with the American racing).

This is an important day for Australian racing, the day when the weights are released for all the big spring feature races. Melbourne Cup weights are headed by 2007 Cup winner Efficient and 2008 Cox Plate winner Maldivian on 58kg, followed by last year's winner Viewed and two Godolphin entries, Eastern Anthem and Schiaparelli on 57kg. Other notable foreign entries are Kirklees (Godoplhin) 57kg; Cima de Triomphe (Cumani) 55.5kg; Doctor Fremantle (Stoute) and Macarthur (de Kock) 55kg; Mourilyan (Moore) 54.5kg; Age of Reason (Godoplhin), King of Rome (de Kock), Scintillo (Hannon) 54kg; Askar Tau (Tregoning) and Profound Beauty (Weld) 53.5kg; Singapore champion mare Jolie's Shinju 52.5; Friston Forest (Godolphin) 52kg; Basaltico (Cumani) 51.5kg; Age of Aquarius (O'Brien) 51kg; Changingoftheguard (O'Brien) 50.5kg. First acceptances are taken next Tuesday. Click here for the full list of VRC spring feature weights

Boohoo, the track was too hard so we tried so set up the race for the stable's main chance. Doesn't Aidan O'Brien get it? Team tactics in racing are banned just about everywhere, and most certainly in Australia. Punters bet on individual horses and have the right for those horses to run on their own merits. Team riding or cheating, is there a difference? Once again, a high-profile topweight, Septimus, has flopped miserably, joining the list of Drum Taps, Oscar Schindler, Double Trigger and Yeats. The VRC stewards grilled the jockeys and trainer but it would make little difference anyway - with the flat season effectively over in the Northern Hemisphere, a suspension would mean diddly squat. Article from The Age Here's the deal Aidan - Australia is a dry continent, and it doesn't rain every day. Horses there run on dry tracks. If that's too hard for you, then stay at home where team tactics robbing punters blind are allowed. The likes of Luca Cumani, Dermot Weld ...

It doesn't get any better than this. Well, actually Derby Day (last Saturday) is the best day of racing in the world IMO due to the quality in every race, but the Cup is the race everyone talks about. And in the best city in the world, Melbourne, they even get a holiday for it. Brilliant. Who will win it? It's a tough race this year, with eight raiders from Europe, some very handy Kiwis and an Australian contingent markedly weaker than any year I can recall. The Europeans want to make it a genuine staying test, with the Ballydoyle support staff (can't say pacemakers!) ensuring the race will be run at a steady clip. I can see a lot of runners going hard early and trying to sit up close. Some will have to be parked wide for the trip... Septimus is the class horse, but over the years, the class horses such as Drum Taps, Oscar Schindler, Double Trigger and Yeats have been sent home with their tails between their legs. Big weights in handicaps bring class horses undone. I think ...