Clag glue has an unprecedented demand for their product at this time of the year, with millions of Christmas cards needing sticking down. Christmas is a time of "giving", so let us be "giving" extra horses to Clag this week.

There were only limited eligible candidates for this week’s prestigious award, but nevertheless there were a few classic chaff bandits in action at Doomben last Saturday.

For instance there was a likely prospect in Race 5 named Stylish Qualo. He hadn’t won a race since 8/12/05, so the previous day to the Doomben meeting he’d celebrated being out of the winners circle for one full year, but last Saturday he stepped out and bolted in, well backed, so his win ruled him out of the equation.

No more possible horses raced until Race 7 and Yell hadn’t won since 30/3/04, but he’d already been sent to the glue factory, so the reincarnated Yell ran on okay to run 6^th, but again he didn’t earn any prizemoney for 6^th.

In the same race Proudly Agro was eligible to go to his maker as he hasn’t won since 19/11/05, but he’s part owned by Paul Felgate who bought two books off me on course, so I’m not callous enough to take his money on the one hand for the books, then send his horse to the glue factory on the other – well not this start anyway, but Proudly Agro needs to get mobile in his next couple of starts and win, or he might not be spared. He’ll be “agro” all right if he gets the scent of glue. Plus he is a grey and I have mentioned here before that grey horses are full of cancerous skin pigments, so aren’t real good for glue. Proudly Agro is also getting on in years, so he would be a bit lumpy.

So after all that I was only left with Race 8 to select the winner from and there were two classic possibilities out of this race and they were Number 4 Areeba Areeba and Number 12 Winning Master.

Areeba Areeba is good value in a race, as at least she runs them along, so that’s a plus. But on the negative side, she hasn’t won since 7/5/05 and that was at the Gold Coast on a “slow” track. Well it hasn’t rained in Brisbane since about 1967, so it’s a total waste of time coming to Brisbane to race in the vain hope of hitting a wet track. The other interesting thing is she is a mare, so why didn’t she go to stud this year and why isn’t she walking around with a little Areeba Areeba inside her? So she had the opportunity to escape the glue factory and her owners chose to avoid that opportunity in the futile hope she could win another city race.

For his part Winning Master is very poorly named as he knows nothing about “Winning”. Through his poor race record, he is “Master” of his own destiny. He’s a Randwick winner, who has also raced in Victoria. He’s even appeared on the hallowed Flemington turf, but ran 7^th at 5-1. He has unfortunately been allowed into Queensland to race, after running 5^th at 13-4 equal favourite at Echuca on 16/10/06. When he arrived in Queensland, his first essay was at the non-TAB Roma meeting on 18/11/06, but he was beaten 2.75 lengths when running 2^nd. Then just 14 days later he went to the non-TAB bush meeting at Injune and dropped back in distance in a field of 7. Where did he run? Well last, beaten 11.1 lengths and that’s the good news. The bad news is he started 5-4 favourite. So the farmers who are facing famine out west, did their dough on this Victorian import. What was his reward for running last at Injune? Well quite simply bring him to town and race him in a Class 6 last Saturday. I’m wondering if the trainer had an old flame to visit in the big smoke? The sad part about last Saturday’s Doomben is that Winning Master ran 7^th, so he beat six home and finished in the same placing at Injune as he did at Doomben - which doesn’t say much for the Doomben mob that chased home Master Denis. Included in the six he beat home at Doomben were, yeah you guessed it – Areeba Areeba, as she ran 10^th.

So they are hard to split for the award and it would look like favouritism if only one went, so I decided both should go, so off go Areeba Areeba and Winning Master.

But they say two is company and three is a crowd, so we don’t want Winning Master and Areeba Areeba getting too pally, so I’ve decided we need to go the trifecta and send three horses off this week. An alert reader with the initials R.B. wrote in and advised me about this other horse and so I agree with him that this other horse should go to make glue this week, before it gets the chance for further embarrassment to his family. He is an 8YO gelding called Houlahan’s Lane. He is by Melbourne Cup winner and Flemington 3,200-metre track record holder Kingston Rule, out of the mare Royaloka. Kingston Rule is a dud producer at stud, as evidenced by the fact I wrote a chapter on how poor his progeny have turned out to be in my just released book. It was entitled “Kingston Rule the fastest Melbourne Cup winner sure threw slow foals”. Well Houlahan’s Lane stepped out on debut the other day - 27/11/06 to be exact - and was first up in a 1600-metre Maiden at Stony Creek. They gave the old codger barrier one so he could use the rail to guide him. A good jockey Mark Flaherty had the sit. They swung for home at Stony Creek and Mark yelled out “go” and Houlahan’s Lane said “where”, before clocking in 13^th of 13 – beaten 10.5 lengths. Now you can’t make hogget into lamb no matter what you do to it, so it is best Houlahan’s Lane goes to his maker now, before the RSPCA get onto the connections and trainer.

As Christmas is undoubtedly “a time of giving” it is with pleasure I am “giving” Clag three bandits. The Clag product is in big demand this time of the year, ably assisting with sticking down millions of Christmas cards etc. So that has got rid of Areeba Areeba, Winning Master and Houlahan’s Lane and has made punters just that little bit happier, particularly the poor buggers that took the 5-4 about the good thing Winning Master at Injune on December 2.