Legal Eagle warmed up for his bid to win the Green Point Stakes for the third successive year at Kenilworth on Saturday with a good work-out over 1 100m on the course last Saturday.
The seven-year-old was ridden by usual pilot Anton Marcus and went with Safe Harbour (Anthony Andrews) who was runner-up in the Paddock Stakes, Cape Fillies Guineas and SA Fillies Classic two seasons back. The final stages of the gallop were shown on closed circuit TV during racing and Legal Eagle finished particularly well.
Legal Eagle (Liesl King)
The dual Horse of the Year is 14-10 favourite with World Sports Betting to bring the unbeaten run of Rainbow Bridge (16-10) to an end with Gold Challenge winner Undercover Agent next on 4-1 and Durban July hero Do It Again a 13-2 shot. It will be the smallest Green Point field this century with Copper Force 18-1 and 22-1 outsider Hat Puntano the only others declared.
There were just ten entries in the first place and the most notable not declared are Grade 1 scorers Eyes Wide Open and Tap O’Noth who are both in Saturday week’s Premier Trophy. Eyes Wide Open is 4-1 favourite for this with last season’s Cape Guineas winner on 6-1. The Mike de Kock-trained Buffalo Bill Cody is 9-2 second favourite.
The Green Point market is in marked, and significant, contrast to that of the Sun Met. WSB has Rainbow Bridge 7-2 favourite for the 26 January showpiece and Do It Again second favourite on 6-1. Last year’s winner Oh Susanna and De Kock’s Cape Guineas hope Hawwaam are both 8-1 chances but you can get 10-1 about Legal Eagle. The layers are clearly taking the view that the three-time beaten favourite is not as effective over 2 000m.
The Candice Bass-Robinson-trained Magical Wonderland (Aldo Domeyer) is 18-10 favourite for the Southern Cross Stakes and Strathdon (Justin Snaith/Richard Fourie) heads the market at 22-10 to repeat last year’s win in Saturday’s third feature, the Cape Summer Stayers Handicap.
The huge stakes of the CTS sales races have put the appeal of the traditional Grade 1s firmly in the shade and Adam Marcus has had little hesitation in giving the Cape Guineas a miss in order to have Vardy (impressive winner of both his starts) at his peak for the R5 million CTS 1600 on Met day.
He explained: “We didn’t even enter him for the Guineas – it would have been only two and a half weeks from his last run – and my main aim going into the CTS race is to build his confidence, and I feel that putting him up against hard-knocking horses like One World wouldn’t be the right thing to do. There is a lot to come with him but he showed last Wednesday how mentally immature he still is.”
By Michael Clower
