Do you know this young lass? No - well I can advise she is former Gympie based jockey Dallas Van Bekkum. Yesterday Dallas was riding at Grafton and she only had one ride on the day - in Race 2 on Stud Muffin. Dallas rode Stud Muffin well and he dashed to the front on straightening before running sixth. Unfortunately Stud Muffin had pulled hard early in the run and wilted under the urgings of Dallas late. Dallas' photo raises the question "How well do you know the jockeys that ride at TAB meetings?" Pretty well I suppose, as you get to see them interviewed on Sky Channel and TVN etcetera. Watch next week in a scathing article I will write on jockeys - regarding how recognisable they are to TAB punters who are putting their hard earned on them.

I often just shake my head when I listen to conversations involving gambling - that are conducted at social events I attend.

Take tomorrow for instance at Eagle Farm – how can a bookie lose on the main race of the day, the Queensland Cup?

The Queensland Cup is one of the few 3200-metre races that are run in Australia each year – and it carries total prizemoney of $150,000.

The Queensland Cup is unfortunately a black type race, being run at Listed level. Last year the great race was won by Cape Breton from Petushki and Kerdem in time just 72.24 lengths off the track record, on a “dead 4” track – which is truly riveting stuff.

This year’s Queensland Cup presents two scenarios 1) a real minefield for punters – and 2) the possibility of a bonanza for bookies. Why is that? Well the fixed odds markets have only two horses in the market and they are Tinseltown at about $2.30 and Lang at about $4.40 – and to be fair they certainly look, on paper, to be the only two chances. The problem however is that Tinseltown has failed in two attempts at the distance, firstly on 4/3/09 when he ran seventh of 18, beaten 5.5 lengths in the Auckland Cup, then secondly on 10 March this year, when he couldn’t get close to Zavite (beaten 8.4 lengths) in the same race, so in summary he has failed miserably twice at the trip. You might say “but that Auckland Cup was a Group 1 race and this is only a Listed event” – and that is true, but to compensate for the class drop here, he rises four kilos (from 54 in the Auckland Cup to 58 in the Queensland Cup) – and he rises five kilos from the 2009 Auckland Cup (53 kgs) to tomorrow’s assignment.

So whilst Tinseltown has run a couple of nice races during the Brisbane Winter Carnival - most recently being his good second in last Saturday’s Caloundra Cup - do you really want to back him at just a smidgen better than even money to run out 3200 metres?

His only danger on paper is Lang - and to that end Lang ran a fair race at Caloundra last Saturday, clocking in fourth. However from a punting perspective, Lang has two major problems. Firstly “he hates winning”. In fact he detests winning so much that he’s only won three races from 55 starts to date. That means in simple maths, he wins 5.40% of the time, which conversely means he loses 94.60% of the time. That’s just one part of the Lang equation however as he also hates “good” tracks with a passion, so much so that in 26 starts on a “good” track he’s actually won just one solitary race, so on a “good” track he has a winning strike rate of wait for it…….(drumroll)……..just 3.85%, which means he has a proven failure rate of 96.15% on “good” tracks – and if it doesn’t rain before 3.46pm tomorrow afternoon, we should be racing on a “good 3” track. Now with statistics like that, who wants to knock down fellow punters to put their hard earned on Lang?

Thank God they are the only two in the market, so you can imagine what I could write about the other 13 runners if I went into their form in detail.

Racing Queensland Handicapper Andrew Whitehead has sent the scaled weights through for the Eagle Farm meeting tomorrow and the changes are Race 1 – 3 kgs, Race 6 + 1.5 kgs and Race 7 - 1 kilo.

Brad Tamer from Unitab has sent the jackpot information through for tomorrow and they read:

The apprentice allowances for Eagle Farm tomorrow should be:

Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au  I preview Race 5 at Eagle Farm, on www.sydneyracing.com.au I preview Race 6, the Ascot Handicap from Eagle Farm, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au Tim Hickman looks at Flemington.

Unfortunately Galilee couldn’t get out on day release this week, so he cannot furnish an Adelaide report - but he expects to be back on deck next week.