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Four meetings across two days, all on the soft going. I've got tips running at Te Rapa, Whanganui, Matamata, and Oamaru. Weekend like this is where the shape of the track does half the work for you.

Te Rapa on Soft7 didn't fire. Three winners got away from me: Arwen, Tristar, Erin Go Bragh. I don't like making excuses, but the pace patterns I was reading didn't stack up the way I thought they would. That's on the reading, not the picks.

Whanganui gave me a placer with Benerro. One winner slipped through, Mr Mojo Risin'. Oamaru came better, Royal Sovereigns got the cheque. Matamata was the hardest day. Five winners I should have caught. Pre Nup, Dare To Proisir, Trouble Maker, Flamenco, Pegasus. Non, that stings. The Soft7 there was deeper than I measured.

I'm pulling apart what the method saw right and wrong this weekend. Some patterns held. Some didn't. That's the work now.

Matamata ran soft, and I had one in the book. Blank. The skip post-mortem turned up five we could have caught: Pre Nup, Dare To Proisir, Trouble Maker, Flamenco, Pegasus. Non, that stings. I'll be back at that card when the ground firms.

Oamaru was kinder. Two tips, one home: Royal Sovereigns got the money. The track playing Soft5 meant pace stayed honest, and the older horses had room to work. I'll take that.

Te Rapa ran soft and gave us nothing. I don't like how the track played. Three winners we could have read, Arwen among them, but that's the game.

Whanganui was kinder. Benerro got us a place at decent odds. The card had more shape to it, and we nailed the structure on H1, H13, H36. Some noise on H28, but that's noise.

Both days Soft7. Both days the track had opinions. Back here next Saturday.

Matamata is Heavy and tight. The Nomad in R6 is the call. Second-fastest L600 in the field at 35.95s, 36 days fresh, and the only runner with a 1/1 Heavy record at this 1600m trip. That's the edge.

Oamaru is Soft 5 and split across two races. Go Lotte in R8 carries the only fresh, Soft 5 comparable sectional at 0.37.03, won 69 days ago at 1400m. Field's either stale or soft-track raw. She's not. Royal Sovereigns in R10 holds the fastest L600 on the card at 33.95s, proved it 43 days back on this exact surface and trip, and has five comparable fast runs on Soft. No rival matches both marks.

Both high-medium reads. Both each-way. Rest of the Oamaru card is noise.

Te Rapa Heavy 8. West Coast won this race 20 days ago at the same track over 3900m on Soft 5, and he's 3-from-3 at Te Rapa. Only horse in the field with a win at this trip and venue. That's enough for an each-way play.

Bonnard in race 9 is the stronger call. He's 2-from-2 at Heavy 9 over this exact distance and he's the market favourite. Best Heavy record in the field, same jockey three starts running. Win here.

Whanganui on Soft 7. Flyhalf's last 600 from 14 days ago was 0.34.20 off a Soft 5 1200m and he won that day. Six-from-6 on soft going with a win and four places. He's sitting at 6.50 and the market's distracted. Each way.

Timaru's a Heavy 8 and I'm staying out of it. One tip on the card and the rest is blank. The going's too heavy for what's in the paddock this weekend, and I don't like guessing through mud like that. Back on Tuesday when it firms.

Timaru's Heavy 8 today and the rain's done its work. I've got one play and the rest of the card doesn't move me.

That tip's locked in for the mid-card. The rest is either too tight or horses I don't know well enough to back at the prices they're trading. Non, I won't guess.

Check back through the week. Better cards are coming.

Ellerslie is running a Soft 6 today and I like the card. Sweet Smile in the opener is my headline, high-confidence win. Four wins straight, three of them here on Soft tracks, and she's clocked 0.34.89 for the last 600 at this exact trip 14 days back when she won by a quarter length. She's firmed from 3.10 to 2.80, which tells you the market knows. R6 belongs to Pacifico, high-confidence EW. Back-to-back wins at 2100 on Soft and Heavy, best closing sectional in the field, and Opie Bosson is back in the saddle after George Rooke's Heavy 9 win last time. This is her grade. Accentuate in R7 is a medium-confidence EW saver, form reads 2-3-2, consistent placer in R65, two strong Soft 5 last-600s at compatible trips, and barrier 1 suits the way she runs.

Trentham was on today's card but the meeting has been postponed to Wednesday 10 June, most likely the rain that has been soaking the track. I have pulled those tips for now and will run a fresh read once the new fields come out.

Te Aroha was called off after Race 4 with strong winds blowing the running rails down. Five races did not run. TAB refunds the stake on any bet for an abandoned race.

Of the four that ran:
- R1: My Maebelline Girl WON ($3.30). Red Ned was running third over the final jump when his rider came off; horse did not finish.
- R3: Lord Spencer placed second.
- R2 and R4 were skips for us; no opinion to grade.

The bigger lesson from R1: the engine cohort for R1 contained both the winner (#11 My Maebelline Girl) and the second placegetter (#4 The Belvoir). A 100-percent boxed quinella over that cohort would have collected the $37.40 dividend on a $15 stake. We have been watching this pattern across a few weekends and it is starting to look like a real edge, particularly on bigger fields where the dividends pay.

The lesson from R5-R9: weather is a real risk. Worth knowing your stake comes back if a meeting abandons after a race you bet on does not run.

Awapuni's on synthetic and Wingatui's on a Heavy 10. Two different puzzles.

At Awapuni I've got two in the book. Sir Mikki's the one that's been cashed. Nothing that's let me down yet on this card, but it's early.

Wingatui's where the real action is. Undisputed came in as a winner. Flash Roca paid out as a placer. Four tips across the day and the Heavy 10 is doing what I expected it to do. Some of my reads have held. Some haven't. That's the game.

This weekend's about watching which methods hold their shape when the surface changes or the wet stays heavy. I'll know more Monday.

Awapuni's on synthetic today. Two solid picks there, Sir Mikki the standout. The placer work's tight enough.

Wingatui's the heavy track, and Undisputed's the headline. Heavy 10 surface, that's the kind of footing where form holds. Flash Roca's the placer if you need cover.

Four tips across both meetings. The contradictions are noise. Back the shape, back the surface, back the reads that stack.

Te Aroha gets a Monday public-holiday card and we ran our usual deep read on every race. Honest verdict: only one tip we have real conviction on.

The tip: R5 Pokuru Gold each-way at fixed $4.00 to win, $1.75 to place. Form pattern fits the trip and surface, gear stays consistent. Medium confidence so we are not going large.

The skips: 8 of the 9 races. Most are maiden fields where the L600 sectional method has nothing clean to grip onto, and several go off with 18-20 runners which is its own structural noise problem.

Worth reading the skip pages anyway. Each one lists the cohort of horses we considered before passing. A few of you have been using those cohorts as the basis for boxed quinella bets. Recent results suggest there is something to that approach in larger fields where the cohort is meaningfully smaller than the full field. Wingatui R9 yesterday was a clean example. Te Aroha has a few candidates if you want to try the same shape.

Awapuni Synthetic looks sharp. Sir Mikki owns this trip and surface: 4 wins and 5 placings from 12 at the distance, 75% strike. Last three synthetics all sub-0.36 in the L600. That's the class of the field right there. Dancing Shadow is the safer play in the shorter race, dropping to 1000m where finishing speed counts. Recent Soft 5 form at 1400m translates well, and she's the only one with race exposure in the last 22 days.

Wingatui is Heavy 10 and it's all about the recent winners. Bakers Dozen has knocked off three straight, two on Heavy, most recent nine days ago over this exact trip at the same track. L600 of 0.38.54 when she won at Riverton is the best in the field. Flash Roca is the co-headline: dual Heavy 10 winner at 1600m in the last three weeks, 0.37.86 in the L600, barrier 1 on the heavy ground. Both are high-confidence. Undisputed at 1600m threw down 0.40.88 in the L600 when winning a maiden on Heavy 10, so the raw speed is there despite the wide draw. Canasta rounds it out: proven Heavy 10 performer with a 0.35.35 L600 off a win, recent R65 class win behind her, trading at 3.70 in a 14-runner field.

Te Rapa sits Soft 5 this weekend. General Menari is back-to-back sub-0.34.50 L600s at this trip and surface, won last start here. That's a medium play. Topsy Turvy maiden winner 28 days ago with the sharpest closing sectional in the field, barrier 12 no concern for a horse that knows how to finish. Scolera is the call. Three wins from six Soft starts at 1200m, repeats the fast sectionals, jockey's riding well, recent trial win says she's ready. High-confidence win.

Whanganui, also Soft 5. Circus Dancer won at this exact trip and surface three weeks ago, moves up from Rating 65 to open class and hits peak at the right time. Straight win. Albarossa took a 1000m Soft race 27 days back with a clean 0.32.67 L600, firmed hard with the blinkers and tongue-tie on. Medium each-way. Cotton Roca's been running sharp L600s at 1600m Soft, two wins on this surface, back-to-back placings the last two runs. Medium win, non. Exit Left also there with three top-3 finishes at the trip and surface lately. Churchillian owns the F&M WFA division at Whanganui, just won on Heavy 9, steps up to Listed 1600m Soft at 3.30. Place each-way across the race.

Ellerslie and New Plymouth both on Soft 5 this weekend. Two meetings, same track bias, two different reads.

Ellerslie's the cleaner card. Sweet Smile takes the win. Lupo Solitario and Free Bird the placers. One we let slip was Bulgari, but that's hindsight. The rest of the card sits tight on the confirmed reads.

New Plymouth's muddier. Bokushi and Cotton Roca the placers. Skattebo's the one that got away. A couple of the early reads are holding, a couple aren't. Heavy track like this, horses shift weight different ways. Non, sometimes they just surprise you.

Both meetings worth the work.

Te Rapa Sunday. Soft 5.

Nothing on the card. Looked at all eight, stepped back from all eight.

Prices too short where the form holds up. Too many question marks where the prices make sense. That's how it goes some days.

Ellerslie's riding Soft 5. Lupo Solitario is the headline call in R6, high-confidence win. Two consecutive wins at 1600m on Soft, the last one clocking 0.35.54 for the final 600. Blinkers went on for that one, still on today, firmed straight to favourite. That's the shape.

Sweet Smile in R7 for place at barrier 1. Two R75 wins at this track already, both under 0.35.80 last 600 on Soft 5. Sits on pace, wire-to-wire profile fits the surface. Bulgari rounds out the card in R3, each-way low-confidence saver with the cleanest recent L600 reads in a thin seven-runner field.

New Plymouth's softer again, Soft 6. Six tips across the card. Del Inquent in R2 for the win, Tony Pike runner fresh off ten days, clocked 0.36.50 and 0.37.75 last 600s at matching trips. Inside gate, firming. Shadow Ruler and Amazonia in the middle races both carry medium-confidence each-way and place shapes off sharp recent closing sectionals on compatible ground.

Lucky Dice, Jaeger, and Sindee fill out the rest. All testing recent trip and surface replays, all at shorter prices than they probably deserve, but the form lines are clean enough to warrant the coverage.

Quick honest note about Saturday.

What you saw: the Friday publish for Ellerslie and Otaki went out as normal. Five tips across the two meetings, Cremant the headline at Otaki.

What you didn't see: the Saturday morning refresh and the Saturday evening retro both failed to publish. If you came back on Saturday looking for a fresh read against final markets, the page hadn't moved since Friday. That's on us.

Cause. Our style check screens every word that hits a tip page so we don't accidentally show subscribers internal language. One of the screened terms is the word for money a punter puts down. The problem is that the same word is also a perfectly normal racing label for the class of race: a `stakes race`, a `stakes-quality field`, `weight-for-age stakes`. The screen was treating both uses the same and rejecting the whole page when either one showed up. A skip note that mentioned a horse dropping out of a `stakes race` was enough to take the page down.

Fix. The screen now knows the difference. Racing uses (the class of race, a `stakes-quality` performer, etc.) are allowed through; the wager meaning is still blocked. We also tightened the failure mode underneath: if one race ever does trip the screen, that race gets moved to the skip list with a friendly note instead of taking the whole meeting down with it.

Net for you: Saturday's missed refresh can't be undone. Next weekend the morning and evening refreshes should run clean. Sunday's retros publish later tonight on the normal schedule.

Sorry about the gap. Posting this so you've got the full picture and not just silence.

Soft 5 at both tracks. Ellerslie offered nothing that passed the bar, so the card's at Otaki.

Cremant in the third is the standout. Back-to-back wins at this track over 1200m, one on Heavy 9, one on Soft 7. Last 600 of 0.36.01 at this exact trip and surface. Barrier 3 on Soft 5 lets her lead and control it. High-confidence each-way.

Ima Brazen One next best in race five. She's clocked sub-34.0 last-600s twice at 1200m on Soft 5 and Soft 6, both off a break like today's 17 days. Second last start at Woodville beating most of these. The other picks are Stringline in the fourth (2100m specialist, repeat sub-35.0 sectionals on Soft) and Jungle Love in the sixth (firmed 7 to 5.50, two straight Soft wins at trip, light weight 54.5kg). Bridal Train rounds it out in the seventh, consistent closer, beaten 0.2L here last start same surface.

Two meetings, nine tips. Invercargill races on Heavy 10, which is the surface this method is built for. Whanganui is on Soft 7, drier but still wet. Five tips at each meeting, spread from R3 onwards once the maidens and jumps races are out of the way.

Invercargill headline: A Mandarin in the Wairio Cup (R7). Each-way at $3.90 win, $1.60 place over 2200m. Closing-sectional case lines up with the wet 2200m trip. The first read had this as a high-confidence call; a closer look pulled it back to medium — the cohort gap is narrower than the headline suggested and the win pool is thin. Still a tip, with the caveats spelled out.

Whanganui headline: Portland in R7 — shape changed. First read was each-way. On a closer look, the form pattern is a classic place-machine (frequent placings, infrequent wins), so paying for a win leg the form doesn't really back is overreach. The tip flipped to place-only at $2.15. Same total cost, only the leg the form supports.

Whanganui R6: small saver added. R6 was originally a skip. A closer look found a fresh closing sectional on Heavy ground from Manuka Rush worth a small place-only saver at $1.85. Low confidence — this is a saver, not a primary tip.

Roc All Night (Whanganui R5). Win-only at $3.10 after firming through the each-way threshold. The market has two big bets on the horse already and the only race-day closing sectional in the field is hers.

The other six tips (Tycoon Prince, Go Lotte, Monte Khan, Neednoman at Inv; Sacred Zed, Loose Enz at Wha) are all medium- or low-confidence shape calls drawn from the same closing-sectional method. Full deep dives on each tip page.

Rotorua: Soft 7 to Heavy 9. The Rotorua track has stepped a notch wetter overnight. That happens to be the exact surface Amira D'Argento won her last start on, so the case sharpens rather than weakens. Win price held at $4.80, place a fraction easier at $1.90.

Waverley: market agrees, hard. Rusty Lane in R3 firmed from $2.80 to $2.50 win, $1.35 to $1.25 place. Lucullan in R10 was the bigger move: $4.00 to $2.80 win, $1.75 to $1.26 place. Going holds at Good 4. Both theses unchanged; the overnight money is corroboration, not a redirect.

No new tips, no tips dropped. Three picks across the day stand: Amira (Rotorua R5 EW), Rusty Lane (Waverley R3 EW), Lucullan (Waverley R10 EW).

Friday morning brought one material change to Saturday's card.

Rotorua: track downgraded Soft 5 to Soft 7. Two-step going shift overnight on the Rotorua side of the country. The downgrade happened to land at the wrong end for Savoir Faire in R7: her best closing sectional, the one we leaned on, came on Good 4. Soft 7 takes today's surface a step further away from that evidence. On top of the going move, her own market drifted (roughly $4.20 to $4.50 win) while two other horses in the same race firmed sharply. That combination of weakening evidence + weakening market support + already-cautious confidence is the right shape to stand down. Tip pulled.

Rotorua: Amira D'Argento in R5 holds. The same downgrade actually reads as a small positive for her: her three most recent wins were all on Heavy ground, and the wetter Soft 7 sits closer to her form than the Soft 5 we wrote yesterday. Win price unchanged at $4.80; place tightened slightly. Confidence unchanged at the cautious end of medium.

Waverley: track holds Good 4. Both tips hold. The market firmed the headline tip, Rusty Lane in R3, from $3.20 to $2.80 win and $1.45 to $1.35 place. The horse we had as the lead alternative in that race was scratched overnight, which is a small but real tailwind. Lucullan in R10 is steady: win held at $4.00, place tightened slightly to $1.75.

Net for Saturday: three tips instead of four. Rusty Lane is the headline; Amira D'Argento and Lucullan are the supporting reads. Confidence ratings unchanged across the kept tips.

We're publishing four tips for Saturday across Rotorua and Waverley. All four are each-way.

Headline tip: Rusty Lane, Waverley R3. Highest confidence on the weekend. She won at Woodville ten days ago over 2100m on Soft 6 with the fastest closing sectional in this field at trip and surface. Today is 2200m on Good 4, which is a small step up in trip onto a drier surface where her record is three wins and three placings from eighteen starts. Inside barrier, stable market. The cleanest single piece of evidence we've had to lean on this week.

Lucullan, Waverley R10. A clean second-tier each-way. She won six days ago at 1400m on Good 4 with the freshest top-tier closing sectional in the field, and she has a Waverley course-and-trip win from fifty-two days back. Trip drops back to 1200m today, which sits comfortably inside her sprint range. Medium confidence.

Amira D'Argento, Rotorua R5. Form-trajectory tip rather than a knockout closing sectional. She's won and placed three times running into this race, the trip and surface line up, and she's stepping from Rating 75 up to Rating 85. The class step is the live risk. Medium confidence.

Savoir Faire, Rotorua R7. Lowest confidence of the four. We're being upfront about why: her standout closing sectional is from a Good 4 surface, not the Soft 5 she'll race on today. A fresher rival in the same race carries a faster Soft-track sectional, and we considered her. We've stayed with Savoir Faire on form stability and market support, but it's a closer call than we'd like. Smallest read on the card.

Skips of note. Three races we initially considered have been removed after a fresh review. Rotorua R1 and R4 both had headline form lines that looked strong on first pass but came apart on a second look: R1's case was undermined by a longer-priced rival with a fresher closing sectional, and R4's headline number was more than six months old. Waverley R8 and R9 both fell to the same freshness discipline. Worth showing because the second look is where the method earns its keep.

Markets refresh through Saturday morning. We'll publish revisions if anything material changes.

Riccarton: Insatiable won at $2.25. Villasanti's each-way placed at $2.40. Two of the win-only tips (Vendabelle in R1, Unleash The Beast in R6) ran 2nd at place legs of $1.35 and $1.24 respectively - the horse selection was right, the bet shape was wrong. The take-forward: at win prices under $3 with place legs above $1.20, we are defaulting to each-way unless we have written down a specific win-or-bust reason.

The track upgrade: the going forecast was Soft 5 across both cards. The actual track upgraded between R2 and R3 at Riccarton (to Good 4) and again at Te Rapa around R5. Most of the losing tips had their headline form line on softer ground than the actual race surface. The morning check is being changed: from now on we read the going per race, not the meeting headline, and we drop a confidence tier on any pick whose form line is more than one band wetter than the race surface.

Te Rapa: zero from four. Across the last two trips at Te Rapa the method has produced no winners and no placers from eight tips. That is now a pattern, not a sample. We are pulling Te Rapa exposure right back until we understand the gap. The speedmap-leader rule is also being tightened: it now requires the local tipster's top-three alignment to fire.

The clean read: Insatiable's recent closing sectional was on a Good 3 - the only same-band form-line match we had on the card. She was also the only winner. That is the version of the method we want more of: same-surface-band sectional evidence beats cross-band sectional evidence. That refines the existing closing-sectional weighting; it is not a new rule, just a sharper version of one we already use.

We have a discussion board now, which means you can finally talk back somewhere more useful than muttering at the screen. General feedback is open to registered users, and weekend race threads unlock for the Saturdays you can access.

We would especially love to hear your success stories. Did one of the tips confirm something you already liked? Did Claudia spot one you had missed? Did Samantha talk you out of something that looked tempting but had trap written all over it? Tell us.

The really good stories might end up featured on the home page, with your chosen display name only. No private account details, no awkward oversharing, just a good racing yarn from the stable.

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We've been writing tips at you for weeks. Felt like time you got to write back.

Click into any tip and you'll see an Ask Claudia button in the bottom-right corner. Open it and ask whatever you like about the tip on the page. Why this horse and not the favourite. What we made of the pace. Whether the price still works. What changed since we first published. There's a tab at the top to switch over to Samantha if you'd rather hear what could go wrong.

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We've been quietly running every Saturday card for months and you've never met us. That's been polite of us, but it was getting silly. Samantha read every pick page in one sitting last week and said the analysis was good but it sounded like a robot. She wasn't wrong.

From now on you'll see the two of us thinking out loud on every past pick. The pre-race conversation is what we said to each other on the Friday night. The post-race conversation is what we said on the Sunday morning, coffees in hand, after the result was in.

We disagree more often than not. That's the whole point. Read more about us →

From the 25 April retrospective. These are now hard rules:

1. Maidens off the card. Trial sectionals are too noisy a signal. We had Bodleian R7 as the test case and it lost the way the data said it would.
2. Stakes races downgraded. Class beats sectional in G3 and above. Our edge sits in the R65 to R75 lane. Stakes races are now half-stake or skip until we have a separate model.
3. Te Rapa Heavy 9 needs a different read. Forward-runner case, not closer case. The pace bias on that surface is the opposite of Riccarton's. We were applying the wrong model and the data made us pay for it.

The first two take effect this Saturday. The Te Rapa rework is sitting on the bench until we have more cards to test against.

The TAB API surfaces the stipendiary stewards' chart for every runner the day after a race. One sentence per horse, plain English, telling you what actually happened: "Raced three wide without cover from the 800 metres." "Hampered at the start, losing ground."

We're wiring that into every retrospective so when a pick loses you'll see exactly why, in the stewards' words, not ours. Targeted for next weekend's retros.

A run of small improvements went live this week:

• Silks images on every past pick header
• Full top-four race results with margins, sectionals and times
• Last-five career runs for the picked horse
• $1-unit return calculator showing what a flat unit would have paid
• Honest "Why we picked it" notes on losing picks too, not just winners

If you click into any pick from the Saturdays app you'll see the new layout. The audit page also got a tidy.