Joey Ramsden has won the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate three times and has run second three times more than he prefers to remember. That was from limited numbers and he is a man very well versed to pass educated comment on the big mile contest.
“To be fair – one of my second placed runners was Invincible who was runner-up to my own top horse Winter Solstice in 2005. And that gallant grey Silver Mist came within a heartbeat of rewriting the Pocket Power fairytale before it even began in 2006! But that’s all history now, isn’t it” he mused as he suggested that Snaith’s Do It Again was the horse to beat on Saturday.
Anton Marcus hugs Do It Again after the July (Pic – Candiese Marnewick)
“He caught my eye as a way above average Vodacom Durban July winner last year. He finished with a terrific burst after a rest to run third in the Green Point. That really impressed me. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him win the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate on Saturday,” added the veteran trainer, who saddles Argentinian-bred Hat Puntano – a horse he says has blossomed in the Cape and who will be in the pink of health.
If Joey were correct, Do It Again would be only the third horse to complete the Queen’s Plate-Durban July double this century – Mike Bass runners Trademark and the awesome Pocket Power being the other two.
While Justin Is Excited…
Justin Snaith has admitted he was surprised to see Do It Again, whose main aim is the Sun Met, finish so close in the Green Point – “He had only had one companion gallop, it was a prep race for him and, although he takes very little work, the slow gallop suited the others,” he told Michael Clower.
The Gold Circle journalist observes that the dual champion trainer, shrewdly, is the first person he has spoken to who casts doubt on the worth of that famously close result – “It was a perfect example of a slow run race. It’s easy to say that the first four are all great horses but they shouldn’t have all finished on top of each other like that. If there is a better pace on Saturday and we get a bit of climate, e.g. a head wind or a tail wind, it will alter the whole race.”
Justin Snaith with his star Snowdance – who runs in the Drakenstein blue on Saturday (Pic – Chase Liebenberg Photography)
And Snaith has warned that dual Gr1 winner Snowdance is being discounted by many.
“I think she can give them all a run for their money. She is not just any filly but, in my view, by far the best miler of her sex in the country. She showed that when she ran Undercover Agent to half a length in the Gold Challenge when she wasn’t right.I think I have her right now. She will need a bit of luck –she has a wide draw at eight – but, if she gets it, she will be in the firing line.”
