Turffontein Standside stages a nine race meeting on Saturday and there will be some good quality horses appearing in three of the events.

The third race is a Conditions Plate for fillies and mares over 1160m. The best in at the weights here is Queen Laurie. She hasn’t run since April but being a sprinter could get away with it. She is very speedy and would prefer 1000m. However, the Turffontein 1160m is a fast course-and-distance and the going conditions on the Highveld are fast at present. Carrying just 53,5kg she might be able to run them off their feet.

The topweight Secret Star has earned her 100 merit rating. She has a tough task on paper with Queen Laurie, whom she has to give 6.5kg instead of what would be just 2,5kg in a handicap. However, she has excellent cruising speed and a telling kick, so it would be no surprise to see her catching Queen Laurie close to home. Biblical Susan is officially 6kg under sufferance with Queen Laurie, but has always struck as a decent type. In the maidens she beat Secret Star over 1200m in October last year and is now 8kg better off with her from that run. Her last start suggests she is starting to come into her own and she should make her presence felt.

Will Pays (Nkosi Hlophe)

Myfunnyvalentine is returning from a six month layoff after disappointing in Cape Town. She finished a close fourth in the Grade 1 Allan Robertson over 1200m as a two-year-old. The form of that race has been muddled, but she did win quite a strong Non-Black type event over 1200m subsequently which proved she might be up to her current merit rating. She is second best in at the weights and is only 0,5kg under sufferance with Queen Laurie so has to be respected. Spring Wonder beat Biblical Susan by 1,1 lengths last time, but is now 3,5kg worse off, so there is not much in it.

The fourth is a MR 104 Handicap over 1160m. Pure Blonde showed good cruising speed over 1200m on the Inside track last time out when leading from start to finish and winning comfortably. He has come into his own and could follow up here despite being given an eight point raise. Will Pays has some class and bounced back to form last time when winning over 1400m. He is equally effective over this trip and is capable of carrying topweight to victory. However, Captain Aldo can reverse the form at the weights, especially considering he went close to the classy Rivarine the last time he tried the course and distance. Unagi has class and some speed, so is interesting dropped in trip. Finchatton should be finishing strongly.

The sixth is a MR 92 Handicap over 2000m. Top Shot is six-year-old now but has decent form if his last run at Greyville is ignored. He enjoys the Standside track and the last time he ran here he jumped from pole position over 1600m and led all the way to beat the decent Irish Pride. He is equally effective over this trip and is the one to beat if bouncing back after that failed Durban raid. He could get a good lead from the front-running Stonehenge.

However, the latter looks to be enjoying the current fast conditions and might keep them all at bay. Amsterdam is ideally distance suited and proved last time over 1800m he is up to his current merit rating. He is 1,5kg better off with Happy Pills for a half-a-length beating over 1800m. The latter is in good form and being by Trippi can continue to progress. He should stay the trip. Lee’s Pick is 1kg under sufferance but there is not much between him and Amsterdam over this trip. Wild Horizon has run in staying trips in his last three but before that won easily over 1800m, so also has a shout from a good draw at a course he enjoys.

By David Thiselton

Anton Marcus – Head Honcho (Middle Stakes)

Bernard Fayd’Herbe – Marinaresco (Vodacom Durban July)

Weichong Marwing – Hermoso Mundo (eLAN Gold Cup).

Eric Ngwane – Matador Man (KZN Breeders Million Mile)

Sean Veale – Lady In Black (Thekwini Stakes)

I fielded an irate phone-call from a concerned punter this week, the caller complaining about the number of odds-on favourites that are getting beaten in KZN. “They should be absolute certainties,” was his opinion, and what were the Stipendiary Stewards doing about it?

Firstly, just because a horse is odds-on in the betting doesn’t guarantee success. There are a host of reasons why an odds-on favourite doesn’t arrive – top jockey aboard often the root cause of most complaints. But physical short-comings of the horse are up to the punter to sort. Horseracing is not branded the ‘brain game’ for nothing.

I cannot defend the stipes who were accused of being the ‘three blind mice’ but I do know that the drop-off in class of horse contesting South Africa’s Champion Season and the next level a mere three days later, is like falling off a cliff. One cannot compare.

Tom Collins (Candiese Marnewick)

The first two races at Greyville yesterday were possibly an illustration of the vagaries of the sport and what may lead to many unfounded conclusions. Top jockey Anton Marcus was one of the riders in the sights of my caller and he was aboard the odds-on favourite On The Bounce in the first.

Marcus has been aboard the filly in all six of her starts, a beaten favourite one three occasions, the last time ahead of subsequent Gr1 winner Lady In Black. But there are some that still feel skulduggery is at play.

The simple fact is that On The Bounce is not very fast and will be beaten more often than not even if she ever manages to win a race in the first place. Just because she is owned by the country’s top owner, trained by one of the country’s top trainers and ridden by one of the country’s top jockeys, does not necessarily make her a “good thing” no matter her 6-10 price.

Enough of the preaching to a race that had all guessing.

The Bird Cage Maiden Plate was a concoction that may have been stirred by the four witches in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth.

There were no clear tactics at play and it was obvious that any instruction given in the paddock had come to naught as all the riders sat back waiting for someone – anyone – to make the play.

It was a jamboree of tactics but for punters at least the result was favourable. Tom Collins, that had been touted as more than useful in his previous three sprint outings, justified market support in getting home in a race that was ‘all over the place’.

“It was tactically befuddling,” confirmed winning rider Ian Sturgeon. No early pace and with all fighting for their head, Marcus on outsider King’s Music and no form to back his claims, made an early move on the turn.

The opposition panicked and as King’s Music played his last chord when disappearing out of the back door it was up to the best horse in the race. “His little bit of ability pulled him through,” confirmed Stuart Ferrie, long-time assistant to Dennis Drier who is enjoying the delights of Ibiza in Spain.

By Andrew Harrison

Joey Ramsden believes that Ancestry, a close second in both the Golden Horseshoe and Premiers Champion, will be a classic contender this season – “He is very much a Guineas horse and probably even more of a Derby horse.”

However the Milnerton trainer is narked that Bernard Fayd’Herbe did not employ more gamesmanship when Ancestry was beaten half a length by Eyes Wide Open (Richard Fourie) in the Premiers.

He said: “Bernard had the opportunity to keep him out and he let him in. I could have accepted it if he had quickened a bit and kept Richard three wide but this is racing. I don’t get an inch from Brett Crawford or Justin Snaith and nor do I expect it.”

Bernard Fayd’Herbe (Liesl King)

Ramsden’s annoyance is easy to understand. There is a huge difference between first and second in a Grade 1 – several times the stake money involved in the case of a colt or a filly – and often it’s also the difference between ending up with a satisfied owner and a dissatisfied one. Both owner and trainer are entitled to expect their jockey to pull out all the stops.

However there is a certain camaraderie in the jockeys’ room, borne out of both respect for fellow riders and an acknowledgement of the dangers they all face travelling at over 50kph on animals whose steering and controllability are often suspect. The accepted creed is that, while you do everything in your power to win when the race is on in earnest, you don’t endanger your opponents by attempting to stitch them up coming out of the pens.

If you do that, you can expect to be taught a painful lesson in the very near future – and both Andrew Harrison’s report and the Tellytrack replay suggest that Fayd’Herbe’s act of sportsmanship came at the very beginning of the race.

On a less contentious note, Brett Crawford confirms that Champions Cup first and second, Sail South and Captain America, will both stay in training for at least another season. Objectives will include the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate in which they filled the minor placings behind Legal Eagle in January.

Last year’s Cape Derby winner It’s My Turn, only eighth in the Durban July, has been sent to a farm for a rest and Justin Snaith said: “All my Durban horses are having a break. They went from a hard summer to a hard winter and they are tired.”

Last year’s Scottsville Grade 1 winner Always In Charge is on the way back after pulling a muscle behind in early April and being forced to miss the Tsogo Sun Sprint.

Vaughan Marshall said: “He is back in work and coming right but we are not going to rush him.”

Stable companion The Secret Is Out, who has not been seen since her third to Carry On Alice in the SA Fillies Sprint, stays in training as a four-year-old.

Marshall said: “There were no further races for her in Durban but she will go for the good sprints in Cape Town.”

By Michael Clower

Justin Snaith finished second on the national trainer’s log for the second year in succession in the season just passed and will be crowned Western Cape Champion trainer for the fifth time in succession. Snaith, who was national champion trainer in 2013/2014, also finished highest in the standings for stakes earned in the Western Cape and this was the third time he had achieved this feat.

However, the big race limelight among Western Cape trainers was stolen by Brett Crawford, who won six Grade 1 races and finished third on the National Trainers log. In the August of 2009 Crawford left Plattner Racing to go on his own and in his first full season thereafter, in the 2010/2011 season, he finished 58^th on the National log. His prowess as a trainer is highlighted by his rapid climb to the top of the tree.

Justin Snaith (Nkosi Hlophe)

Candice Bass-Robinson finished in fourth place on the National Trainers log in her first season as a licensed trainer following the retirement of her legendary father Mike. She also became the first lady trainer in history to win the country’s premier race, the Vodacom Durban July.

Vaughan Marshall, Glen Kotzen and Joey Ramden were the other three Western Cape trainers to finish in the top ten in the National Trainers Championships.

Snaith became the third trainer in SA history, after Mike de Kock and Sean Tarry, to break through the R20 million mark for stakes earnings in a season. His star performer was the brilliant grey filly Bela-Bela, who won two Grade 1 events, the Maine Chance Farms Paddock Stakes over 1800m at Kenilworth and the Jonsson Workwear Garden Province Stakes at Greyville. In the latter race she proved a mile was her best trip and produced the female performance of the season, annihilating a top class field. She also finished third in the Grade 1 Rising Sun Gold Challenge over 1600m and fourth in her swansong in the Grade 1 Champions Cup over 1800m. Snaith, who has a satellite yard in Port Elizabeth in addition to his chief operation, a private establishment at Phillippi in Cape Town, also won three Grade 2s, seven Grade 3s, nine Listed races and five Non-Black Type events.

Crawford was R1,619,750 behind Snaith on the national log but in earnings in Western Cape races was only R369,963 behind him. He was only one behind national champion trainer Sean Tarry in the Grade 1 count, but he led the way together with Mike de Kock in the number of individual Grade 1 winners with five. He won the Grade 1 Met, sponsored now by Sun, for the third time in his career and this time it was with Whisky Baron. The latter was gelded at the end of last season and won all five of his races this term, which also included a Grade 2. He departed for an overseas campaign after the Met. Crawford’s only dual Grade 1 winner was Edict Of Nantes, who won the Investec Cape Derby and the Daily News 2000. His other Grade 1 winners were Captain America (Rising Sun Gold Challenge), Lady Of The House (Woolavington 2000) and Sail South (Champions Cup). Crawford also won three Grade 2s, three Grade 3s, three Listed races and both of his Non-Black Type victories were in R1 million events.

Bass Robinson won the July with Marinaresco and this classy and courageous little horse also won the Grade 2 IOS Drill Hall Stakes over 1400m. Bass-Robinson also won the Grade 1 Klawervlei Majorca Stakes with Nightingale, who went on to finish tie-fourth in the July. She won two other Grade 2s, two Grade 3s and eight Listed races. One of her season’s highlights was winning the Non-Black Type $500,000 CTS Sprint with the classy sprinting filly Live Life.

Vaughan Marshall finished seventh on the National Trainers log with stakes earnings of over R10 million. He was trainer of the highest earning horse of the season, the brilliant three-year-old William Longsword, whose five victories included the Grade 1 Grand Parade Cape Guineas and the Non-Black Type US$500,000 CTS Mile. William Longsword accumulated R4.065,000 in the season and was retired mid-season as a six-time winner in order to succeed his late great father Captain Al at stud. Marshall also won two Grade 3s and two Listed races and one other Non-Black Type event.

Brett Crawford and Anton Marcus (Nkosi Hlophe)

Glen Kotzen, who finished ninth on the National log, ended the season with a bang by landing the Grade 1 Premier’s Champions Stakes over 1600m at Greyville with the exciting colt Eyes Wide Open. He scored a four-timer that day and this included a Grade 3. However, his best horse was undoubtedly the three-year-old Gold Standard, who won the Listed RA Stakes in PE and the Grade 2 Selangor Cup, before finishing a narrow second in the Cape Guineas, which was dominated by himself and William Longsword. Gold Standard then finished a fine fourth in an ultra-strong Sun Met. Unfortunately, he was laid off for the rest of the season. Kotzen had two other Grade 3 wins, one other Listed race victory and one other Non-Black Type win.

Joey Ramsden finished in tenth place on the national log. His best horse was the three-year-old filly Just Sensual, who won the Grade 1 WSB Cape Fillies Guineas, the Grade 3 Prix du Cap and the Grade 2 Tibouchina. She also finished second in the Grade 1 SA Fillies Sprint. Ramsden won one other Grade 3 and five Listed races.

Dean Kannemeyer, who also had a satellite yard at Summerveld, finished 19^th on the national log and won one Grade 3, two Listed races and one Non-Black Type event.

Andre Nel finished in twentieth position on the national log in his first full season as Sabine Plattner’s private trainer. He won one Grade 3 race.

Mike Robinson and Adam Marcus both won one Grade 3 race each.

Other Western Cape trainer achievements included a Listed victory for Eric Sands.

By David Thiselton