Tonight’s Greyville Friday evening double feature serves as a tasty aperitif for the South African Champions Season and should get the juices flowing with the visitors starting to show their hands – and the locals likely to find out where they stand in the scheme of things with their own hopefuls.
Beat The Retreat – best of the KZN attack
The sobering thought of only seven races on the programme is outweighed by the quality on show and the fact that both of the headline events are on the turf.
Recent history shows that this event is dominated by the visitors and Justin Snaith will be looking to follow up his success last year with Heartland.
The Cape trainer has a decent hand with impressive Met day winner Baritone and the rested Aspara.
Baritone won three in a row early on and finished on top of Noah From Goa in the Cape Guineas.
He won’t be anywhere near his peak but may have the class to take this lot out – even from his less than desirable draw.
The beautifully bred Aspara was slightly disappointing in the Cape Summer and this is likely to be a prep after a 13 week break from action.
Ernie – badly drawn and has first run in KZN
Mike Bass and Grant Van Niekerk have enjoyed a good run and Ernie steps out as their first runner locally this year.
The son of Elusive Fort won the Listed Sophomore Sprint but has not seen action since an unplaced run in the Million Dollar some ten weeks back.
Another runner out of the Million Dollar is Vaughan Marshall’s Victorious Jay. The son of Jay Peg looks way above average on his fringe efforts to the best of his year and is a nice inclusion if anywhere near fit and adapting to the right-handed turn.
Gavin Van Zyl’s duo of Redcarpet Captain and Budapest are both capable at best.
The former is a course and distance winner but was comprehensively beaten by Beat The Retreat last time and he has drawn wide.
Budapest – needs to prove that big win was no flash in the pan
Lanzerac RTR Stakes winner Budapest was outclassed in the Cape Guineas and is likely to need this after an absence of 15 weeks.
Sylvester The Cat was considered good enough to travel to the Cape for their summer but had only two blank runs. He bounced back with a good win last time when beating the rated Bulleting Home with ease.
He beat Dean Kannemeyer trained Mambo Mime by 4,50 lengths and the latter should strip fitter – even though he looks likely to be better over a little further.
Beat The Retreat and Executive Power look the two most likely local chances of success.
Beat The Retreat annihilated the Gr3 Cape Of Good Hope Nursery winner Captain Chaos at Greyville last time and the extra 100m looks well within his scope.
Mike Miller saddled a feature double on Sunday and he will be looking for more with Executive Power.
Executive Power – lightly raced and looks talented
The lightly campaigned son of Warm White Night beat Monte Christo on the poly at his last start and while that one failed to frank the form next time, the services of Anton Marcus suggest that there are big plans ahead.
Spanish Captain has not drawn well and while he has won on the turf, his better recent form is on the polytrack. He is a fellow with good gate speed but has a few lengths to find on these weight terms.
Johan Janse Van Vuuren has had a frustrating time of things on the feature front and he is in town with the Ideal World gelding Irish Pride.
There has been talk about him being better than his form but even though well drawn, he will have to do better than his unplaced MR 80 Handicap effort behind Kangaroo Jack last time.
Bunker Bill is the second of the Alistair Gordon duo.
The runaway maiden winner has not quite delivered further on that promise and is badly drawn.
Mr Roy looks to have it all to do but was stakes placed as a 2yo and is beautifully bred.
Exotic backers will need to go a little wide – Baritone is classy but drawn wide, while Beat The Retreat and Executive Power are two promising locals who will be keen to assert their status.
Victorious Jay – went so close in the Selangor
Then what about Victorious Jay?
He has been thereabouts and within spitting distance of a big win.
