Flemington, Saturday, 9th. February 2002
Horse, jockey and trainer	Firmed from		% Firm	Finish	Beaten margin
Our Jermyn Street	5.00	3.80	6.67	2/8	3.3 lengths
Kerrin McEvoy			Tony McEvoy
Spirit Of The Nite	5.00	3.50	8.57	7/9	2.8 lengths
Brett Prebble			Bart Cummings

The racing media has made a big noise about the first up "plunge" on five year old mare Spinning Hill in the 1000 metres Group1 Weight For Age Lightning Stakes.

Typical was a feature boldly headed "Bookies sent spinning" written by Tim Habel, in the Sunday Herald Sun, February 10, 2002. Here is part of what was written:

"Classy Sydney mare Spinning Hill landed a sizeable betting plunge in the $400,000 Lightning Stakes at Flemington yesterday...
Spinning Hill was backed from $21 to $11, with punters snaring more than $200,000 from the bookies' bags at Flemington...
A bet of $100,000 to $5000 with rails bookie Bill Graham triggered the big slice in odds."

Seriously. Is that a betting plunge? Spinning Hill only firmed 4.33% in the betting ring. With the figures given we're talking about $15,000 bet on the horse in the Flemington betting ring. Think about it. Just $15,000. That's not big betting money.

It takes considerably more money bet and risked to move a horse from $5.00 to $4.00 than what was bet on Spinning Hill. It was nothing more than a little specking at odds.

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