This Horse Racer has been dislodged

Almost everything have its place in time, and well, the time is up for me and horse racing.

It is 3 years since on the fateful 2nd day of CNY 2002 that meng suggested we go see see look look in the National Stadium Betting Centre.

Still can remember that day i struck an outsider of $106 in a Malaysian race day.

Horse Racing to me certainly got its ups and downs.

The down and out days which meng, mark and myself had to walk a distance just to catch a bus, to hawker centre for a $2 dinner...

The days which began on a high and ended with a super low...

The days when dreams came true but i didnt won (think it is a Ipoh raceday with Affluence and another grey gelding with the number 1-3)...

The days when a napshot crossed the line first and saved my day (especially at Kranji, Singapore raceday with Dana Boy, a whopping $200+ return from 2 Win and 1 FT on Dana Boy and Zuchero, special thanks to meng, my personal lucky charm in Kranji)...

The days which began on a high and ended with a super high (with mark again on a Malaysian raceday, starting with a $160 win for a staggering $500+ win)

The dreamy day when i woke up to realise i won $200 for a 4 - 6 FT bet (appreciation to my girlfren, now fiance, alicia, on not one and many occasions to deliver the good news)

The dream lost day when one of the forum post a result wrongly for me to jump with overjoy for a supposingly $800+ FT, only to see my FT selection finished 1st and 3rd with the 2nd an EA horse...Colin's Power....

The long distance days when i was in Korea but kept on winning (all thanks to mark)

The not so long distance days when chris, meng, mark and myself shopping in JB and we all missed out of our fav horses upsetting in another Ipoh race day...the so called " D Chee Days " (for the record, D Chee is a jockey, and one of my fav if he rides Nancy)

And of course the ultimate $543 FT win on a Hong Kong raceday with CK Tong on Preservence

These and more hold good memories for me and my buddies...

And since this will be the last post here, the horses that gave me such fond memories must be mentioned here....

Good Prospect of course with Jason Taylor. Who can forget a $400 return on a Win Place bet!

Eagle Phoenix, predictably back to back for 3 consecutive wins (for mark would be 4 times, and mark, i havent forgotten about that 10 Win tickets when i didnt make it in time to place it)

Dana Boy, with Kellady and of course Number 2! All the Way!

Winning Expert for a $160 place.

Humprehy on that upset win over Opposing Force!

Hunii and that numerous occasions which kept on surprising pundits

Mayo Music before it is on form, which i can proudly say that i supported this fellow before the majority of the punters

Ipanema Dancer and Numex which are my girlfren's fav

Motion which failed mark and made $100+ for me

Halo Charles, one of mark's fav

and many others which were wonderful to watch

well, well, guess the time is right to close this chapter,

for the last time,

ALL THE WAY!

Dismayed

Amidst the numerous newspaper article on the casino issues, was surprised that it is a relatively low percentage for betting in horse racing.

I'm surprised.

If the number is true, which may not be the case most of the times, then the dividend payout is miserably low.

We are talking about less than 15% of the population indulge in horse racing, which works out roughly to be 600,000 of our 4 mil population. If everyone of them place only a single Win bet on each race, then it works out to be 3mil of bets with STC! Which is very neat profit for the organisation! After less the price money of sightly above $100K, which is only a very insignificant portion of the total bets... Given the benefit of the doubt, maybe another portion will goes to the maintaining and upkeeping of the infrastructure and the system, but the point is, the low dividend payout is simply illogical!

We have heard that STC is trying to bring more hobbist to the sport, but what is more effective than higher odds! The people at the STC should realised that it is the money that attracts people to the game, not the varities of bettings.

***

Seems like there's not a day goes by without seasoned punters talking about the poor management decision by STC.....

The 'LIVE telecast over SCV' was one issue that highlights the need for a complete change in STC management.

Telebet Account Holders were invited to subscribe SCV as according to STC, they will telecast 'LIVE' races in April. However, as widely anticipated, they did a U turn on that quoting technical reasons, withoutany committement in resolved dates! Dismayed!

Now we know that Astro will be offering 'LIVE' races for all Malaysian fixtures. Seems like our Malaysian counterparts are finally one step better and advanced than our self proclaimed 'International Standard' STC!

***

Well, my interest in Horse Racing has nose dived quite a fair bit since my lucky FT win on 23 Feb 05 (Happy Valley). $543 exactly. Which i must say that there is a huge discrepancies between the STC payout and the HKJC payout.HKJC pays roughly HKD4000, which converts to around SGD1000.... Kind of being cheated.

And not forgetting the numerous time we saw a STC $6/$5 odds for a hot favourite when bookies can offer at least $10/$8!

Think i will join in with the majority in Soccer Betting....

Maybe i should change the Title to ' One day in the life of a Soccer Punter '.