The Australian-bred mare Sensible Lover has always been up there with the best of her generation but has only managed a single victory since winning the Gr3 Three Troika Stakes at just her third outing. 26 starts later she lines up in a Progress Plate over a mile at the Vaal this afternoon where she should be good enough to finally add a fourth victory to her record.

Weiho Marwing, now back permanently at his Turffontein yard after a spell at Ashburton, has always held Sensible Lover in high regard and she has contested her fair share of feature events with varying success.

Her last win came back in March last year in a set weights race on the Greyville poly where she beat the Gr1 winning filly Real Princess.

More recently she finished second in the Gr3 Sycamore Sprint behind Tiger’s Touch in her warm-up for the Gr1 L Jaffee Empress Club Stakes where she ran the top class Inara to a length in second place in a hotly contested race.

Her form since has been a touch disappointing but she comes into today’s event nicely weighted and with a pipe-opener under her girth she looks set for a big showing.

The lightly raced Noor appears to have her problems and Mike de Kock’s filly will need to improve on her recent showings when down the field in both. However, her last outing was in a Pinnacle Stakes where, although never a threat to winner Fort Ember, she jumped from a difficult gate. This will be her third outing after a five-month spell and with only seven runners in opposition she can be competitive.

Top weight My Friend Lee is in mustard form but has it all to do at these weights. She won well enough over 1400m last time out but that was in a lowly MR68 Handicap and here she gives weight to a mare who has been placed at the highest level.

Victory is not beyond the realms of possibility for Lucky Houdalakis’s charge but she will be up against a smart mare in Sensible Lover.

Houdalakis may have a better chance of finding the winner’s enclosure when he saddles Joan Ranger in the Conditions Plate over 1000m. The race has attracted a small but smart field but Joan Ranger should be up to the task.

Coming off a convincing win in a Progress Plate, Joan Ranger most recently took on the smart Green Pepper at level weights and was beaten less than a length. Joan Ranger was good enough to finish fourth behind Trip To Heaven in the Merchants and given that she is well in at these weights and Piere Strydom in the irons she rates the one to beat.

Hardly a meeting passes without Sean Tarry leading in a winner and he has two chances in Swift Sarah and Old Em, both in the race off some decent recent form. Swift Sarah is back over what looks to be a more suitable trip after finishing down the field in a 1450m event at Turffontein but Old Em only has 49.5kg to shoulder with much improved apprentice Phumi Mjoka keeping the ride. Old Em is likely to be out and gone from the jump and if given too much leeway, could be difficult to peg back.

Fort Ember will be warming up for the Highveld autumn season after her recent victory in the Gr3 Flamboyant Stakes at Greyville. Today’s race will be on the sharp side but she has enough class to make her presence felt.

The Aussie import Dame Eleanor looks to be on a similar course. She won her first two convincingly but came unstuck for the first time when sent over a mile. Mike de Kock’s charge looks to have some scope and it will be interesting to see how she goes here.

However, Joan Ranger has a lot in her favour and is taken to get home ahead of Old Em and stable companion Swift Sarah with Fort Ember and Dame Eleanor running at them late.

By Andrew Harrison

Summerveld-based Alyson Wright hit a rich vein of form over the weekend, saddling a treble at Greyville on Friday night and adding another to her weekend haul with Special Encounter in the third at the same venue yesterday.

Also in business over the weekend were “The Roy’s” for prolific owner Roy Moodley whose “Roy’s” did him proud on Friday night with Roy’s Emblem opening the evening’s card at long odds for Wright and two races later, Roy’s Pony doing the double for the Wright – Moodley combination.

Apprentice Craig Bantam rounded off Moodley’s evening as Roy’s Dollar skated home by five lengths for Lezeanne Forbes two races later.

Celtic Captain, with plenty in his favour, converted favouritism with a minimum of fuss in the non black-type umThombothi Handicap at Greyville yesterday for Gareth van Zyl and owner Brian Burnard. Top weight Serissa set the pace with Warren Kennedy sitting mid-field on the favourite in a six-horse race. Celtic Captain moved through with a solid challenge in the straight and quickly had the measure of the pacemaker with the filly Persian Rug rattling home from last to take second.

Wayne Badenhorst trains out of a small private establishment next door to Richmond-based trainer Doug Campbell and he saddled Spy Fiction to a fluent victory in yesterday’s opener.

All the money was for the blinkered Inyati and Moon Shadow but Brandon Lerena sent his mount the shortest way home and Spy Fiction responded to run them all down and win comfortably.

Danish Cross showed that her form on the poly was all wrong when running out an easy winner of the second for Duncan Howells and Keagan de Melo. Always handy, she looked to be under pressure shortly after entering the straight but while she kept up a relentless gallop the balance of the field fell away and the odds-on favourite won rather comfortably.

The recent passing of Colin Scott was deeply mourned by the racing community and there was a poignant moment as Silver Sails, racing in the colours of his brother Rob, scored an emphatic victory in the fourth. The Silvano gelding appears to be above average as this was his second win from just three starts and was well fancied in the market.

Anthony Delpech rode a supremely confident race having the gelding well back in the early exchanges and was last at the top of the straight. But Silver Sails picked up the bit when asked and scythed through the opposition to win under hands-and-heels.

Apprentice Serino Moodley also had a weekend to remember, booting home a double on Friday and adding a third to his weekend tally in the fifth when leading all the way on the Therese Mitchley-trained Luna Sea who was recording her second successive win.

A clever tactical ride by Anthony Delpech in the fillies handicap saw Strategic Move out of trouble and a clear run to win her first race on the turf for Sean Tarry, holding favourite Accidental Tourist at bay. The latter had a troubled passage, only getting a clear run with the race all but over.

By Andrew Harrison

Andre Nel is determined not to be hurried in his search for a replacement when Aldo Domeyer takes up his post with Candice Bass-Robinson at the end of the month – and there is a possibility that Domeyer could still be involved.

Nel said: “I have approached a couple of jockeys but they can’t give me an answer while another has approached me. It will be the boss’s (Sabine Plattner’s) decision but we are not going to rush into anything and, if we have to freelance for a couple of months, then we will.

“Aldo is still putting in all the hours and being very professional about everything. He wants to continue to ride work for us and I will put him on those for which he is free.”

Domeyer certainly earned his R5,375 percentage on Kampala Campari in the mile handicap at Kenilworth on Saturday as the 13-10 favourite fought it out with Earth Hour and Richard Fourie – a hard man to beat at the moment – for much of the final furlong and secured a short head verdict only on the nod.

He had a much easier time of it on Straat-Kind in the 1 000m maiden with the even money newcomer leading just under two furlongs out and striding away like a good thing.

Nel said: “She wasn’t on the list for Durban but she might be now. However I don’t think she is a star by any means. I probably had her more ready than I would have wanted with a first-timer as she came here on New Year’s Eve but had to be scratched after being injured in transit.”

Domeyer is bullish about Kampala Campari, Nel’s 40th winner of the season, and said: “He is on the up and he is improving. There are exciting times ahead for him.”

Most of Nel’s horses have class written all of them – appearance as well as pedigree – but for trainers working their way up from the bottom rung of the ladder with bargain basement-level stock life can be very difficult. Few work harder than the busy Paul Reeves and his family for whom this has been a frustrating and largely unrewarding season.

But that all changed on Saturday when Grant Behr landed a 98-1 double on Finn’s Rebel and Sunshine Lady to treble the stable’s score for the campaign. Apparently Finn’s Rebel was particularly satisfying.

Reeves, who has high hopes for Nanna Anna on Wednesday, explained: “Finn’s Rebel works like a machine at home – I’ve got nothing that can go with him, he kills everything. But he has been very disappointing on the racecourse.”

It is about this time of year that Vaughan Marshall unleashes his Scottsville Grade 1 contenders and the well-backed Valedictorian certainly looked the part when coming home the best part of five lengths clear under MJ Byleveld in the first.

However the Milnerton trainer played down expectations, saying: “He is a nice colt but there will be better than him around.”

Cheryl Gabler has owned horses for over 20 years but the Geoff Woodruff-trained Aviatrix, the middle leg of Domeyer’s treble, is the first for which husband Reiner has had his name in the racecard. Needless to say, he will never match his wife’s racing record. She was there when Sea Cottage dead-heated for the Durban July half a century ago and she still has a hair of the horse’s tail to prove it.

Brett Crawford is more concerned with this year’s race and, while neither Scriptwriter nor Argo Solo will make the line-up, they cemented their trainer’s third place on the national log and put him on the 67 winner-mark.

By Michael Clower

Candice Bass-Robinson still harbours Grade 1 ambitions for Horizon despite the record-priced colt managing only fifth when starting odds-on for the Investec Cape Derby.

She said: “Horizon is going to Durban and he will be aimed at the Daily News (May 27). In the Derby they went too slowly for him and they turned it into a sprint.”

Elevated, second in the Cape Classic and fourth in the Guineas, fared even worse in the Derby and finished last.

Riaan van Reenen said: “His lungs were full of mucus. I shouldn’t have run him but you only get one shot at that race and I took a chance.

“He has been having a rest ever since and he is fine again now. I am going to prepare him for the Winter Series at Kenilworth.”

By Michael Clower

Enthusiastic racing mother-and-son combination Delma and Lance Sherrell are Cape Town based but their roots are in KZN and their black and white colours will be flying the “Sharks” flag boldly during the SA Champions Season.

Lance was selected as one of the flyhalves for the 1994 Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand and he had earlier followed in the footsteps of both his late father Reg and grandfather Reg Evelyn by playing for Natal. Initially, racing For Delma and Lance was merely a continuation of Reg’s involvement, but Lance admits, “It has now got me hooked”.

This winter the adrenalin will run faster than ever, because not only will Captain America be providing the Sherrell family with another shot at the Vodacom Durban July, but a home-bred of theirs, Bold Respect, will be fancied to land a two-year-old Gr 1.

Lance views racing very much as a sport and it provides a fitting replacement for his active days in the arena.

“Syndicate involvement is more fun,” he said. “There is the build up to the race where you can all talk rubbish and joust with other owners for a pie and a coke. It is like a team sport, you take the pain together and celebrate together if you win. You’re not in to make money, but just to enjoy it, and it’s a good excuse to get out of the house. A race like the Met starts with golf on the Friday and the camaraderie throughout the weekend is unbelievable. But in racing it doesn’t really matter who wins, rivals are very supportive of each other’s successes.”

Lance said after family horse Alexis had won the Gr 2 KRA Fillies Guineas two years ago, “”It is more exhilarating than lining up a kick in a big game!”

However, watching the home-bred Boldly Respectable win at Kenilworth about a year later was a whole new ball game. Lance said, “It is a completely different vibe and deeply satisfying, as you have been involved with this horse for its whole life.”

Reg Sherrell was a work associate of Robert Maingard’s in the days the family lived in Durban. Reg and Robert raced horses together and Ricky Maingard was their trainer. Lance used to tag along with his father to the Tote on a Saturday and developed an interest in the sport.

Among the horses Reg had shares in were the 1985 Cape Derby winner Impressive Style and the filly Respectable, who won the Gr 1 Natalia Stakes and she finished fourth in the 1990 July.

Reg, who passed away just 12 days after Alexis’ KRA Fillies Guineas win, had a couple of horses with Basil Marcus when the latter moved to Singapore in 2010. Stud farm manager Craig Carey then recommended Brett Crawford as a trainer to Lance.  Shortly after joining the Crawford yard, Reg passed his colours over to Delma.

Lance does have his own colours, but prefers to race with the black and white family colours, particularly due to their association with Sharks rugby.

When Crawford offered the Sherrells a share in a Captain Al colt, which he had gone over budget to secure, they jumped at it. They had once lived next door to Captain Al’s original owners, the Dos Santos’s, and Delma had always wanted a horse by the great sire. They thus landed a share in Captain America, whose first big win was in the R2 million Lanzerac Ready To Run Stakes and he later won a Gr 1 in Johannesburg.

Lance quipped, “My friends are always surprised when I say Captain America has been very costly. You see he was the one who prompted us to keep on buying! A winning culture becomes infectious in any sport.”

The Sherrells decided to breed with Respectable Lady, one of the horses transfered to Crawford from Basil Marcus, for sentimental reasons. She was the granddaughter of Respectable and Reg and Robert Maingard had also raced her mother Respectable Model.

Respectable’s great-grandson, Bold Respect, won the R1 million Kuda Sprint over 1200m on Sun Met day.

The Sherrell’s stand Respectable Lady at Dr Ashley, Dr Bev and Rose Parker’s top class Port Elizabeth-based stud farm, Ascot Stud.

A July win would mean a tremendous amount to the Sherrells. They are hoping this will be the race in which Captain America finally sheds his bridesmaid tag.

Gulf Storm is another of the Sherrells’ Gr 1-winners. The Gr 1 Tsogo Sprint, where he was runner up two years ago, will be on his agenda again. Search Party, winner of the Gr 2 WSB Merchants, will also likely carry the Sherrells colours in the Tsogo Sprint. Both Gulf Storm and Search Party were bred by Ascot Stud. Alexis will defend her Gr 2 Tibouchina crown before likely making her swansong in the Gr 1 Jonsson Workwear Garden Province Stakes.

Lance recently attended the funeral of his Springbok tour room mate and “Dirt Trackers” half-back companion, the legendary Joost van der Westhuizen. It was a sad occasion but also a happy one. Joost’s passing had brought together rugby playing contemporaries who had not seen each other for twenty odd years. There was much reminiscing and laughter. It is this camaraderie which sportsmen thrive on.

Considering Crawford sent out the first and third for this year’s Met, owned by an England cricketer and a Bok rugby player respectively, his yard could not be in a better place. Lance shares his racing successes with his former rugby colleagues. It can only be good for the Sport Of Kings if his enthusiasm one day rubs off on some of them.

David Thiselton