Anthony Delpech continued on his relentless march for the National Jockey’s Championship and extended his lead to 35 at Greyville yesterday with another ride out of the top drawer on Savuti for Brett Crawford and Summerveld assistant Peter Muscutt in the Track & Ball Savera Handicap.

The race looked wide open but Delpech had his tactics down pat as he sent Savuti around his field to lead shortly after the start. He looked well on his way to victory with a furlong to run before Sean Veale produced Agencefrancepresse with a telling late run. For a stride or two it looked as if Doug Campbell’s charge had the measure of Savuti but Delpech extracted more from his mount and went to the line with something to spare.

Savuti (Candiese Marnewick)

With the Mayfair Speculator rides drying up, some of the ill-informed on social media were calling Anton Marcus’s ability into question. He may be a veteran of the saddle but he is far from washed-up as he showed on two mounts for a past master in the saddle, Garth Puller.

Marcus delivered a knock-out punch up the inside rail on Queensbury Rules in the card opener and then made al the running on luke-warm favourite Ryker two races later.

Second, albeit a distant one, behind Sir David Baird in the KZN Guineas Trial, Ryker had been disappointing in two subsequent sprints on the turf at Scottsville.

Back over a mile, Ryker took to the poly and led from the jump to win as he liked.

Marcus added a third to round off a sound afternoon at the office as he rode a typically powerful finish on favourite Victory Trip to give Dennis Bosch his second after the afternoon after saddling Wild Hushpuppy to an upset victory in the second under Gunther Wrogemann who is now a regular visitor to these shores.

The fifth resulted in a tremendous finish with nine runners finishing within a two lengths of each other. Delpech looked set for his second victory of the afternoon as he kept Destiny Duchess hard to her task only to have Gareth Wright sneak Argenteus through on the outside rail to snatch the decision in the last stride.

Not to be out-done, Delpech got another one on the board in another desperate finish to the seventh. Moon Bird, Mbali and Gadget Man fourth a three-way battle over the final furlong with Depech extracting just that little bit extra from Gadget Man to sneak home by a neck with a short-head separating Mbali and Moon Bird who was having his first run since July last year.

By Andrew Harrison