The card
In 2 days, 27 October 2026 · as at 25 October 2026
- Venue
- Jacaranda Downs
- Code
- Thoroughbred
- Class
- Feature
- Distance
- 2400m
- Surface
- Turf
- Cycle
- Day
- Each way
- 1/4 odds, places 1-2-3-4
The Jacaranda Cup is 2400 metres right-handed at Jacaranda Downs at 3.10pm in two days, draw id JAC-R5-4D9D09. The lap is 2100 metres, the biggest ring on the circuit, with 450 metres from the home turn to the post, the longest run from a home turn on the circuit. Twelve go round and the each-way terms are a quarter of the odds for places one to four.
The book is 127.0, the largest of the 21 cards the programme has published. The circuit's own pattern is a hundred plus about two points a runner, which puts a field of twelve near 124, so this card carries about three points more than the pattern. The 27 points of overround go on as one multiplier of 1.270, the same for everybody.
The weighting table also has the widest spread on the programme. Ridgeback holds 281 of the 1,000 numbers from barrier eleven and Marble Bar holds eight from barrier ten, which is the thinnest block published anywhere and the only price on the circuit above $98. Eight of the twelve hold fewer than a hundred numbers. Readers have written in about Ridgeback's block against its form line, and the answer is in the weighting that looks wrong.
Field
12 runners · no scratchings on this circuit
| No | Colours | Barrier | Runner | Jockey | Trainer | Form | Record | Price | Numbers | Implied | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Stockyard Gate | Kaz Tupou | Faisal Karim | 41101 | 43-9-5-3 | 5.79 | 136 | 17.3% | One hundred and thirty-six numbers from barrier one, third block, with three wins in its last five starts from blocks of 67, 152 and 20. | |
| 2 | 2 | Tin Whistle | Jonty Mapp | Coen McTiernan | 10149 | 33-6-6-4 | 31.52 | 25 | 3.2% | Twenty-five numbers off barrier two at $31.52, 3.2 per cent implied, from 33 career starts for six wins. | |
| 3 | 3 | Tally Room | Cleo Baird | Hugh Pentland | 15069 | 34-8-5-2 | 19.22 | 41 | 5.2% | Forty-one numbers from barrier three with eight career wins from 34 starts, the fifth-thinnest block in the field. | |
| 4 | 4 | Half Mast | Eli Vandermeer | Dorrie Slack-Smith | 35510 | 25-5-3-2 | 6.36 | 124 | 15.7% | One hundred and twenty-four numbers off barrier four, fourth block, and twelve numbers behind barrier one. | |
| 5 | 5 | Fence Line | Ruby Nankervis | Faisal Karim | 57243 | 41-4-5-9 | 46.35 | 17 | 2.2% | Seventeen numbers from barrier five at $46.35, eleventh on the table, with nine career thirds from 41 starts. | |
| 6 | 6 | Paper Lantern | Priya Sandhu | Nam Tran | 50432 | 57-13-9-6 | 17.91 | 44 | 5.6% | Forty-four numbers off barrier six, 5.6 per cent, against thirteen career wins from 57 starts. | |
| 7 | 7 | Pennyroyal | Linc Pappas | Vera Lindqvist | 22230 | 49-13-6-7 | 13.36 | 59 | 7.5% | Fifty-nine numbers from barrier seven, 5.9 per cent, and the best career strike rate in the field at 26.5 per cent. | |
| 8 | 8 | Old Telegraph | Noor Haddad | Coen McTiernan | 26837 | 34-5-6-4 | 5.12 | 154 | 19.5% | One hundred and fifty-four numbers off barrier eight, second block, after running second in the Handicap Hurdle at Bellbird Rise from a block of 177. | |
| 9 | 9 | Switchyard | Teddy Lamb | Bronwyn Esch | 48758 | 34-5-3-3 | 9.49 | 83 | 10.5% | Eighty-three numbers from barrier nine, fifth block, 10.5 per cent implied at $9.49. | |
| 10 | 10 | Marble Bar | Gina Mavros | Vera Lindqvist | 98367 | 29-6-3-3 | 98.50 | 8 | 1.0% | Eight numbers from barrier ten, the thinnest block on any published card, at $98.50 — the only price on the circuit above $98. | |
| 11 | 11 | Ridgeback | Ora Benjafield | Hugh Pentland | 5980 | 16-3-3-3 | 2.80 | 281 | 35.7% | The top block at 281 numbers from barrier eleven, 28.1 per cent, carrying 7.6 points of margin, the largest single-runner margin in the programme. | |
| 12 | 12 | Ninepin | Rhys Calder | Dorrie Slack-Smith | 31452 | 43-4-10-4 | 28.14 | 28 | 3.6% | Twenty-eight numbers off barrier twelve, 2.8 per cent, with ten seconds in 43 career starts. |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
Prices on this page are the draw weighting in another notation. They are reference figures published with the card, not odds available anywhere, and not a betting recommendation.
A field is fixed when the card is published: there are no scratchings, no non-runners and no starting price. Why that follows from the draw.
The draw
The result is a weighted draw of 1,000 numbers without replacement: each runner holds a block of numbers in proportion to its price, a number is drawn once, and the animation is rendered from the order that comes out. Everything used to produce this race is printed below, so the race can be reconstructed.
- Draw id
- JAC-R5-4D9D09
- Engine
- GP-Draw 4.2
- Seed
- 4d9d09d9df6b6a0a
- Numbers in the draw
- 1,000
- Book
- 127.0%
- Margin
- 27.0%
A draw without replacement cannot produce a dead heat, and a field that is fixed at publication cannot produce a late scratching. How a virtual race is decided works through the arithmetic in full.
The form desk
-
Top of the market
2.80 281 numbers · 28.1% true
-
Where the book is thinnest
5.12 154 numbers · 15.4% true
-
The outsider
98.50 8 numbers · 0.8% true
The house position before the arithmetic: the order is drawn from the published table, so a form line cannot predict it, and the column below is an argument about the table. The long version of this card is in the form desk.
This is the card the postbag is about, and the postbag is wrong in an instructive way. Ridgeback holds 281 numbers with three career wins from sixteen starts. Paper Lantern has thirteen from 57 and holds 44. Marble Bar has six from 29 and holds eight. There is no field in the engine where a previous result could be put, so the two columns are simply unrelated, and this field prints that more plainly than any other.
Where the points of margin land is the second question readers ask. In proportion, nowhere in particular: one multiplier of 1.270 applies to all twelve. In points it falls on the thick blocks because that is where the numbers are — 7.6 on Ridgeback, 4.1 on Old Telegraph, 3.7 on Stockyard Gate, and 0.2 on Marble Bar.
One note on the venue rather than the field. Jacaranda Downs is the only right-handed gallops track on the circuit, and the direction is a camera setting: the engine mirrors the turn and leaves the draw untouched. Running clockwise or anti-clockwise changes the picture and not the numbers, which is the architecture the commercial products use too — bet365's virtual sports rules describe the product as a computer-generated presentation of a random number draw result (operator rules, read 18 October 2026).
Wren Tabakoff, Editor
Form desk columns are editorial opinion only. They are not financial advice, not investment recommendations and not an inducement to wager. A weighted draw has no form to read in the predictive sense; what these columns argue about is the published weighting.
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