The card
Today, 25 October 2026 · as at 25 October 2026
- Venue
- Saltbush Flat
- Code
- Thoroughbred
- Class
- Feature
- Distance
- 1200m
- Surface
- Turf
- Cycle
- Day
- Each way
- 1/4 odds, places 1-2-3-4
The Saltbush Dash is the feature at Saltbush Flat, 1200 metres in a straight line at 3.24pm, draw id SAL-R6-AC8738. The venue has no circumference because it has no circuit: the whole course is a 1200 metre chute running to the post, which is also the home straight. Twelve is the field, and a straight course is the one shape that starts twelve in line abreast.
Stockyard Gate holds 259 of the 1,000 numbers from barrier four and Paper Lantern 218 from barrier three, which is 477 between two of the twelve. Dry Lightning is next on 135. Then the card falls away: nine runners hold fewer than a hundred numbers each and the thinnest, Tally Room, holds nine, a spread of nearly 29-fold from top to bottom.
The book is 125.8, the second-largest of the cards still to run. The each-way terms are a quarter of the odds for places one to four, which is what a field of twelve gets on this circuit. Barrier one and barrier twelve are the same thing here and the table says so. The drift across the course inside the last 300 metres is rendered, and no part of it reaches the result.
Field
12 runners · no scratchings on this circuit
| No | Colours | Barrier | Runner | Jockey | Trainer | Form | Record | Price | Numbers | Implied | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Pennyroyal | Priya Sandhu | Vera Lindqvist | 22230 | 49-13-6-7 | 8.46 | 94 | 11.8% | Ninety-four numbers from barrier one, with the best career strike rate in the field at 26.5 per cent from 49 starts. | |
| 2 | 2 | Bitumen | Jonty Mapp | Bronwyn Esch | 54204 | 34-3-8-4 | 18.94 | 42 | 5.3% | Forty-two numbers off barrier two at $18.94, against the 315 it held at Mallee Park yesterday. | |
| 3 | 3 | Paper Lantern | Kaz Tupou | Nam Tran | 50432 | 57-13-9-6 | 3.65 | 218 | 27.4% | Two hundred and eighteen numbers from barrier three, second block, and thirteen career wins beside it that the table did not read. | |
| 4 | 4 | Stockyard Gate | Cleo Baird | Faisal Karim | 41101 | 43-9-5-3 | 3.07 | 259 | 32.6% | The top block at 259 numbers off barrier four, 25.9 per cent, and 6.7 points of margin on a book of 125.8. | |
| 5 | 5 | Switchyard | Eli Vandermeer | Bronwyn Esch | 48758 | 34-5-3-3 | 8.94 | 89 | 11.2% | Eighty-nine numbers from barrier five at $8.94, fifth on the table and 36 numbers clear of the next. | |
| 6 | 6 | Old Telegraph | Ruby Nankervis | Coen McTiernan | 26837 | 34-5-6-4 | 20.40 | 39 | 4.9% | Thirty-nine numbers off barrier six, 3.9 per cent, and the only runner from its stable in the field. | |
| 7 | 7 | Tally Room | Ora Benjafield | Hugh Pentland | 15069 | 34-8-5-2 | 88.39 | 9 | 1.1% | Nine numbers from barrier seven, the thinnest block on the card, at $88.39 — the second-longest price in the published programme. | |
| 8 | 8 | Sunday Pages | Rhys Calder | Nam Tran | 18785 | 46-11-8-6 | 41.87 | 19 | 2.4% | Nineteen numbers off barrier eight, eleven career wins from 46 starts, and 327 numbers at Tin Creek tomorrow afternoon. | |
| 9 | 9 | Marble Bar | Gina Mavros | Vera Lindqvist | 98367 | 29-6-3-3 | 72.32 | 11 | 1.4% | Eleven numbers from barrier nine at $72.32, 1.4 per cent implied, and 1.1 per cent of the draw itself. | |
| 10 | 10 | Fence Line | Teddy Lamb | Faisal Karim | 57243 | 41-4-5-9 | 24.86 | 32 | 4.0% | Thirty-two numbers off barrier ten, nine career thirds from 41 starts, and 196 numbers in The Meridian in two days. | |
| 11 | 11 | Ridgeback | Noor Haddad | Hugh Pentland | 5980 | 16-3-3-3 | 15.01 | 53 | 6.7% | Fifty-three numbers from barrier eleven, 5.3 per cent, with only four starts on its form line. | |
| 12 | 12 | Dry Lightning | Linc Pappas | Trudy Aspinall | 04926 | 31-7-5-4 | 5.89 | 135 | 17.0% | One hundred and thirty-five numbers off barrier twelve, third block, two days after running second in the Class C Sprint over this course. |
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
- SAL-R6-AC8738
- Engine
- GP-Draw 4.2
- Seed
- ac8738f134711002
- Numbers in the draw
- 1,000
- Book
- 125.8%
- Margin
- 25.8%
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
3.07 259 numbers · 25.9% true
-
Where the book is thinnest
8.46 94 numbers · 9.4% true
-
The outsider
88.39 9 numbers · 0.9% true
Stated once and then set aside: a weighted draw has no form to read forward, so this is a reading of the published table and not a prediction. The full column on this card is in the form desk; what follows is the shape of the field.
Two blocks carry 477 of the 1,000 and ten blocks carry 523. That is the whole card. Stockyard Gate at $3.07 and Paper Lantern at $3.65 are the two shortest prices on either of today's two gallops cards, and the nine runners under a hundred numbers are priced from $8.46 out to $88.39.
The thin end is where this table is worth reading. Tally Room holds nine numbers with eight career wins from 34 starts. Marble Bar holds eleven with six from 29. Sunday Pages holds nineteen with eleven from 46, and holds 327 numbers at Tin Creek tomorrow, seventeen times as many. Three thin blocks on one table, and one of the three names on a block of 327 the next afternoon.
Pennyroyal is the clearest case on the programme of the two columns disagreeing. It has the best career strike rate in the field at 26.5 per cent, it was last of twelve over this course two days ago from a block of thirteen, and today it holds 94 numbers from barrier one. All three facts are true and none of them caused another.
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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