Kylie Rasmussen, on the left as you look at the photo, sitting next to her sister Vicki - trains and drives the pacer Forever Gold which narrowly won the final race at Albion Park last Saturday night by 1.2 metres, at such prohibitive odds that it paid money back ($1) for the win on Unitab. Why do punters of the modern era back horses at such stupid prices as 100/1 on? Kylie and Vicki are sisters of Natalie Rasmussen whose champion pacer Blacks A Fake has won four Interdominions.

It never ceases to amaze me how many fools, with obviously more money than sense, partake in the pastime of gambling. In fact I’m sure the vast majority of punters think they can actually win long term whether they are betting on racehorses, trotters, greyhounds, Lotto, Keno, the roulette wheel, sports betting, or any other form of gambling.

Take the situation a few weeks ago that was outlined by Glen Munsie on Sky Channel, when a punter went to the trouble of opening up a TAB account specifically with Tattsbet with the amount of $80,000. He (I imagine it was a “he”, as a woman wouldn’t be this stupid) then proceeded to put the $80,000 on a woman, who at best, could be described as “just an ordinary tennis player,” namely Samantha Stosur, at the attractive odds of $1.33 to win a game of tennis later that day. It’s history now that Stosur got rolled in that tennis match, thus the punter did his $80,000 cold, on a 3’s on chance, in a two horse race.

Each weekend across another round of competition within the NRL or AFL there are upsets galore, with odds-on favourites going over weekly and there is nothing surer than it will all happen again next weekend. Punters are encouraged to turn a blind eye to backing odds-on favourites via sports betting, as in a two horse race there will be no option but to be a myriad of odds-on favourites.

Day in and day out in the racing world, across its three codes, odds-on favourites galore are dished up to punters with gay abandon. In fact I don’t know whether it’s the wall to wall racing that we now have or not, but it would seem to me that if you sat down for an hour and watch Sky Channel at any time of the day or night, that the amount of odds-on favourites is embarrassing across the three codes. The ongoing problem with an odds-on favourite in a race is that they virtually stifle the market on the race they are running in, with the end result being a downturn in TAB turnover, as the little punter cannot afford to back odds-on favourites. The simple arithmetic of it all is that the punter backing odds-on favourites is no hope of winning long term, as they have to back too many winners to come out in front at the end of the day. Professional punters stay away from betting on these meetings, primarily harness racing and greyhound venues, as there is just not enough money in the pools to allow the professional punter to ply his or her trade.

Whether the proliferation of odds-on favourites is a problem with the grading/handicapping systems across the three codes is best worked out by the codes governing body, but to my way of thinking it must have something to do with it.

To give readers an idea of what I’m writing about, here are the odds-on favourites, their prices and where they finished in just the last three Saturday nights racing, at Brisbane Albion Park harness racing meeting.

So as you can see from the above, odds-on favourites are going over like ten pins at Albion Park on a Saturday night, but I could sit down and repeat the process any time of the week – across any code. I personally find it “extraordinary” for instance that on 26 June at Albion Park, no fewer than eight of the nine races had an odds-on favourite. To me that smacks of the fact that the industry has a “grading problem”, which allows one horse, on face value, to be so superior to its rivals.

You know there was a time in Australian racing history, across all three codes, whereby Popular Alm was the shortest priced favourite to win a race. The champion pacer won at 100/1 on, at Albion Park - on 29/10/83 - yet at Albion Park some 27 years later, in the space of just a few weeks, we've had both Mr Feelgood and Forever Gold pay money back of $1, which I would merely call "rampant stupidity" on the part of punters.

But the problem is not restricted to metropolitan harness racing, as you can just as easily watch a country harness meeting on a Tuesday night from Victoria and witness short priced favourites go over with gay abandon.

I sincerely trust that the officials across all three codes of racing in this country are monitoring Betfair properly, as without going into specific cases, it would appear that there may well be a more profitable future for a punter to sit at home and lay all these short priced runners on Betfair to lose – than to actually back them to win.