Andrew Harrison

It has been many a year since the race for the Jockey Championship has resulted in a three-way contest but with a month to go it is still tight at the top with Gavin Lerena, champion Richard Fourie and Craig Zackey all in contention.

Lerena hit a purple patch at Turffontein on Saturday, pulling four winners clear of the reining champion Fourie with Zackey sudden finding himself seven winners adrift to the log leaders going into yesterday’s Hollywoodbets Scottsville meeting.

But with the first three races done, the numbers stayed  the same as all three leading riders were on the board.

Zackey had the easiest ride as Dean Kannemeyer’s filly Princess Of Gaul made short work of her opposition in the first. Sent out favourite, Zackey tracked the pace as young Jacey Botes tried to run them off their feet on Perfume Power but once Zackey released the break a furlong out, it was just a matter of how far as the quickened away to win as she liked.

Fourie was in the winner’s circle in the second but had to work hard for his victory on Clinton Binda’s colt Chapbook. Still green, Fourie had to nurse him through the latter exchanges  but once finding his feet, the son of Rafeef finally got the message  to go through for a comfortable victory.

Lerena kept the status quo as far as the championship numbers were concerned as he deputized for an indisposed Andrew Fortune on the Yogas Govender-trained  Soho Star. Narrowly beaten at his last two over the Hollywoodbets Scottsville 1200m, Lerena extracted the best out of the gelding to get home ahead of stable companions Vihaan’s Web and Quandray.

Apprentice Brevan Plaatjies is currently leading in the apprentice championship ahead of Trent Mayhew. Plaatjies rode his 40^th winner last Wednesday losing his 2.5kg claim, but he was still competitive off his 1.5kg claim as he rode an excellent race on the Bo Ngcobo-trained Ralph The Rascal.

Caught up a blind alley, Plaatjies hunted a gap, shifting in before it opened and sent Ralph The Rascal through to a smart win.

Ngcobo has a small string but has shown that he knows how to train a racehorse in the short time that he has had his trainer’s brief and given better support he will not let his patrons down.

Some apprentices never get to ride out their claim but Plaatjies and Jacey Botes are likely to leave their apprenticeship having ridden over 60 winners and into the ‘big’ world when they are not so popular anymore.

So it is imperative for an apprentice to make a name for themselves as early into their careers as possible and Botes is going the right way. Still claiming 4kg he has a keen judge of pace and some tactical ‘nous’ as he showed aboard Paul Lafferty’s runner Forward Motion. 

Although only shouldering 48.5kg, Botes had his mount in front early but was no tearaway, judging the pace nicely and then keeping his mount running strongly to the line.

He has still got a long way to go and raceriding can be a fickle profession but Botes is going about it the right way.