KEY POINTS:
The army of harness racing punters who love fixed odds betting will be smiling today.
Because TAB bookies are about to step their operations up a gear to cover all Friday night harness races.
The aggressive move starts today and will cover not only Friday night meetings but all Saturday harness races, with one small insurance policy.
While the bookies will provide fixed odds on all races at such meetings, they will only open markets on maiden and one-win races about 20 minutes before they are run.
That will provide some safety net for bookmakers when framing a market with, for example, 16 maidens running on the grass at Geraldine in a few weeks times.
Until now, bookies have covered most races from the main Friday night meeting and those rated two-win or above from the other metropolitan meetings, as well as the best race at provincial meetings.
But from now they will provide markets on all Friday night meetings, with most opening at 8.30am.
"Any Friday night race for horses above two-win level will be open first thing in the morning but the maidens and one-wins will be after the preceding race at each meeting," said harness bookmaker Steve Richardson.
"Unless, of course, it is a premier meeting, when they are all opened by 8.30am at the latest."
Fixed odds and particularly multi-betting are hugely popular in harness racing because so many winners pay smaller dividends and lend themselves to all-up bets.
Richardson admits the service leaves him open to "getting our butts kicked".
"But we are going to do our best and I am sure we will win our share."
Meanwhile, the TAB took a $5000 bet on Changeover at $3 this week to win next Tuesday's New Zealand Cup at Addington.
"The money is really starting to come for him as well as Monkey King." Michael Guerin
