The card
Today, 25 October 2026 · as at 25 October 2026
- Venue
- Mallee Park
- Code
- Thoroughbred
- Class
- Class A
- Distance
- 1400m
- Surface
- Turf
- Cycle
- Day
- Each way
- 1/5 odds, places 1-2-3
The Handicap Flat is race three at Mallee Park, 1400 metres at 2.18pm, draw id MAL-R3-7D4E2D. The weighting table gives Old Telegraph 210 of the 1,000 numbers from barrier five, which is 21.0 per cent and the only block on the card above 200. Ninepin holds 184 and Sunday Pages 170, so the first three hold 564 between them and the other seven share 436.
The book is 121.2 across ten, which is close to the circuit's own pattern of a hundred plus about two points a runner. GP-Draw applies the 21.2 points of overround as one multiplier of 1.212, so Old Telegraph's 21.0 per cent reads as an implied 25.4 and Long Paddock's 1.9 reads as 2.3. The two margins are 4.4 points and 0.4 points for identical proportional shading.
Five of the ten hold fewer than a hundred numbers. The spread is 210 down to 19, eleven-fold, which is middling for the programme. Mallee Park is left-handed with two 500 metre turns and 400 metres from the home turn to the post, and 1400 metres is 400 short of the full lap. The turn strings a field out and the straight brings it back, and neither does anything to the table: a barrier here holds no numbers at all.
Field
10 runners · no scratchings on this circuit
| No | Colours | Barrier | Runner | Jockey | Trainer | Form | Record | Price | Numbers | Implied | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Paper Lantern | Cleo Baird | Nam Tran | 50432 | 57-13-9-6 | 37.47 | 22 | 2.7% | Twenty-two numbers from barrier one at $37.47, which is thirteen career wins from 57 starts priced as the second-thinnest block on the card. | |
| 2 | 2 | Ridgeback | Priya Sandhu | Hugh Pentland | 5980 | 16-3-3-3 | 28.43 | 29 | 3.5% | Barrier two and 29 numbers off a four-start form line, with 281 numbers waiting in the Jacaranda Cup in two days. | |
| 3 | 3 | Switchyard | Eli Vandermeer | Bronwyn Esch | 48758 | 34-5-3-3 | 6.39 | 129 | 15.6% | One hundred and twenty-nine numbers from barrier three, the fourth block, off a form string reading 4-8-7-5-8. | |
| 4 | 4 | Stockyard Gate | Kaz Tupou | Faisal Karim | 41101 | 43-9-5-3 | 14.72 | 56 | 6.8% | Fifty-six numbers from barrier four at 2.18pm, against 259 in the Saltbush Dash an hour and six minutes later. | |
| 5 | 5 | Old Telegraph | Jonty Mapp | Coen McTiernan | 26837 | 34-5-6-4 | 3.93 | 210 | 25.4% | The top block at 210 numbers from barrier five, 21.0 per cent, and the only runner here holding more than a fifth of the draw. | |
| 6 | 6 | Half Mast | Ruby Nankervis | Dorrie Slack-Smith | 35510 | 25-5-3-2 | 10.57 | 78 | 9.5% | Seventy-eight numbers off barrier six, two days after winning the Class C Sprint at Saltbush Flat from a block of 210. | |
| 7 | 7 | Ninepin | Noor Haddad | Dorrie Slack-Smith | 31452 | 43-4-10-4 | 4.48 | 184 | 22.3% | One hundred and eighty-four numbers from barrier seven, second on the table, with ten seconds and four wins in 43 career starts. | |
| 8 | 8 | Bitumen | Teddy Lamb | Bronwyn Esch | 54204 | 34-3-8-4 | 8.00 | 103 | 12.5% | One hundred and three numbers off barrier eight, three career wins from 34 starts, and 315 numbers in yesterday's Class B Flat at this venue. | |
| 9 | 9 | Sunday Pages | Ora Benjafield | Nam Tran | 18785 | 46-11-8-6 | 4.85 | 170 | 20.6% | One hundred and seventy numbers from barrier nine for 17.0 per cent, third block, at $4.85. | |
| 10 | 10 | Long Paddock | Gina Mavros | Trudy Aspinall | 23924 | 33-5-7-5 | 43.39 | 19 | 2.3% | The thinnest block on the card at 19 numbers off barrier ten, carrying 0.4 points of the 21.2 the book adds. |
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
- MAL-R3-7D4E2D
- Engine
- GP-Draw 4.2
- Seed
- 7d4e2d232f302ead
- Numbers in the draw
- 1,000
- Book
- 121.2%
- Margin
- 21.2%
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
3.93 210 numbers · 21.0% true
-
Where the book is thinnest
6.39 129 numbers · 12.9% true
-
The outsider
37.47 22 numbers · 2.2% true
The house line first, as every desk read on this site carries it: the finishing order is drawn from the published table without replacement, so form has no predictive power over it, and what follows is an argument about the numbers rather than a forecast. How a virtual race is decided sets out the method.
The table is top-heavy without being settled. Old Telegraph holds 210 numbers, Ninepin 184 and Sunday Pages 170, which is 26 numbers from first block to second and 14 from second to third. Three runners within 40 numbers of each other is a card where the table has little to say, and the three are priced $3.93, $4.48 and $4.85 accordingly, because a price is the block written another way.
Further down, the career column argues the opposite way and gets no vote. Paper Lantern has thirteen wins from 57 starts, the most in the field, and holds 22 numbers at $37.47. Bitumen has three from 34 at the lowest strike rate in the field, 8.8 per cent, and holds 103. Stockyard Gate has won three of its last five and holds 56. The reasoning is in why form cannot predict a draw.
Switchyard is the one to watch for the arithmetic rather than the result: 129 numbers, 12.9 per cent, 15.6 implied, 2.7 points of margin, and five starts on a form line without a win in them. The horse appears on seven of the thirteen cards still to run, on blocks between 32 and 261, and none of those figures was derived from the others.
Mo Farrelly, Form desk
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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