Past News Yea 14th March 2009

Picnic Bookies Always a Better Bet !

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Results for Woolamai, no report this week.

VALE BRIAN BREN
The Picnic Racing fraternity was saddened on Wednesday, March 18, to learn of the passing of former bookmaker and picnic racing enthusiast, Brian Bren, who after a courageous 5 year battle finally lost the fight against his serious illness.

Brian experienced the highs and lows of racing but in the past 17 years or so was content to devote his experience and talent solely to bookmaking at picnic race meetings. Brian handed in his licence at the end of the 2007/8 season.

Brian Bren fielding at Alexandra Picnic Races.

A highly intelligent person, Brian, who could have made his mark in the world in a variety of professions, but, as a teenager his school teacher father took him to a greyhound meeting where he proceeded to back the majority of winners and he was hooked on punting for life.

A genious with figures, a great student of form and a second to none price assessor, Brian was a respected figure in the betting ring at any picnic race meeting. His humourous asides such as "fight your way through", "the good thing of the day" and "not much of it left" were legendry.

Brian loved picnic racing and did all he could to improve the image and status of the amateur scene. He penned the popular column "At the Picnics" in the Winning Post (for no recompense) where he descriptively summarised the previous week's picnic meeting, promoted future meetings and put forward his ideas for improvements to picnic racing. Brian introduced a web site with all the latest picnic information and pioneered the distribution of form guides to patrons at picnic meetings.

He was the first bookmaker in Victoria to display decimal odds on his board and also introduced a "mystery bet" as an alternative betting form. Brian was instrumental in inexperienced amateur riders being able to claim a weight allowance and at the forefront of insisting riders should be
nominated at acceptances. Hopefully a race named in Brian's memory can be arranged for a picnic race meeting next season.

Brian's funeral will be held at 1.30pm on Tuesday March 24 at St Michael's in Berwick.

Ken Pitcher
(former clerk and friend)

BADLY NEEDED RAIN CUTS DAY SHORT
Despite requiring some badly needed rain it unfortunately cut short the Yea Cup meeting which was postponed after race three. The day had begun with a few heavy showers but once they cleared all looked good for the rest of the afternoon. However, after race three the stewards and jockeys inspected a section of track near the 800 metres and it was deemed unsafe to continue to race.

Dame Melba win race 2 on the card.
Video courtesy of Video Air Services, servicing all your picnic video & photography needs.

Prior to the postponment of the meeting the track had been downgraded from a Good 3 to a Dead 5 and then a Heavy 8 at 1:15pm. This threw the form out the window for the first three races where horses tracking out wide and coming from behind seemed to have the advantage. The winners were Galaxy Knight $4-60, Dame Melba $8-00 and West Ho at $3-20.

Full results for Yea. View the days happenings at the Gallery.

Next week we return to Woolamai for their final meeting of the season. The 7 day weather forecast is for a maximum of 25 degrees which should be ideal for a day at the picnics.

Good luck on the punt,

Peter Bon

Full Picnic Race Dates for 2008 -2009 Season
Full Race Program for 2008-2009 Season

BETTING FLUCTUATIONS ONLINE
This season the betting fluctuations of races during the course of betting will be published to the Approx. Betting Odds section of the website. For patrons that cannot get to the races or betting ring and want an indication of the odds on offer before betting this is a great innovation.

You can then bet via the Racing Victoria Telephone Betting system. To open a Telephone Betting account with Peter Bon visit PicnicBet.com so you can avail yourself of this new capability.

m. for Mobiles
You can also access the odds from your mobile phone browser via the address m.picnicbet.com

Whether offcourse or oncourse, from the betting ring to the marquees to the stables you can readily get the markets and conveniently place a bet at either Peter Bon's Top Fluctuation or the current odds on offer.


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