Perry agrees to help fine-tune Singh

Singh, 24, has joined Paul Perry's highly successful Broadmeadow stable on a three-month loan from Scone trainer Paul Messara.

He will ride for Perry for the first time at Muswellbrook today and also has mounts for Messara and Jeff Englebrecht.

Singh's uncle, a jockey in India, advised his nephew to consider racing as a career.

"I first got into racing by riding some trackwork at Mumbai," Singh said. "I got the chance to come to Australia and have been with Paul Messara for four years.

"Originally I was just working around the stables, and then Mr Messara said I should have a go at becoming an apprentice.

"I have been riding for 18 months and he thought it was time for me to gain more experience, and he asked Mr Perry to take me on.

"Mr Messara said that Paul Perry was a great trainer and I would learn plenty under his guidance."

Singh, who can ride at 51.5kg, has already ridden 25 winners and now claims 2.5kg in the country and 3kg in the provincial areas.

"I have been with Paul Perry a week and I am loving the change," he said.

¦ Newcastle trainer Kris Lees believes blinkers could be the gear change that thrusts his star filly Elimbari into the Golden Slipper.

The two-year-old will wear the blinkers for the first time when she runs in the Reisling Stakes at Rosehill tomorrow.

Elimbari takes on Slipper favourite Solar Charged again, and Lees is hoping the "shades" may be the X-factor for his filly.

The youngster impressed Lees working in blinkers on Saturday and on Tuesday morning.

"She has gone well in them and the blinkers could be the thing to make her focus throughout her race," Lees said.

The trainer had been considering keeping Elimbari for a week and missing the clash with the likes of Solar Charged, Military Rose and Psychologist.

"There is plenty of speed in the race on Saturday and that will help Elimbari," he said.

"She needs to finish in the top three to make the Golden Slipper, and to be realistic if she did not finish in the placings on Saturday, she would be facing a big task in the big race."

¦ Newcastle Jockey Club officials have written to the boss of Racing NSW, Peter V'Landys, stating their opposition to a proposal to switch Broadmeadow's feature meetings from Wednesdays to Thursdays or Fridays.

The NJC's Spring Carnival will be staged as usual this year, including the Cameron Handicap meeting on a Wednesday and Newcastle Cup Day the following day in September.

But the Newmarket meeting, which is always on a Wednesday, has been switched to a Thursday in 2012 and 2013 and could, in years to come, go to a Friday.

There has been talk that the NJC will be asked to put its Newmarket meeting back a week so it would not clash with the first day of the Albury carnival.

That would seem ridiculous as the present date for the Newmarket fits perfectly with the Sydney autumn carnival racing.

The NJC has been asked to provide feedback about moving the cup carnival to a Thursday and Friday in 2012 and 2013.

But the club has expressed its concerns about any move of their feature dates.

It seems that metropolitan clubs are keen to get Wednesday back as their domain each week.

¦ Melbourne Storm fullback Billy Slater could have a huge day in Newcastle tomorrow.

Slater has scored 102 tries in 158 games since making his NRL debut against the Sharks in March 2003.

But tomorrow he can kick plenty of goals both on the rugby league field and on the turf at Broadmeadow.

He has come north to take on the Newcastle Knights tomorrow night, but in the afternoon he has a big hand in his other love, horse racing, at Broadmeadow.

Slater is part of a syndicate which races Inter Stargaze and Inter Atlas, which are both entered for tomorrow's Broadmeadow meeting.

Inter Stargaze is in race three, a 900m maiden, and Inter Atlas is third reserve for race seven, which is a 1400m maiden.

Since joining the Steve Hodge stable, Inter Stargaze has been runner-up twice, and Inter Atlas has been placed at Newcastle and Muswellbrook.

¦ The out-of-competition testing that is being conducted throughout the state by Racing NSW stewards was undertaken at Broadmeadow yesterday morning.

There were samples taken from 30 horses from 11 Newcastle stables.

¦ The musical chairs involving jockeys for star Newcastle mare Madame Pedrille in her Adelaide campaign have continued.

Madame Pedrille worked in great fashion on Tuesday morning in preparation for tomorrow's group 1 Robert Sangster Stakes.

But it is a long tale how Victorian jockey Mark Flaherty was finally chosen as the rider for Madame Pedrille in her quest for group 1 glory.

Chris Munce rode the Darren Smith-trained mare first-up in Sydney, but he has gone to Brisbane to ride.

Several jockeys, including Michael Rodd, were in the running for the ride for Madame Pedrille's Adelaide debut in the Irwin Stakes, which eventually went to Damien Oliver when the mare was unplaced.

Oliver is not riding at Morphettville tomorrow, and it was decided that Steve Arnold would replace him.

But Arnold was suspended and could not ride tomorrow.

Danny Brereton was then handed the ride but he was injured in a fall so he is out of play.

So Flaherty flies from Melbourne to partner Madame Pedrille.

"Shane Treweek is over in Adelaide with the mare and said she really flew on Tuesday morning," Smith said.

¦ And here is the news from the bookies ring at the Newcastle Newmarket meeting at Broadmeadow on Wednesday.

There isn't much.

One bookie reported he held $625 on the first race and another wrote just one ticket on a later race.

The eight races held $2.9 million in tote figures and there was $780,000 invested on the Newmarket.

¦ Racing expert Gary Crisp, one of the men behind the new Benchmark system that is causing so much discussion in NSW racing, was at Broadmeadow for the Newcastle Newmarket meeting on Wednesday.

He fielded questions from the press regarding the system, which has been criticised by many country and provincial trainers.

"We have tried to explain the system to trainers but at many of the meetings there were a lot of absentees," Crisp said.

"Right now the one thing I can say is that trainers have to give this system time to become established. More Benchmark races will be programmed in coming months for country and provincial areas."