Almanac Horseracing: The Apocalypse Goes to the Races

 

 

I closed Bart D. Ehrman’s Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End last night and set it on the bedside table feeling both smarter and a lot more relaxed about everything. A good book that emptied the eschatological tank.

Ehrman, an ex-evangelical and current heretic-for-hire, rips through Revelation like a good lawyer tearing through a codicil and finding that the deceased had made other arrangements. The End Times crowd – your rapture merchants and tribulation tourists – have been reading the thing catastrophically wrong for centuries. John of Patmos, it turns out, was venting about Romans, not predicting American foreign policy. The Four Horsemen have already galloped on.

 

Which brings me, a man who has just been told the Apocalypse is cancelled, to Randwick this Saturday, and four horses worth a punt.

 

CONQUEST – 1. Campione D’Italia ($2.80)

R7 Moet & Chandon Champagne Stakes

The name settles it. Campione d’Italia – Champion of Italy. The horse doesn’t announce itself with aggression but arrives already wearing the crown. This colt won the Sires’ here a fortnight ago, and James McDonald stays aboard. Conquest simply goes out and does what was always going to happen. Back him with the confidence of someone who read the last page first.

 

WAR – 15. Bear On The Loose ($6.00)

R6 Myplates Jra Plate

A bear. On the loose. War doesn’t observe the conditions. It is chaotic and uncontainable and demands to be reckoned with. This is a wide-open race that the market is struggling to get a grip on, which is precisely how War prefers to operate. Each way. The bear goes where it wants.

 

FAMINE – 5. Half Yours ($23.00)

R9 Schweppes All Aged Stakes

You will get something. Half of it. The Melbourne Cup winner asked to sprint at 1400m, trained sharp and narrow for one sharp run. Even if he fires, he likely won’t be first past the post. Each way. Famine always leaves something on the table. Just not enough. Although, should he win, the $23 odds undermine the Famine conceit considerably.

 

DEATH – 2. Providence ($7.00)

Race 5 Toyota Forklifts Frank Packer Plate

A theological point often missed is that death is not random. It is providential. Fated. Pre-ordained. Arriving exactly when it was always going to arrive. Providence in the Frank Packer Plate is your outsider, your forgotten runner. Hell follows with him, which in racing terms means a small each-way bet and knowing that if it comes in, no one will be able to explain it, including Providence.

 

Note: The Bible, as Ehrman reminds us, has been wrong before. So have I.

 

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