Tasmanian apprentice Raquel Clark continued a hot streak of form with a double at Morphettville on Saturday.
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She had ridden four winners at Murray Bridge the previous day including the $100,000 Cup.
Her Morphettville winners were both trained by her master Leon MacDonald who has been using the apprentice as his No. 1 rider since Clare Lindop retired.
And, it’s been a successful move. Clark has ridden all Macdonald’s city winners in the past two months.
In a state where female riders are dominating this season, Clark is second on the overall premiership with 26 wins and third on the metropolitan table with eight wins.
That’s despite the fact that she is not long back from a three-week break.
NUMBERS COUNT
Tasmania isn’t alone in having been left with some small fields in recent months as a result of race-day scratchings.
In many cases, the horses withdrawn have been stablemates of other horses left in the field.
South Australia seems to have the same problem at times and a commentator on racing.com on Saturday had a warning for trainers after only three horses went around in the first race.
He said trainers needed to be careful or the rules could be changed in relation to how many acceptors were needed for a race to go ahead.
Although not specific, it appeared to be a general reference to trainers accepting with horses that they have no intention of running just so that races aren’t deleted.
The horses are then scratched, leaving three or four-horse fields that attract low betting turnover and cost the industry money.
Australian Rule Of Racing 68A (2) states that no person shall declare an acceptor for a race with the primary purpose of affecting the total number of horses accepted for such a race.
Not only do stewards have the power to penalise anyone breaching the rule, they can also reject or cancel the acceptance.
For the record, in Tasmania seven acceptors are required for a race to be retained but, at Tasracing’s discretion, this can be reduced to six for classes where there are known to be fewer horses in work.
TIMELY CHANGE
Good to see that Sky Channel has given the Tasmanian Turf Club a more user-friendly set of race times for Wednesday night’s meeting.
Last week, the eight-race program didn’t start until 6.35pm and with 40-minute gaps between some of the early races, the meeting stretched out until 10.30pm.
A protest in the last race meant the result wasn’t finalised until after 11pm.
This week, the meeting starts earlier at 6.20pm and, with shorter gaps between early races, finishes at 10pm.