David Thiselton
Both Alec Laird and Stuart Ferrie have decided to avoid the Gr 1 Betway Summer Cup with their crack horses Fire Attack and Gladatorian respectively and will take on the best in Cape Town.
Alec said about the Gr 1 Premier’s Champions Challenge winner Fire Attack, “Off his 126 rating we just think he must go for the weight for age races at this stage. In the Summer Cup there is only a 6kg spread from top to bottom, but I think it will just take it out of him. He will run his guts out carrying topweight over 2000m at Turffontein. So we are going to have to take on the best horses in the country and will have to take on two of the best (Eight On Eighteen and The Real Prince) in their hometown. It makes it a bit tougher that it’s in their hometown, but we will go for glory. If we run second or third it will be a good run and there will be no skin off our noses.”
Fire Attack faced some of the best in his last start when finishing a running on 2,35 length fourth behind Gladatorian, The Real Prince and See It Again in the Gr 1 HKJC Champions Cup over 1800m.
However, the race did not pan out too well for him.
He had to be dropped out to last in the seven horse field and there was some time wasted before he could be committed.
Alec said, “The horse in front of him, Son Of Raj, didn’t know which way he wanted to go, left or right. I think Richard wanted to go handier, but he obviously didn’t know whether to go left or right (due to the horse in front of him not committing either way). So he was at the back of the field and eventually he went for a run down the inside. For his first time at Greyville I thought it was a decent run. He hadn’t seen the course before and he made up ground. He did have an interrupted program too. It gave us hope he could go to Cape Town. All being well he will have a proper program for his campaign in Cape Town. There is only one prep run I could find for him in Jo’Burg before he goes, it is an 1160m Pinnacle event on November 9 on Victory Moon day. He is eligible to travel to the Cape after that and will stay with Eric Sands. Eric has helped me in the past with London News and Smart Call and others. He has always been a big help.”
He continued, “There is a classic program for the horses going for the Met. It is the Green Point first and then the L’Ormarins King’s Plate. We’ll take stock after those two races. It will be the same program for Eight On Eighteen, The Real Prince and Gladatorian. May the best horse win or the one who is well at the time. When you say ‘I am not going to go because I can’t beat this one or that one’, then come the race something could happen, for example, to Eight On Eighteen, and then you are sitting here and saying, ‘Oh dear’. So we are taking our chances.”
London News was expected to win the Queen’s Plate and the Met in 1997 and started 33/10 second favourite and 16/10 favourite respectively.
However, Smart Call was backed in from 40/1 to 8/1 and beat the like of Legal Eagle, Captain America, Futura, Legislate and other Gr 1 winners to land Alec a second Met in 2016.
Meanwhile, Summer Cup reigning champion Atticus Finch has been treated and has recovered from the epistaxis he suffered in the Hollywoodbets Durban July.
Alec said he had been “flourishing” and will take the same route in to the Summer Cup as he did last year.
Another interesting horse in the yard is Gr 2 Gauteng Guineas winner Parisian Walkway.
Alec said, “I think we found out what was slowing him down. He had a very resistant worm we found in his stool and I think we have eventually got rid of it.”
Alec feels Parisian Walkway is too high in the handicap on 119 when looking at the rest of the Guineas’ fields merit ratings today, but he is hoping he bounces back to his Guineas form. He is running in a Graduation Plate on Saturday that he is weighted to win.
Meanwhile, Stuart Ferrie has earmarked a conditions event over either 1200m or 1400m at the beginning of November for Gladatorian to run in before going to Cape Town, where he will go for the Green Point, King’s Plate and WSB Met. He will be staying at Lucinda Woodruff’s yard.
