Quite apart from "fixing" it does seem to me a fact that not all runners in all races are there to win.

Testarossa, your latest scheme involved last start flops. Form figures of, say, 10 or 18. And then the horse comes back to win the next start.

Certainly, horses have bad days and there is bad luck etc. but how many of these last start flops - with a single glitch in their form figures - have been given an easy race by the jockey under instruction as part of a longer term strategy for the horse? These are often your short-priced faves. Race 1 they win handsomely. Race 2, starting at a short price, fifth or worse. Race 3, back to good odds, a carbon copy of race 1.

There are, as I say, many ways to account for this phenomenon but in *some* cases might it not be part of trainer's longer term strategy. Not a strategy to manipulate the odds, necessarily, but the trainer has his eye on race 3 and race 2 is just a warm up.

I'm not acquainted with the reasoning of trainers, but as an observer of races it seems to me there are occasions where the jockey gives a short-priced last start winner a less-than-full-committed run.

From what I've seen I think racing in contemporary Australia is remarkably clean, but there are countless, utterly undetectable ways to not win a race. Are all runners in all races there to win?

Hermes