Louis Goosen’s BSA August Million runner-up Zen Arcade gets his chance to show that his debut effort was no fluke when he lines up in the opener at Scottsville on Sunday.
Flashback to Broadway Trip win in BA August Million
The race is off at 12h55 and is also the first leg of the Bipot. Zen Arcade is the SP Top Bet For Sunday.
A Wilgerbosdrift & Mauritzfontein bred son of Ideal World, Zen Arcade started at any price in the restricted sales feature in mid-August and ran on best of the beaten horses to finish 2,25 lengths behind Alec Laird’s highly regarded Broadway Trip.
Based on the ‘kilo’s-for-cash’ weight scale of that race, Zen Arcade gave Broadway Trip 2kgs – and he also beat the promising Dean Kannemeyer debut winner Silva’s Bullet – so it was a very decent debut, whichever way one views it.
Louis Goosen – set to make an impact in KZN
While Zen Arcade is by Ideal World and should be looking at further, he drops 200m in trip – but has plenty of speed through his thrice winning dam, Variety Star (Var). He will be ridden again by Scottsville Gr1 jockey, Gunter Wrogemann, who told Tabnews on Friday that does not intend to let a “small” thing like a swollen, stitched up nose stop him from fulfilling his engagements at Turffontein on Saturday and Scottsville on Sunday.
After winning Race 1 at Turffontein on Thursday, he was injured while riding Goede Hoop in Race 2. His mount threw her head back as the gates were released, hitting Wrogemann in the face and cutting his nose. He lost his right stirrup iron in the incident, then the left at the 700m marker so could not ride Robbie Sage’s charge out to the finish.
The cut needed stitches and he was stood down from the rest of the race meeting, although he did admit, “I would have liked to carry on riding.” As for his commitments this weekend, he said on Friday, “I’m intending to ride, but obviously I’ll have to see how I am breathing-wise in the morning
Other than Dean Kannemeyer’s consistent First Crusade and the Des Egdes trained 100 to 1 debut runner-up Unbelievable Lad, the raced runners that Zen Arcade faces on Sunday mostly look quite modest and Zen Arcade may just have to negotiate the four first-timers. A market springer looks unlikely amongst the quartet
Formerly based at the Vaal, Louis Goosen is now permanently resident at Ashburton and broke the ice at Scottsville on Wednesday when the giant Haddington won well.
The Pick 6, which kicks off in the third race at 14h05, boasts a carryover of R400,000. The pool is expected to reach R2,2 million.
