The two-year-old races this season are bounding along without much fanfare. Most of the races offered are being filled and that is good. There, however, has been no non-winners of two races run as yet while no one horse has ignited the faithful.

The first two-year-old race run around the turn, took place on Saturday when eight juveniles competed in a maiden event over five furlongs (1,000 metres) round. After a brief struggle for the lead involving Chalice Pipe and Playback, the former racing for the first time moved away convincingly to win by 12 lengths with Computerize third.

It was a victory to note as Chalice Pipe was being eased in the final furlong and a half by his rider Dick Cardenas. Certainly a good win and as stated by track announcer Brian Rickman in his commentary “Chalice Pipe is certainly one to follow.”

While the connections were enjoying their victory, something odd occurred with the betting. For most of the time leading up to the start of the race, Chalice Pipe was showing odds of 1/9, as the prohibitive favourite. Play Back for most of that time was hovering around odds of 7/5, 8/5, as the second favourite.

Then came the start of the race and the final show of the odds — Chalice Pipe surged to 4/5 with Play Back tumbling down to 2/5, hence Play Back ended as the odds-on favourite.

Strange happenings indeed.