Ballarat Cup day today and the Professor and the Gelding REVEAL their best bets for today’s racing and the Professor’s Parlay.
Gelding’s tips
Race 3 Horse 2 – Cleo Cat
Race 4 Horse 4 – Pharari
Professor’s tips
Race 8 Horse 7 – Savoir Faire
Race 9 Horse 2 – Berkeley Square
Professor’s Parlay
Race 4 Horse 4 – Pharari into Philadelphia Eagles to beat Carolina panthers (NFL) into Minnesota Vikings to beat Atlanta Falcons (NFL).
Good luck and good punting!
The Professor
The Professor and the Gelding are ready for Pakenham Cup day and are looking to improve on last week’s results. The Pakenham track is currently rated a Good 4 with the rail in the true position.
Don’t forget to back the tips each way!
Pakenham
Professor’s tips
Race 2 Horse 8 – Meteorite (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 7 Horse 7 – Knights Order (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Gelding’s tips
Race 5 Horse 8 – Tavidance
Race 8 Horse 5 – The Astrologist
Professor’s Parlay
Race 8 Horse 5 – The Astrologist into Manchester City to beat Fulham (EPL) into Minnesota Vikings to beat Jacksonville Jaguars (NFL).
Good luck and good punting!
The Professor
The Professor and the Gelding were a tad unlucky last week with two of their selections scratched and two placings for the remaining horses. Hopefully, today will see a better day of punting on Ballarat Cup day.
Don’t forget to back the tips each way!
Ballarat
Professor’s tips
Race 1 Horse 2 – The Gauch (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 7 Horse 6 – Think N Fly (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Gelding’s tips
Race 8 Horse 4 – Junipal
Race 9 Horse 3 – The Astrologist
Professor’s Parlay
Race 9 Horse 3 – The Astrologist into Manchester United to beat West Bromwich Albion (EPL) into Minnesota Vikings to beat Dallas Cowboys (NFL).
Good luck and good punting!
The Professor
Adrian Peterson pleaded ‘no contest’ yesterday to a misdemeanour charge of reckless assault which arose out of him ‘punishing’ his child. He was fined $4,000.00 and ordered to perform 80 hours of community service.
With the legal proceedings out of the way, the question now is whether or not the NFL, through Commissioner Goodell, will re-instate Peterson and allow him to play the balance of the NFL season. Since playing the first game, Peterson has missed seven games.
The NFL has said it will review the Court documents and other material prior to making a decision. Given the recent backlash over the handling of the Ray Rice affair, you can bet that the NFL will proceed with extreme caution in an effort to avoid a similar public outcry over lenient penalties.
Peterson must at least serve the minimum six match suspension for being involved in a ‘domestic violence’ situation. Given that he has been on full pay whilst on the Commissioner’s Permission List (by the way, the only player that is on that list), the suspension would see him penalised around $5.4 million of salary.
A decision by the NFL could still be some weeks away, so I would think that the six games plus games missed while a decision is being made, is sufficient penalty, bearing in mind that any second offence brings a lifetime ban.
The NFL is only the first hurdle for Peterson to get over though as the Minnesota Vikings have yet to indicate whether they will play him even if he becomes eligible. That may be a tougher sell for Peterson than the NFL.
12 December 2010 183.1 – Sean makes a rare appearance in studio and Daniel starts with an apology as it took him five days to read Mark Fiorenti’s blog so he knows nothing about what happened in the sports world for the week. He also adds his favourite Qatar player after some research is Eric Clapton and Sean adds that FIFA’s new game Qatar hero. Stan gets into Daniel again about basketball asking him how he thinks the Melbourne Tigers will go against Perth. Sean thinks as it is Al Westover’s 200th game it may get the Tigers across the line. Their is also a discussion about the the test cricket side and Stan is for sacking all the player sand the selectors. Dan Butterly talks US sport and commences with his view on the Heisman trophy and who will win it. He thinks Cam Newton from Auburn will win it, even with all the cloud of suspicion over him regarding the behaviour of his father. Dan also talks about the Bowl matches coming up with 35 being played over three weeks. He likes Oregon to beat Auburn in the Championship game and TCU 
to beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl. There are moves afoot within the Conferences and Hawaii has now decided to leave the WAC and join the MWC in 2012. The Professor asks whether the MWC will play a game in Australia given Hawaii is halfway here. Dan agrees that it would raise the MWC profile. Sean says AAMI stadium would be perfect to host such a game. Dan feels Brett Favre’s streak will end at 297 as he will not recover in time to play in tomorrow’s game.
The Professor thinks there may have been a first last week when the Gelding was not on the show at all. The Gelding talks cricket first discussing the problems with Victorians trying to get into the Test
side. He then moves on to racing and reviews his selections for the Flemington meeting. Although he got off to a great start tipping Aloha to win, it was all downhill from there with his other three selections failing to even be placed. The Gelding’s favourite Qatar player is Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin.
The Panel discusses Gary Ablett’s revelations during the week where he hadn’t spoken to his coach, Bomber Thompson since March this year. Sean talks about a rumor that James Hird and Thompson had been talking about getting together for 2012 but because Essendon’s coterie groups wanted Matthew Knights out, everything got moved forward 
twelve months. Daniel starts talking about Bob Costas (NBC sportscaster) but he really means the Geelong president, Frank Costa. Stan is swinging the axe again and Sean observes he is going to put Centrelink out of business as everyone is getting the knife.
Mark Fiorenti talks up the local Melbourne derby between the Heart and the Victory with over 23,000 at AAMi stadium. Sean went to his first game during the week to see Heart play but they went down in front of around 2,000 people. Mark says it was the lowest ever at an A League game in Melbourne. He says the FFA must address this as mid week games don’t work.
28 November 2010 181.1 – Daniel is suffering with a toothache and gets plenty of sympathy, especially from Stan who says if you don’t clean 
your teeth you pay the penalty. The Gelding is late but hopefully he has a note from home. Stan has his weekly question to Daniel on the Melbourne Tigers. Daniel says he doesn’t think Tigers coach Al Westover should be sacked because he likes him. The Gelding talks about the First Ashes Test and the form of Michael Hussey. Daniel wants to know why Brad Hodge isn’t in the team and Stan observes that it is probably due to Victorian batsmen having fallen foul of the selectors in the past. Dan Butterly delivers his US report and starts 
with a discussion of Vince Young hurling his pads into the stands and then texting an apology to the coach, Jeff Fisher. He thinks that it was easier to get rid of Brad Childress than Brett Favre in Minnesota. He doesn’t think Favre will quit until the end of the season. In the NBA he feels that the Miami Heat don’t have a leader on the team as Wade, LeBron and Chris Bosh are all playing ‘nice’ to each other. Daniel talks to Dan about LeBron’s return to Cleveland and says it should be an exciting game. He would go if he had a ticket. Daniel would like to see LeBron not voted into the starting five in
the NBA All Star game and wants the Professor (and Sportzfan listeners) to vote for Amare Stoudemire to try and achieve this. Dan thinks LeBron will do the ‘powder clap’ in Cleveland. He has nothing new to report on Carmelo Anthony and says he will be staying with the Nuggets at this stage. In College football he is amazed that Boise State missed a field goal against Nevada that would have won the game. They went on to lose it and therefore won’t play for the national championship. Dan also talks on the BCS comments from Ohio State President Gordon Gee – he disagrees with him 
naturally. In MLB, the Yankees playing hardball with Derek Jeter but Dan believes he’ll eventually resign for what the Yankees have offered. Daniel explains the ‘powder clap’ for the listeners. The Gelding talks about the winners and losers from Sandown and Randwick and says the rain played havoc with the fields due to so many scratchings. The Panel discusses the heavy penalty handed out to rider Danny Nikolic over his behaviour to stewards after he was found wearing a modified racing vest.
Prior to commencing this rant, I need to declare myself as a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan.
When I heard that Brett Favre was coming back for another season with the Minnesota Vikings in
August this year, I polled a number of people about how difficult it would be at 40+ to step back in as a quarterback in the NFL with no adequate pre-season training or conditioning. It is not surprising that all those questioned said that it would be almost impossible. The season is certainly playing out like that for Favre. There was one other word used by the people responding…’arrogance’. Not a word that I had really associated with Brett Favre until then.
I suppose that I have wanted to give Brett the benefit of the doubt over the years…even through all those years of ‘will he or won’t he?’ (aka THE decision) at Green Bay when, as a supporter, it was what I 
expect death by a thousand cuts to be like. But that was Brett being Brett and he was in the most part forgiven each year (by the way LeBron only did it once…and look how he has been pilloried in the media).
At the time the Packers made the move to go with Aaron Rodgers, I was dismayed and upset about the thought of Favre not being part of the Packers again. However, the Packers rightly said enough was enough and took control of the quarterback situation for the long term. With the benefit of hindsight it was a great decision as since then Favre’s career reads more like a soap opera episode than a sporting career. If we take out the stellar season with the Vikings last year, we see a mediocre season with the New York Jets where there was bickering amongst the team and this year where the scene is playing out exactly the same
only this time in Minnesota. We also have the unwanted distraction of the sordid allegations surrounding Favre and a former Jets female employee which are being investigated by the NFL.
I must say that I never thought I would hear the call from the media for Favre to call it a career and retire….or worse be benched by the Vikings in favour of Tavaris Jackson. But they are the unfortunate realities when one tempts fate and tries to go to the well on one too many occasions.
I sincerely hope that Brett finds a way to exit gracefully from the playing field without the decision being made for him. Like I said, I hope but somehow I think that word ‘arrogance’ may stand in the way of that happening.
7 November 2010 178.1 – Stan doesn’t take long to take Daniel to task about the performance on the Melbourne Tigers and queries whether the Tigers, Tiger Woods or the Australian cricket team will be the next to win. Daniel hints that one of the Tigers imports could be cut very soon. Stan wonders whether the Tigers should bring back Lindsay Gaze. One of our twitterers says bring back Andrew Gaze or the Tigers will remain a mess. Dan Butterly talks US sport including NFL with the Randy Moss/Minnesota Vikings/Brad Childress/Brett Favre debacle and the will she or won’t she tell the NFL. He also discusses the quarter back ‘controversy’ at the Washington Redskins with Mike Shanahan benching Donovan McNabb at the end of a game. MLB is wrapped up with the San Francisco Giants overcoming the Texas Rangers in five games. In College football, the Air Force Academy defeats Army to take the Commander in Chief’s trophy. The Panel talks with the Gelding and JC about JC’s horse ‘It’ll Be Fantastic’ then goes on to discuss the Emirates Stakes day and the winners and losers at the track.
