David Thiselton
Small horses are every now and then able to overcome their lack of size with other special attributes and the Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas winner Jan Van Goyen appears to be such a horse.
His special attribute is his fine action in which he has a good length of stride and a very quick stride. It was actually stride-frequency which separated the great Winx from the rest as she was able to do 170 strides per minute compared to the average racehorse’s 130 to 140 per minute.
It will be interesting when the sectional timing data is out to check the number of strides statistic relating to Jan Van Goyen.
What is without question though is his ability to relax in the running and his ability to quicken seemingly effortlessly. He does not look to be under any stress whether just relaxing in the running, accelerating or going at full tilt.
This points to a horse with a magnificent action i.e it covers plenty of ground in quick time while being uncomplicated and smooth. It can be described as a machine-like action with each stride the same as the other and it has a rhythmical frequency.
However, it is always easy to get carried away when a three-year-old wins an iconic, stallion-producing race like the Gr1 Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas convincingly.
The one man who is not getting carried away by the current three-year-old crop is one of the country’s most respected racing analysts, Karel Miedema.
Previous examples of Ability Ratings (AR) Karel has given Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas winners are 109 for One Stripe last year, 97 for Snow Pilot in 2023, 110 for Charles Dickens in 2022, 113 for Double Superlative in 2021 and 99 for Russian Rock in 2020.
He has only awarded Jan Van Goyen an AR of 100 for Saturday’s run.
Jan Van Goyen ran a better time than Dave The King did in the Gr 2 Ridgemont Green Point Stakes with both carrying 60kg, but interestingly Karel awards Dave The King an AR of 110 for his win.
Jan Van Goyen is currently the 3/1 favourite for the Gr 1 L’Ormarins King’s Plate and his fans will be snapping that up as he is potentially a special horse.
Aldo Domeyer’s comments after the Guineas were interesting as Happy Verse had moved up well and he confirmed, “I had a great deal of confidence entering the final two furlongs.” He concluded by saying, “He (Jan) won like a really good horse, I believe a decent horse beat us today.”
Mathew de Kock believes there is improvement to come from Jan Van Goyen, so was looking forward to seeing where he stood by taking on older horses.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, but the three-year-old vs older horse debate in this year’s L’Ormarins King’s Plate will pivot around Jan Van Goyen and it is going to be a particularly fascinating race.
See It Again has burst right back into the picture after losing ground at the start and storming through to finish a 0,35 length third in the Gr2 Green Point Stakes. Every cloud has a silver lining and trainer Michael Roberts and owner Nick Jonsson might now be glad that See It Again’s loading shenanigans cost him participation in the Gr1 Betway Summer Cup as the humid conditions on the day seemed to take a lot out of a lot of the runners, not to mention the oft stated difficulty of traveling to Johannesburg and then down to Cape Town. Instead, they have a fresh horse who has two big races in Cape Town plus a R10 million carrot (the Hollywoodbets Durban July) to look forward to.
Garrix was a much talked about horse last season and he proved his supporters correct by producing a flying finish to be beaten by just a long neck in his second run of the season in the Green Point.
Eight On Eighteen makes his seasonal reappearance in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate and has drifted to 9/2 second favourite, which is not surprising considering it is on the sharp side for him, while See It Again and Garrix are 6/1 joint third-favourite. Dave The King is 7/1 along with Green Point fourth-placed Sail The Seas.
The best value is Gladatorian at 17/1. He can be forgiven for running slightly below par in his first run at Hollywoobets Kenilworth and this usually ultra consistent horse should bounce back. It seems a bit of a knee jerk reaction by the bookmakers to have written him off so quickly as his trainer, Stuart Ferrie, was more than happy with his first run in the Cape.
