Anton Marcus averaged a winner every three rides at Kenilworth last season. Tomorrow the four-time champion has six mounts on his first Cape Town visit of the campaign and at least three have winning chances.

He can start off by scoring on True Words in the first. The Ramsden grey ran well last time. In the first two throughout, he beat all except Strikitlikeamatch who put the issue to bed shortly after halfway but True Words did race on the slower part of the course.

Seventh Rule probably represents the main danger although What A Summer returned with blood in his mouth when starting favourite last time and riding arrangements suggest that Fake News is the pick of the four Snaith newcomers.

Marcus sits out race two in which Johnny Black makes most appeal and 40 minutes later he renews his acquaintanceship with Ice Queen who, quite frankly, has not shown anything on the racecourse to suggest she is good enough. But she drops in trip, wears blinkers for the first time and the opposition is weak. Those who prefer their form already in the book may wish to have a saver on Moonlight Dancer whose last run reads well.

Rommel, quite well away from an 11 draw last time when he raced second for much of the way, may just be good enough to win race four particularly as Black Belt is badly drawn.

Leadman is the form choice in the 2 000m TAB Maiden and is likely to start favourite assuming things are going Marcus’s way by this stage. But he is far from certain to confirm the placings with Greg Cheyne’s mount Silver De Lange who was only three-quarters of a length behind Leadman a fortnight ago. Indeed, judging by the way he ran on at the end, he may be sufficiently favoured by the extra furlong to turn the tables.

Eastern Front has been dropped two points in the Interbet.co.za Handicap but neither that nor Marcus may be enough to get him home in front. The race has a particularly open appearance although Chill Baby Chill would make a lot of appeal but for this being her second run after a rest.

It’s first time out of the maidens for Querari’s Secret in the last. However he did beat older horses last time when he showed considerable improvement with blinkers and Marcus can be relied upon to make light of the 13 draw.

By Michael Clower

Veteran New Zealand jockey Grant Cooksley has matched one of Lester Piggott’s achievements.

Cooksley, like the famed English rider, has been able to win a Group I race aged 57.

Cooksley became the oldest rider to win a Group I race in New Zealand when he won the Tarzino Trophy on Close Up at Hastings last weekend.

It is likely that and he and Piggott are the oldest riders to have won an internationally recognised Group I race.

Piggott, who won a Group I race at Ellerslie in 1980, recorded his final Group I win in September 1993, in the Moyglare Stakes in Ireland, when two months short of his 58th birthday. He was 58 when he won the Group II Falmouth Stakes at Newmarket in 1994, a race that now has Group I status.

Cooksley, who will turn 58 in December, was having just his third ride for the season when he won the Tarzino. It was his 66th Group I win but his first at that level since January 2006, when he won the Wellington Cup on Envoy.

Cooksley has a career tally of more than 2500 wins, including over 1000 in New Zealand, where his list of major victories also includes three wins in both the Auckland Cup and New Zealand Derby.

He has spent much of his riding career in Australia, where his wins have included two Sydney Cups, three Metropolitans and a Doncaster and he has finished second in both the Melbourne Cup and Golden Slipper (twice).

He has also ridden in Singapore, Hong Kong, England, Dubai, Malaysia, Macau and New Caledonia.

Cooksley’s first major win came when he won the 1978 Great Northern Steeplechase, on Ballycastle, as an 18-year-old.

– New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing

The recent successful appeal by Summerveld trainer James Goodman against a National Horseracing Authority (NHA) ruling revealed the high-handed demeanour of one of the NHA’s office bearers at the time of the ruling and the lack of attention to protocol by the latter.

However, the new leader of the NHA, Lyndon Barends, has already made a lot of effort to build bridges between everybody in the racing industry and rather than viewing the NHA as merely the policemen, whose role is to maintain the integrity of the sport, he views the authority as the head of the racing family.

In his “Vision 2020” strategy, Barends aims to transform the NHA over the next four years.

He has identified five objectives of the NHA in Southern Africa in its identified territories.

They are:

1. To regulate the Sport Of Horseracing
2. To govern the Sport with integrity.
3. To serve the industry through excellent, efficient and effective administration of amongst others, the Stud Book, registrations, licensing, race day services and laboratory services.
4. To promote and/or encourage the promotion of the Sport Of Horseracing, the quality of the Thoroughbred, industry training and skills development.
5. To promote and foster co-operation and goodwill with recognised authorities, Governments and local and International Stakeholders.

Goodman won a high court appeal last week relating to a horse of his, Aldric, who won on October 10, 2014. Aldric was later tested positive for caffeine, which led to a fine of R80,000. Goodman was also ordered to pay R45,000 to the NHA for costs incurred.

The judge agreed with Goodman that NHA attorney Jonathan Witts-Hewinson should have recused himself from the inquiry into the Aldric case. Witts-Hewinson had indeed been asked by Goodman’s legal representative at the time, Robert Bloomberg, to recuse himself, because at the time of chairing the Aldric inquiry he was not only a National Board Director of the NHA, but was also a panel member of both the Inquiry Review Board and Appeal Board and also sat on a legal sub-committee of the NHA. He was also a former NHA Chairman. However, Witts-Hewinson refused Bloomberg’s request.

Goodman’s legal representatives in the High Court case, Shepstone & Wylie, made a submission highlighting the principle that a man may not be a judge in his own cause or judge of the cause of somebody he is partial to. Had this principle been adhered to, Witts-Hewinson would have automatically been disqualified from the inquiry.

The judge also found the proceedings conducted by Witts-Hewinson to be “manifestly procedurally unfair” and to have “no structure whatsoever”. Furthermore, Goodman’s expert witness, Professor Tobin, “testified he was denied the opportunity of questioning the specialist chemist (Schalk De Kock) employed by the NHA”.

The judge set aside the guilty verdict and both fines and ordered the NHA to pay the costs of the application.

South Africa’s most recognised international trainer Mike de Kock wrote a blog after the case headed, “All we want is fairness.”

De Kock emphasised the ignorance of the general racing public regarding “positives” and believed this had its roots in “bad media reports that emanate from respective racing authorities who are all too eager to make themselves look good and to justify their existence at the expense of the reputation of trainers and jockeys and, ultimately, at the expense of the industry.”

Indeed, the general racing public do not have the knowledge to differentiate between therapeutic medicine and “dope” or, in the case of the former, to differentiate between irrelevant traces and levels that are having a pharmacological effect.

The public invariably believe a positive to be a deliberate attempt by the trainer to cheat by “doping” a horse.

In actual fact most regulatory bodies these days distinguish between the control of illicit substances (doping control) from the control of therapeutic substances (medication control). For doping drugs, the objective is to detect any trace of drug exposure using the most powerful analytical methods. However, this “zero tolerance rule” is not suitable for the control of therapeutic substances because the sophisticated screening methods these days would be able to find traces of a therapeutic medication long after it had been administered and long after it was having any pharmacological effect. Therefore HCL (Harmonised Screening Limits) are decided upon by the regulatory bodies for therapeutic medications. Trainers and veterinarians are advised of “detection times”, or the time it would take for the therapeutic medicine to withdraw to a level below the screening limit.

Most positives appear to emanate from a mistake being made by either the veterinarian in the dosage of a therapeutic substance administered or negligence by the trainer and/or veterinarian in adhering to the detection time. In Goodman’s case, a caffeine positive is often the result of feed contamination.

However, what has most irked De Kock in recent times was the perception by trainers that “all the NHA has to do is to prove that the accused party is the trainer of the horse in which a positive sample was found. By virtue of the fact that he or she is a licensed trainer, such trainer is guilty. Period.”

Barends’ Vision 2020 makes the following statements among others, “By our nature we will be separate from our Stakeholders, but we will seek to understand their environment and take cognisance thereof as we govern. We will serve, support and promote Horseracing and the wellbeing of the horses and the people with integrity, responsiveness, excellence and dedication. We recognise that we are part of a passionate, loyal and committed horseracing fraternity. In all our efforts we will endeavour to enlarge this family to include those who have never been exposed to the pleasures of the sport.”

Hopefully, Goodman’s determination to seek justice and succeed therein will be a watershed moment in the racing industry and will spell the end of the high-handedness Mike de Kock talks about.

By David Thiselton

Ashburton training centre has had its troubles with zebras invading the track in search of green grass this winter and horses and jockeys working on the grass track before sun-up were often confronted with stripped equine roadblocks.

Efforts to relocate the zebras that have multiplied over the years, resulted in a confrontation with local conservationists who put a halt to proceedings but also galloping through the property last week was a herd of a dozen wildebeest.

But it would appear that Ashburton is not the only racing jurisdiction that has problems with the local wildlife.

racingpost.com reports that track officials awoke to a nasty surprise at Chantilly in France on Tuesday morning when they discovered several wild boar had been having a high old time of it on the racecourse, just days before the Arc trials card.

The boars had dug holes in a section of the track in front of the Grandes Ecuries, near the halfway mark of the mile and a half course which will be used on Sunday for the Prix Vermeille, Prix Niel and Prix Foy.

Ground crews were scrambled to fill in the damage and clerk of the course Matthieu Vincent was quick to offer reassurance there was no danger to the weekend’s action, with the boars having largely left alone the racing line.

“I must stress that everything is fine now,” said Vincent, who in less than a month’s time will be overseeing his second Arc.

“The problem was near the road crossing along the front of the Grandes Ecuries [Royal Stables] but almost all on the outside, stretching for about 50 metres.

“As far as the inside line of the track is concerned, near the rail, there were a few minor traces of activity, but it was nothing really. Everything has now been made good.”

Chantilly is set amid sprawling forest and it is not the first time Vincent and his team have had to confront the boars, who were caught in the act of digging up a section of the Piste des Reservoirs training gallop last October.

It would be no surprise to see sanglier become the dish of the day in the racecourse panoramic restaurant on Sunday.

Horse racing is a fickle mistress and injury, be it horse or jockey, can suddenly be career ending. But perseverance often pays dividends and although apprentice Dennis Schwarz will have had outstanding support and re-hab from the South African Jockey Academy, it is often easier for a young lad to throw in the towel after a career-threatening injury.

Schwarz lost his 4kg claim quickly once trainers cottoned on to his potential and he was on a roll towards the end of last season. But a serious knee injury saw him side-lined for close on six months.

It has taken some time for Schwarz to get back to riding fitness and trainers to pick up on the fact that he was one of the more promising youngsters but he gave notice that he is back with a double at Scottsville yesterday, boosting his seasonal tally to four.

His first came on the battling maiden Chilli Affair for Alyson Wright as the six-year-old finally got his act together, much to many punters chagrin, as he got first run on hot favourite Coys and kept rolling to the line.

From a tricky draw, Anthony Delpech was hung out like the washing for most of the early exchanges unable to get close to the rail, and in the straight was not helped as Coys kept looking to run off a straight course.

Schwarz, replacement for fellow apprentice Diego d Gouveia, produced another enterprising ride on out-sider La Gitano in the Track & Ball Gaming Handicap for Tony Rivalland to hold off Captains Moll with favourite Girl In Gold battling to quicken and finishing unplaced.

Ivan Moore was a top jockey in his home country of Zimbabwe before taking out a trainer’s licence and then moving south.

He has a small yard with grandson Darryl, who cut his teeth with top trainer Charles Laird before joining his grandfather, and Art Attack’s victory in the White Horse Function Room Handicap will have been sweet. Consistently place over 1600m but running on empty over the final 100m, Warren Kennedy took advantage of the drop to 1400m, attacked early and pinching a lead before holding on gamely to deny Magic Memory a third straight win.

Delpech had better luck in the second as he produced a well-timed effort on the well-supported Lucky At Last for Nathan Kotzen who, after struggling to saddle his first winner as a licenced trainer, added a quick second after Cumulus broke his duck on Sunday.

Anton Marcus is never one to doubt his ability and an early move on the Mike Miller-trained Fashion Quest paid dividends in the Qualified Maiden Plate. Stepped up to 1600m after a string of placed runs over sprints, Marcus showed faith in that his mount would stay the trip from a tricky draw. Taking up the running before the home turn, he fought off all challengers when at one stage it looked as if he would be swamped.

By Andrew Harrison