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Turf Deli Dud Of The Week
PineappleHead for PumpkinHeads 19/10/00

We at Turf Deli snicker uncontrollably every time we hear the word ‘betting system’. Its just a natural, extremely cynical, but long conditioned response, having seen so many come and go,with so many bold and brash claims. Like the words "Pre-Game Entertainment" and "Revolution in Hair Care" you’ve got to wear that air of cynicism straight away. So it was a considerable eyebrow of curiosity that raised when Channel 9 announced that they were planning to employ a virtual racing tipping system called ‘Pineapplehead’ during this Spring Racing Carnival.

We downloaded the By A Nose software and gave it a run through. Absolutely simplistic to the extreme, the only information you need to enter are horse number, barrier number, and last 5 starts - just the numbers of where the horse finished, it matters not whether you won at Swan Hill or won the Cox Plate last start - all that matters is that you won. Whilst we support the non-egalitarian, socially equitable and politically correct agenda supporting the software, really, it does make a difference whether you won a Group 1 or a Maiden last start. It also matters what jockey is riding, what conditions the track is (dry or wet), how far the race is, how the horse goes at the track and any of a swag of other factors. The cynicism remains firmly in tact.

To be fair, Pineapplehead, has another facet, a track bias simulator. Which, as far as we can tell, means they have mapped all the city courses in Australia, so you know where that slight bump in the course is, or where that old tree root is that you may or may not trip over. What all this means though is that you get to take a virtual, clunky 3 D ride around the course - which could so easily be replaced with a real camera on the back of a real clunky truck for the real thing. Why simulate something you can just film in real time anyway ? This 3 D ride seems to be set for each course, and you just get the same thing over and over again, just with slightly different distances for each race. If they mapped where the fast lanes and better going was each week - then we would be impressed. That would actually be useful ! Yes we are hard to impress, but we also know a dud when we see one.

So, how does Pineapplehead stack up against other systems ? It compares favourably to "Pin the Tail on The Donkey", and "Take the number your first thought of, divide by 2, etc...", but fails to reach the dizzy heights of "Box your phone number in the trifecta"




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