By MIKE DILLON
They sliced a month off the usual three-month disqualification when Trudy Collett admitted she used another jockey's lead bag to make correct weight at Te Rapa on May 6.
The Judicial Control Authority hearing established on Monday that Collett had weighed out correctly to ride Gold Regal, which subsequently finished fourth, but had found the lead bag missing as she approached the scales to weigh in.
Collett saw another lead bag on the floor, picked it up, and made correct weight.
The game was up when Gold Regal's trainer Tony Lawrey told stewards five minutes later he had left the lead bag on the side of the saddling stalls.
No truth that Collett's one-month rebate was for quick thinking.
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The Aussies are making a big thing over Raymond Connors being the first amateur to ride in the Grand National Steeplechase at Flemington.
Connors, as usual, will be aboard Our Jonty when the topliner makes his Australian debut in the Crisp Steeplechase on July 1 and the pair will back up into the Grand National the following week.
Adapting to the faster pace and sharp jumping in Melbourne is never easy for our horses, but Our Jonty's second to Royal Ways in the Great Northern at Ellerslie showed his form is as good as at any previous stage of his career.
And this is not a vintage year for Australian jumpers.
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The few sideline rumblings that the NSW TAB's turnover on New Zealand racing is only ordinary need not be taken seriously.
The first three weeks of what is a six-month trial has netted half a million dollars in turnover and while that is small, it is huge when you consider who is betting and what they are betting on.
Sydney punters like backing what they know and like.
While we know a fair bit about Australian form, the Aussies know zip about our horses.
On Saturdays they are being asked to bet on the worst four races of two meetings of our worst racing of the year on tracks so wet they wouldn't consider racing on them.
And they are betting on them at breakfast time.
Given that scenario, the turnover - $A171,000, $A137,000, $151,000 plus undisclosed doubles turnover - is impressive.
You can bet the figures will swell in the spring on dry tracks with horses the Aussies have at least some knowledge of, ridden by jockeys they have heard of.
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Show A Heart's attempt to win Queensland's greatest stakemoney - the $A1 million Golden Pegasus bonus - at Eagle Farm on Saturday is the tail wagging the dog, but blame no one for that.
The gallant 2-year-old will have raced three weekends in a row and trainer Barry Miller knows it is a possible sacrifice bunt against him being the same horse next season.
But a million is a million.
Believing it was not in the best interests of the horse, Miller did not want to chase the bonus after the appropriately named Show A Heart won the $A480,000 T J Smith at Eagle Farm last Monday week, but bowed to the owners' wishes and won with the colt again at Doomben on Saturday.
For Miller to pull away from the bonus he basically had to guarantee he could win a million dollars with Show A Heart next season.
And the colt will have to live up to his name after copping a black eye from a flying clod at the weekend.
Racing: Wrong lead bag brings disqualification
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