Racing: Telegraph may lure multiple bets by pros

Australian professional punters often bet multiple horses, particularly in big races.

They will be tempted to have a go in the New Zealand TAB's market for Saturday's $1 million The Oaks Stud Telegraph. The key is ensuring you land the winner with the horses you back.

Wealth Princess, Mufhasa, Coup Align and A Gold Trail - you'd be surprised if one of those didn't win the Telegraph at Trentham.

If that's correct then if you back all four you make a profit.

Small, admittedly, if Wealth Princess wins as $5.50 favourite, only $1.50 profit for each dollar you invest on all four. But you double your total investment if A Gold Trail wins - and that's a big result to a pro punter.

TAB bookies said yesterday there had been no huge bets into the Telegraph, which is surprising given that if you strongly fancy one horse in that top bracket, you're going to do very well if it wins at the prices quoted.

Rick Williams, manager of The Oaks Stud, is the luckiest man heading into the Telegraph after he won a sponsorship ballot.

The Oaks and its owner, Dick Karraman, won the Telegraph two years ago with the great Seachange.

New Wellington Racing Club board member, media man Des Coppins, came up with a novel idea of getting a sponsor for the million-dollar race.

It became too expensive for the single sponsor in the current financial environment so Coppins got together 18 businesses that collectively put in $55,000 to the race and they balloted for the right for naming rights.

"There were 18 runners in the Marton Cup and those that were in got a chance, by ballot, to select a number in the race. Not the horse, simply a number before the field was declared.

"We'd originally got close to getting Rick to sponsor the race overall, but it fell through. Then he came out as the third-last sponsor of the 18 to pick a number and he picked Heat Haze's number. The irony is that John Kenny of Majestic Floats was the third last and he picked the second horse in the cup and now has naming rights for the Anniversary Handicap."

The club has secured sponsors for all the major carnival races at Trentham after that looked an impossibility a couple of weeks ago.

Remarkably, after days of rain, the Trentham course proper yesterday was rated a dead 2.5.

"That's accurate," said Coppins. "I can't believe after the rain we've had in Wellington that so little has fallen at Trentham. I can't say the five-day forecast looks stunning, though."

A rain-affected track would dramatically alter the pattern for the Telegraph.