Racing: Dilemma for Pick6 punters

The return of Changeover at Alexandra Park tonight makes for a fascinating punting experiment.

And one most bettors won't want to fail.

The reappearance of a defending New Zealand Cup winner is usually an exciting moment in the harness racing season, especially when it consolidates open class racing at Alexandra Park for the next month.

But after his second group one disqualification for a positive swab was handed down a few weeks ago, nothing Changeover does is normal any more.

Depending on where you sit on the spectrum of opinions on Changeover he is either a great horse, a great horse with stains on his career, an over-rated very good horse, a drug-cheat fraud or, for the real zealots, the anti-Christ in hopples.

He has become the most controversial pacer in decades, the poster child for the deeds of his even more controversial trainer Geoff Small.

But this is where the really interesting stuff begins.

Regardless of what you think of Small and/or Changeover they hold the key to tonight's $15,000 feature pace.

And that in turn holds the key to the $75,000 Pick6 and the quaddie which has a $20,000 bonus injected into the pool.

So if you fancy a bet on harness racing, Changeover is going to be sort of hard to ignore tonight and for the next few months.

So how will those so invested in this saga react?

There are punters in harness racing who will tell you, and anybody else who will listen, they hate Geoff Small and Changeover. So can those same people divorce emotion from their punting?

Can they bare the thought of anchoring Changeover in Pick6, which would be the logical thing to do, and then cheering home the devil himself?

Or will they put their money where their mouth is and show the cheats who is boss and back something else?

Of course, Changeover doesn't know or care about any of this but the faces of the anti-Small army, who may well be fully justified in their fury, could make interesting viewing around the country tonight.

Especially as Small not only has Changeover in the most pivotal harness race of the weekend, but three other major chances, including the likely second and third favourites.

New Zealand punters are notoriously emotional, you only have to observe how Auckland punters follow northern horses at Addington, or how short our horses used to come up on our totes when racing in Australia.

It is a weakness in our national punting psyche which comes from the TAB monopoly and the fact we didn't grow up in a bookmaker-driven, educated punting society like Australia.

But professional punters will tell you emotion is the greatest of all enemies to good punting.

So, what is more important to the Changeover-Small haters: their emotion or cold, hard cash?

Of course there is one other option. Diehard harness racing fans could turn off and not watch the race, boycotting Small, Changeover and anything to do with the toxic mess.

But even the ones who say they are going to do that aren't really, are they?

So, what do I think?

Well, Changeover won the New Zealand Cup last year after settling near last so a 30m handicap against moderate horses, even over 2200m, shouldn't stop him.

He is the unemotional, logical anchor for Pick6, the quaddie and multi bets, providing he doesn't strike traffic problems.

But then again there will be those who think he is a fraud whose engine, now forced to operate on unleaded petrol, may be totally exposed.

That all depends on who you ask.