Gold Circle Pty (Ltd)

Today's Racing :

Weight could be telling factor

Chad Cooke
With the 2010 J&B Met now in the history books, this weekend the racing focus is on the Highveld where racegoers have two meetings to enjoy.
The first takes place at Turffontein on Saturday where the inside track will be in use for the nine-race programme.
The meeting on Sunday takes place at the Vaal where the inside turf track will be used.
The Vaal card is competitive and should be carefully negotiated.
The Turffontein card on Saturday is highlighted with four feature races, the Grade 3 Acacia Handicap over 1 600m is the first of the features and could be dominated by Milk And Honey and Kiribati who have both done enough to show that they are the class in the race.
The second feature is the Wolf Power Handicap, a Listed race over 1 600m and the three-year-old Havasha could have the edge but he meets some very decent older horses in Rudi Rocks, Fenerbahce and Rudra who are sure to put him to the test.
The Grade 3 Three Troikas Stakes for three-year-old fillies over 1 450m is the first of the two three-year-old features and sees some very promising youngsters lock horns.
All Afire, Queen Mira, Fisani, Adorable and Valley Of Rubies all have good form and can each lay claim to the title here but it could be the last of those mentioned that has the goods.
Valley Of Rubies is a two-time winner from nine starts with five placings and although she does not necessarily have the best record in this contest, her last run suggests that she is improving and has the edge here.
Ernie Anderson’s charge raced in a competitive plate race over 1 400m on the old track last time and came from off the pace to win well. She has an excellent draw and looks set to continue with her winning ways.
The last of the four features, the Grade 3 Tony Ruffel Stakes over 1 450m for a stake of R200 000 is the highlight of the afternoon.
Many of the country’s top three-year-olds are in action here and all eyes will be on the Charles Laird duo of Curved Ball and Galileo’s Galaxy and the sole entrant from the Gary Alexander stable, Piere Jourdan.
Curved Ball has done it all in recent runs having won two features in his last two of four career runs.
He has beaten many of the runners he meets on Saturday but those wins were at level weights and here he will be conceding weight. He could well be good enough to confirm the form but weight could tell and he might have to settle for a minor placing.
Stablemate Galileo’s Galaxy won his first two outings before finishing runner-up in the Dingaans to Curved Ball and then runner-up to Noordhoek Flyer in the Stable jockey Anton Marcus has elected to partner Galileo’s Galaxy and this decision could be based in the 4kg turnover with Curved Ball.
Both the Laird runners have plenty of talent and they look set to fight out the finish, barring one other runner in the race. The Gary Alexander-trained Pierre Jourdan has shown that he is not to be taken lightly and suffered defeat for the first time in his career last time out when coming off a break and being in need of the run.
He will strip a fitter horse on Saturday and has scope so could end up spoiling the Laird party.

\| All information on these pages are (©) Copyright Gold Circle Pty (Ltd) 2002 \| site map
(This site is best viewed at 1024 X 768)