Woolavington winner Bela-Bela begins her Cape campaign in earnest at Kenilworth on Saturday week. She is in both the Jet Master and the Victress Stakes but also has the option of a 1 400m fillies conditions plate where she could come against Silver Mountain.
“We have been waiting for this day for a long time,” says Justin Snaith who complained earlier in the season that there were no suitable races for the star filly. “She is doing well.”
The Joey Ramsden-trained pair A New Dawn and I Travel Light were yesterday supplemented for Saturday week’s Grand Parade Cape Guineas as was Tuesday’s Vaughan Marshall-winner William Longsword. Bernard Fayd’Herbe returns from Mauritius and will partner Craven for Brett Crawford.
Bela-Bela (Nkosi Hlophe)
Last Saturday’s Fillies Guineas winner Just Sensual has been raised 17 points (8.5kg) to a new merit rating of 109 while runner-up Safe Harbour has gone up 11 to 108, but third-placed Querari Falcon has been left on 104.
A little surprisingly Green Point winner Legal Eagle has been upped three to 123 – many observers felt the Horse of the Year simply ran up to somewhere near his best. But Marinaresco, beaten less than half a length, is only on 115 after going up five points. This is because five is the maximum the handicappers were allowed to give him. However Abashiri (fifth) has been dropped 2kg to 113 despite his well-documented travel problems.
Crawford is going to aim Cape Merchants gamble Search Party (upped seven to 103) at the Betting World Cape Flying Championship on January 28. He said: “I will also nominate him for the Diadem on January 14 but I am not sure that he will run.”
Grant van Niekerk has worked out what to do with his three separate seven-day interference suspensions – precisely nothing. Because of the holiday period the Review Board is not due to sit again until February and so, if the jockey does not appeal or state when he wants to take the bans, the Board will rubber stamp the suspensions at a time when all the big Cape races are over.
But Van Niekerk is aggrieved that the suspensions, three in eight days, have been given such prominent treatment in some sections of the media. “When I am riding at a meeting I am in almost every race, and I am often riding animals that can’t keep straight, so I am bound to get suspended from time to time,” he said. “It’s part and parcel of the job.”
In-form Richard Fourie rode the 1 000th winner of his career when scoring on Step Out for Glen Kotzen at Kenilworth on Tuesday.
BLOB The decision to increase the stakes for the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate by 50% will be widely welcomed. The minimum value of any Grade 1 is now R1 million (a sum, incidentally, that is dwarfed by many sales races) and it is only right that the country’s premier mile event should stand apart.
By Michael Clower
