KEY POINTS:
Sculptor at $26 to win the $2 million Kelt Capital Stakes.
Did we hear someone say: "You're kidding".
Maybe not, but certainly: "You can get one with me at double those odds."
There's a lot of that head scratching about the TAB's futures betting market for the Kelt.
If there ever was any value in the Kelt market it's certainly gone now and there's weeks to run on it yet and it's more than two months to the race.
The current market is carrying a 230 per cent price frame, which will mean very little to most punters.
It's about the way bookmakers offer odds overall on each runner in a race.
The complicated equation relates to how much yield the bookmaker or TAB receives if they lay every horse for the same amount, which never happens of course.
Put simply, the lower the percentage frame, the greater the return to the punter.
TABs work to around 118 per cent and bookmakers in Victoria, now faced with fierce competition from all manner of betting rivals, at times offer around 110 per cent.
Yesterday there were 21 horses under $26 in the TAB's futures market and, with one or two possible exceptions, the Kelt Capital field should be contained inside that group.
Which means you cannot get better than $26 on the horse that will eventually be the rank outside in the Kelt and we're two and a half months away and there are no refunds on futures betting.
On raceday the outsider in the Kelt will be close to $50, possibly higher.
"They are extremely difficult markets to frame," says TAB bookie Thad Taylor. "There is a lot of uncertainty."
Taylor believes most futures markets around the world operate at a similar percentage as the TAB's Kelt framework. A comparison, though, is Melbourne's Domebet, which is currently operating a Melbourne Cup market at a lesser percentage and which, by law, has a full refund for all bets on horses that do not nominate on August 1.
Almost all the early money in Kelt Capital futures markets comes for the outsiders.
For example, the TAB opened Sculptor up at $150 and, running true to a pattern, copped a stack of money because of Sculptor's form, overall in much lesser company, at the Queensland carnival.
Form tends to equate to support, regardless of the class of the form.
"We got a lot of money for [Australian] Pompeii Ruler at decent odds early, which is why it's now $5 favourite."
One of the difficulties for the TAB is the entry of horses like outstanding Australian mare Miss Finland, currently quoted at $5.50.
Trainer David Hayes remains coy about whether the mare will travel to New Zealand, but the common sense scenario and small pieces of info clearly suggest she won't.
Unfortunately for the TAB it can't operate on supposition.
The $5.50 would be outstanding if you thought she was coming - in her best form $2 would be top odds.
Miss Finland will almost certainly be aimed exclusively at the Cox Plate after the dramatic problems the mare and New Zealand rider Lisa Cropp experienced last spring.
* Anamato's third in Sunday's American Oaks at Hollywood Park yet again proved the race is within the capabilities of a down under filly.
The David Hayes-trained Anamato would have been more difficult to keep out had she not received a home-turn bump that put her off stride.
The inside grass track at Hollywood Park is like a velodrome - the corners are banked like a bike track - and for momentum it is crucial for riders to have their horses running off the camber from the home turn.
Instead of using the camber and laying into it like a motorbike rider, Anamato got bumped outwards and Michael Rodd had to straighten her and balance up again.
It almost certainly didn't cost the Australian filly the win, but she probably would have been second.
Few would rate Anamato in the top three or four Australian fillies - she certainly wouldn't live with her stablemate Miss Finland.
So the signs are there for a big win from this part of the world in the next few years.
* Top New Zealand mare Gee I Jane led and then finished a game third in her last race start in yesterday's A$125,000 ($138,000) Ramornie Handicap (1200m) at Grafton in New South Wales.
