A few of the boys get involved in a carnival stables competition each autumn and spring. The idea is you can purchase 1 stable in the competition for $25 in each stable you have to select 10 horses. Each stable has the option to own up to $1000 dollars worth of horses with a horses list giving values from $200 per horse down to $25 per horse depending on their skill, breeding and performance. The winner at the end of the carnival is the stable whose horses have earned the most prize money.

Part of the enjoyment of this competition is before the stable entries close we generally all get together at someone’s house and order some food (pizza, Indian or Thai). We crack a beer, choose the horses for the stables and make fun of each others selections. For instance last spring one of the stable members chose a horse called ‘Viewed’ in his stable. At the time myself and another member tore strips of this bloke and advised him that this was the niff selection of the year. When ‘Viewed’ won the Melbourne cup I decided that abusing other members for their selections may not be the smartest thing in the world to do.

Also as a part of the stable selection process we carry out, what we call ‘The Nostradamus’ to predict who will win some of the big races in the carnival, for bragging rights mainly. We had a good giggle last night at our 2007 selections and I thought it would be worth publishing 2009’s selections for future giggles.

I am perplexed at the sudden support for Jelena Dokic (I am to lazy to add the extra symbol over the C in Dokic). As I recall Jelena denounced this country to play for other countries not so long ago. Now with one half decent performance Aussie Open she is the queen of the court again? I will never and I mean EVER understand the idiosyncrasies of what is popular and what isn’t.

In terms of popularity all I can tell you is horizontal striped polo shirts were ‘in’ once before, they have been ‘in’ since and the will be ‘in’ again. And I will be there to ride that horizontal striped train all the way.

Anyway back to the Tennis. I see Roger Federer is still powering along and I think is currently offering the juiciest odds you will ever get out of him again. I was lucky enough to secure $3.30 a little while ago with a sensational all up bet and am riding that gravy train all the way to profittsville, population me. I hope he can destroy Roddick tonight as he has done in the past. For those interested Fox Sports 1 is showing a UFC94 countdown show tonight at 6:30pm EST.

Kick away Apache.

Instead of sooking about the treatment of our national flag by ‘the public’ I thought I would concentrate on the more important tradition of the Australia day long weekend, the Sport.

The traditional one-day game however turned out to be a sore point with Australia’s dismal summer continuing in bucket loads. Much to my surprise and against earlier rants about my boredom watching 50/50 over games, the inclusion of new power plays has improved the excitement stakes. The excitement level did not increase Australia’s ability to win with the South Africans giving us the flogging of a lifetime. I agree with most of Peter Roebucks stinging indictment against the Australian batting order this morning. However his ‘pass’ for David Warner is still not warranted in my opinion.

On a personal note we started a new yearly tradition for Australia day ourselves. The first annual old blokes versus the young blokes cricket match took place on a turf pitch at a suburban Brisbane cricket oval on Sunday. After much sledging and slogging the match drew to an inevitable draw in the evening light. A most enjoyable day except for the clear lack of preparation by me for the days festivities. I look forward to an opportunity to play next year with the hope that preparation will equal an even more enjoyable day. One wicket and 20 runs is below what I would expect from myself. Cheers to the Freckly Kid and Reecey ‘the tragic Snap Dragon’ for organising both teams and to the Freckly Kid again for the BBQ spread he put on after the game. Lots of laughs and giggles makes for a great Australia Day tradition in my opinion.

In Boxing
Sugar Shane Moserly did exactly what I thought he would and dominated Antonio Margarito in a one sided affair on Sunday. In the ninth round kid Sugar put the Mexican on his clacker for the third and final time resulting in a tidy return for yours truly.

In keeping with tidy returns…
El Segundo was back without much fanfare on Friday night but he did come home pretty well. Light Fantastic was a much better run and I will be keeping ‘the Fantastic’ in my stables through the Autumn. Another bit of excitement occurred for me yesterday with a horse in Western Australia bobbing up at the juicy odds of 39.90 the win. A blind bet based on the name of the horse could not have turned out better for me! KENNEDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mixed Martial Arts
Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko won yet again in sensational fashion on Sunday with a stunning mid air knock out of Belarusian power house Andrei Arlovski. The first time I saw it, I though Arlovski had jumped in the air and just landed on his face but after a replay it was clear what had occurred, Fedor had knocked Arlovski the hell out! Brutal, watch it here.

It has been a long time but champion race horse El Segundo goes around again Friday night at 8:15pm. Not only that the race is packed full of other track stars. Also going around in the same race is Light Fantastic, Lucky Secret and Von Costa De Hero. Happy Days.

Oh, I nearly forgot here are some photos of the Girls of Mixed Martial Arts. Warning there are some skimpily clad women on display.

Short but sweet today.

The time for a change is upon us and much celebration is occurring. I am just not sure how Obama is going to do it. I am not saying he can’t do it, a big part of it will be figuring out exactly what “it” is, but it appears to be one heck of a task.

I am also unsure where all this faith that Obama can change things so much for the better comes from. He is just one man. As far as I can tell, he has not been up to Mount Rushmore and channelled those blokes so he is pretty much a n00b in the same situation as the presidents who came before him.

The first problem I see is that the US is in so much debt it is not funny. At 10.5 trillion dollars every man women and child owes a staggering $34,500 dollars to the rest of us. If this change is going to occur it is going to have to be the cheapest dam “change” in history, or their debt levels will get even higher. I suspect if this happens it will definitely result in a change but not necessarily for the better.

He doesn’t seem to be starting out on the right track in the money stakes with his inauguration costs blowing out to the vicinity of $170 million, which dwarfs Bush’s last inauguration by a factor of 4. Sure, it is important to come to the office with a sense of substance but come on. I guess a lot of this will be increased security costs much of which are a result of changes in the world over the last few years, but man that is a lot of cash

It is one tough job he has gone and got himself. Credit to him for putting his hand up but its time for the party to end and the hard work to start.

I am not sure about you but I wish to hell our politicians would stop telling us how bad this recession is going to be. I think we all have a feel on it so there is no need for both sides to ‘chicken little’ it up any longer.

I am not sure what they are trying to achieve by acting negatively in this way. Perhaps they are hoping to drum it into us that it is not their fault and won’t attack them at the next election, but it makes no sense for both sides to take this tack.

It is dead set like a freakin funeral every time I change channels. Now we have some so called “Leading Economic Forecaster”, Access Economics telling us that the budget is buggered and that Australia will go into recession this year. Well I am not sure which cereal company are issuing the latest Leading Economy Forecaster awards but this has to be the award for “thanks captain obvious”.

Lets take a deep breath and keep pushing on with what we were doing 8 months ago!

These two champions are going to fight again!! One is the champion of the 155 pounds division the other 170 pound champ. After a razor sharp judges decision last time this time they are going to decide who is the best on the best and we get to see it!

Some of you don’t like the fact I keep pushing the UFC here but rest assured I am going to keep doing it regardless… from time to time.

In terms of hyping a fight the first minute of the below video and the comments from BJ Penn are enough for me. He doesn’t mean it to be taken the wrong way, it is purely a statement about his intentions for their upcoming fight. It got me interested anyway.

The UFC are releasing a 3 part series following both fighters in preparation for this up coming fight on the 1st of February. I will post them here if I can get them from the net for anyone interested.