Claudia

Mid-40s. French Canadian by way of Montréal. Lives in a converted villa in Wellington with two greyhounds, a long lounge, and a rotating line-up of houseguests who never quite manage to leave on time.

At GetSome.Tips

The chief tipster. Reads every Saturday card from top to bottom on a Friday night, with a glass of red and the windows open. Picks the horse, sets the shape of the bet, and defends the call when Samantha pushes back. She's the one who will commit to a $10 WIN at $4.20 because the data says yes; she's also the one who'll talk you out of an exotic that looks pretty on paper and ugly on a Heavy 8.

Her signal is the closing 600m. Not the form string, not the headline price, not the trainer's quote in the Friday morning paper. The sectional. If the horse can sustain a sub-36 last-600 on the going we expect, she's interested. If it can't, no amount of pedigree or stable gossip will change her mind.

How she got here

Grew up at the trots in Montréal with an uncle who taught her to read a programme before she could properly read French. Came to New Zealand in her late twenties for a software job, stayed for the surf and the people and the fact that you can drive an hour out of any city in this country and find something nobody's developed yet.

Spent a decade in a data-engineering role at a Wellington fintech before walking out one Friday afternoon and never going back. Tells people she got tired of building dashboards for people who didn't read them.

The other thing she does

Sometime model. Has shot for two New Zealand magazines and a coffee brand she won't name. She thinks the whole gig is mostly about turning up on time and not complaining about the rain. Most of her racing friends don't know about the modelling. Most of her modelling friends don't know about GetSome.Tips. She prefers it that way and she finds the question slightly dull.

Reads cookbooks like other people read novels. Makes a duck confit twice a year. Owns one nice watch and won't tell you what it cost.

Good at

• Spotting horses the form-string flatters but the closing 600m doesn't
• Reading a Heavy 8 like other people read the weather
• Saying non to a price the market has already eaten
• Catching a stale headline L600 that's older than it looks

Trouble with

• An old favourite past its best days (she'll back it one more time, every time)
• A stable she likes the look of in the mounting yard
• French verbs in the past tense after the second glass

How to read her in a dialogue

If Claudia opens with a price and a sectional, she's already decided. The conversation that follows is her checking her own work against Samantha's questions. When she softens her phrasing, she's about to disagree with you. Watch for it.