Detlef Jumpertz

Well the Spring Racing Carnival is well and truly with us – does this mean another distraction from drawing (?) – and we've had some spectacular early success. We now have established a sizeable bank that will see us through to the conclusion of the carnival in mid-November.

While the focus of the punting is quite rightly on Melbourne at this time of year, for mine I believe that the race of the year is on this weekend – the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe run over 2400m in Paris. This is Europe's and one of the world's greatest races, for those in Australia the race can be seen live on Sky Channel late Sunday evening.

There are three nominal favourites – Hurricane Run (last year's winner), Shirocco (Breeders' Cup Turf winner) and Deep Impact (the Japanese superstar). The current odds about Deep Impact ($4.00) appear to be very generous. In part this is because of the depth and form lines of the other two European favourites and because no horse and jockey from outside Europe have won the Arc.

It is often said that punting is about value and Deep Impact represents enormous value.

Anyone who saw Deep Impact's win in April in the Tenno Sho over 3200m will concur. Certainly it was the greatest performance over that distance that I have seen, with Deep Impact sustaining a 1000m sprint to the line to blitz his rivals. Yes, the distance of the Arc is 800m less, but the track races longer and Deep Impact has the stamina to be strong at the finish.

Our early success this season will enable us to indulge and outlay some money on the pride of Japan.

A blowout result here with two outsiders filling the quinella and Deep Impact finishing 3rd - still the race analysis was good as was the value we got fixed price seeing DI started at $1.20. From here we move on to the local action at Randwick and Flemington next week.