Tevez has 5kg in hand – in theory at any rate – in the Racing. It’s A Rush Pinnacle Stakes at Kenilworth tomorrow, and that’s a huge amount.

Tevez (Liesl King)

Admittedly the dual Merchants winner has to give away lumps of weight and he has been off for three and a half months but he is going to start favourite and he was 15-10 with World Sports Betting early yesterday afternoon.

“Often he needs his first run back but he is doing well,” says Candice Robinson. “However he wants things to go his way – he needs a good pace, to sit off them and be covered up. If he is too handy he doesn’t run his race.”

Indeed it’s the pace, or rather the possible lack of it, that is almost certainly his biggest danger. It certainly won’t be the lung-bursting gallop that brings out the best in him in races like the Merchants and so often Pinnacles are used as a prep for something else. This is not the case with Tevez because he is not going to Durban and is out to earn his keep until the big competitive Cape Town sprints come round again.

Harry Lime, 7-2 second favourite, is 3kg better with Tevez for three and three-quarter lengths in the Cape Flying Championship which should not be enough, and he was based in Port Elizabeth for his last two runs. “He’s got a small chance and the claim will help,” is the view of Justin Snaith.

Harry Lime (Nkosi Hlophe)

Tomorrow is the first time at Kenilworth for Lyle Hewitson, the former champion work-rider who is notching up the winners at a rate of knots. “He is talented and he is doing a lot of work-riding for me in Durban,” says Snaith.

Captain Bagg (6-1) should help the Tevez cause because he likes making the running although the shrewd Eric Sands will no doubt instruct Grant Behr to ensure that he doesn’t go a Tevez pace!

Interestingly the computer prediction has Harry Lime winning by a neck from Captain Bagg with Tevez failing to quicken and being beaten the best part of four lengths. It reckons 11-2 chance Kirumbo will finish fourth even though he is 1.5kg better with Captain Bagg for last time’s four-tenths of a length.

Olympian (10-1) is much better than the bare form of his seventh in a Pinnacle in March because he lost his chance at the gate that day but Buckinghampshire, Western Storm and Albarakah have surely been off too long to count here.

The Ramsden two-year-olds are on song and Table Bay showed enough first time to suggest he can win the first. He is a big price at 7-1 and 15-10 favourite China Pearl looks good 35 minutes later.

By Michael Clower