Stonnington Masters 300m

With more entries than the womens gift maybe they should put more focus on this race. If they wont then I will. There are a number of chances here to run quick times. I had thought the last two winners might have featured but they are probably out of it now.

Might want to add in Leigh Phelan 4m Mex

Sorry Lord of the Gifts he is not on the entry list according to the VAL website. He will be tough to keep out of the final if he has a late entry.

I can assure you that despite not being on the entry list for any events at Stonnington and Avondale he is entered in the 300 masters at Stonnington, the 70 don at Avondale and the 400 at Avondale take my word for it. So include him In those 2 Avondale polls

Of the past nine 300's this season eight have been won by vets off a mark less than 34 metres. Can Scotsman Graeme Armstrong break the trend. He is off 42m and after multiple seconds should get the haggis. It is starting to look like outmarkers are just making up the numbers in this event. It has been mooted around the traps but maybe time to have over 50s as well.

DDog - this is handicap racing so separating age groups even further (i.e open / Masters) doesn't make much sense to me.

Also apart from maybe 1 300m this year, they have all been pretty close from memory and generally always are.

To really see if this is an issue (maybe you're right) I'd guess you'd have to:

a) Look at about 3 years worth of data
b) Look at the % of runners who competed that had >34m compared to those under
c) Compare the placing of those > 34m compared to those <34m
d) Look at how much those people missed out by on the win or a place

I'm sure there are lots more things to do a deeper dive into and if anyone loves stats and/or has the time the analysis would be interesting reading to say the least.

If there is a clear imbalance, I'd still argue this may be more of a job for our lovely handicapper than splitting the age groups.

(P.S Secretly happy though to lose of a few of those faster backmarkers that come wizzing past, but that might just kill all the fun)

This race will be another one worth watching. The final will be bunched at the end. Two main favourites and Phelan for Tim.

Tancredi has been in the mix for every 300m he has entered. He must win one soon. Is it now or later in the year. Can he get another metre before Stawell? The way I see it is that Armstrong will be right there on the line. Tancredi will run on and try and find a gap in the shortest way possible while Phelan will try and out run them wide. If Tancredi can get the run on the inside then he wins. If not then Armstrong finally takes home a sash. Phelan will run on for a top five finish if he has in fact entered late.

Other finalists - Mair (Stawell), Pooley (Stawell), Fawcett (Stawell), Pasquali (Stawell) and Polichovski (Stawell). What a great final it will be twice in the year!

I'm with the voting public; Tancredi should get what he deserves and win, although he might need an inside run to do it as there are some guys in front getting out to some handy marks.

If he hasn't won by Stawell he would have definitely earnt a 1-2m lift in my eyes with the effort shown to date.

Mex - funny how you mentioned Phelan always runs wide at the turn and you're 100% right, he seemingly likes to try and pull them in in clear territory rather than stick to the rail and hope for some space to open up. Could get lucky but not quite enough pace off 4m to pull that off.

Many others to mentioned who will be in it up to their eye balls if they want to.....good luck to all runners!