Eight cards in: Faisal Karim leads on three wins from eight

The circuit is eight resulted cards deep and the standings are already lopsided. Faisal Karim has three wins from eight runners, a strike rate of 37.5 per cent. Dorrie Slack-Smith has two from nine, 22.2. Hugh Pentland has one from seven and Bronwyn Esch one from nine. Four of the eight trainers — Nam Tran, Trudy Aspinall, Coen McTiernan and Vera Lindqvist — have not had a winner, between them from 31 runners.

All three of Karim's winners are the same horse. Stockyard Gate won the Trial at Wattle Hill, the Class A Synthetic at Tin Creek and the Class B Flat at Mallee Park. The stable's other five runs produced one second and one third.

Among the riders Priya Sandhu leads with two wins from five, 40 per cent, both of them on Stockyard Gate. Jonty Mapp and Kaz Tupou have one from five each. Ruby Nankervis has a second and two thirds from five rides without winning, and Eli Vandermeer and Cleo Baird have a third each.

Five rides is not a sample. A rider's expectation on this circuit depends entirely on how many of the 1,000 numbers the card gave the runners they were on, which is not their doing and is set before they are named. At this stage of the season the strike-rate column is a count with a percent sign after it, and the desk prints the denominator beside it for that reason.

The two harness drivers who have won make the point better than any argument can. Marnie Kessel has driven twice and won once, with Harbour Flyer in the Standing Start Trot at Gidgee Paceway. Dale Prentice has driven twice and won once, with Red Gum Rebel in the Class C Mobile Pace at Kurrajong. Both are therefore on 50 per cent. Ange Vuletich and Sam Oyelaran have two drives each and no win, so both are on nought. Two drives is the whole harness season to date: the circuit has resulted exactly two harness cards.

Thirteen cards sit in the published programme ahead, which more than doubles the sample inside four days. Expect the trainers' table to look different at the end of it, and expect that to mean rather less than it looks like meaning.