It has been an interesting week in terms of horseracing. While it has been extensively covered in the Sporting Post, Mickey Goss’ ship-jumping act from the TBA to Cape Thoroughbred Sales took us all by surprise. However, all those that have a bit of mischief in us are maybe asking ourselves: Should it really have taken us by surprise?
It looks like CTS are taking on the big guns: not just with their own huge ready to run sale down here in the Cape but are now also holding one in Johannesburg to take on the old guard. And it does not appear to be the case only with the ready to run sales but with yearling sales as well.
It looks to be interesting times ahead and with all the Sales, more time away from home for me. I have always said that competition can only be a good thing. Would it be such a good thing, in the end, to totally wipe out the opposition? I am not so sure.
I always thoroughly enjoy the sales up in Germiston. The hospitality and the way we are looked after is magnificent. From a personal side, I would hate to see it go.
Well, the male ranks lost another old soldier when Justin Snaith got married to Lauren on the weekend. Apart from having a fantastic Saturday, with many winners, I am sure his wedding day was loads of fun to go with it.
I have little doubt he will slot into married life as easily as a grandfather sticks his feet into a pair of old slippers. The question is whether we will see him with a newspaper tucked under his arm and a pipe dangling from his mouth? I wish them both well and lots of success in the future.
For the rest of the bachelors out there, there are plenty more single women to go round. Those lucky devils.
We have seen some particularly hot Maiden 6 furlong races run at Kenilworth recently and Saturday was no different. The quality of horse which is coming out never ceases to surprise me. Every week we seem to be attracting field after field of well-bred colts and fillies.
At the moment, I think the colts races have produced some really smart individuals which have come out and won and I am sure we will be seeing more of them in the Classics.
We also had our annual Sophomore Stakes, which was poorly supported.
Being one of the guilty parties not having a runner in the race, I do feel for the organisers. Sadly, the race just comes at the wrong time of year for us.
We now go into a period of racing at Durbanville and many of the owners do not want their decent 3 yr olds competing at Durbanville. Therefore it does not make sense to get your horse ready for this race, then to have to let him down again while racing is at Durbanville, and then have to start cycling him up again for when racing returns to Kenilworth.
I suppose we could have put in a few which are looking for 1400m or a mile but the race was called the Sophomore Sprint and not the Sophomore “getting them ready for 1400m or mile races”.
Asstar may not have gone the 1200m
It was not the strongest of events and Glen Puller’s horse, Asstar, did not quite appear to get home over the 6 furlong. We should maybe have been a little bit braver and put something in but when you are getting horses ready for November, December and January and have to juggle the AHS and flu vaccinations, it is impossible to keep these horses on a high for such a length of time.
Maybe we should think about repositioning the Sophomore for the first week back at Kenilworth when people are looking to give their rated (maybe self-rated) 3 yr olds a class outing over 6 furlongs for some decent prize money?
On a final note, while I am sure Asstar is a very good horse and will prove it in the future, I am not sure his merit rating of 95 is quite justified. Having said that, if you are not prepping horses for the feature races and are only running a horse to make up the field and hopefully run a place and said horse then runs really well against a highly rated horse like Asstar (as happened on Saturday with the winner not being the strongest 3 yr old around at the moment) then you can earn yourself quite a high (and undeserved) merit rating in one fell swoop.
And let me tell you, once they have gone up, it is like the price of petrol, it is bloody difficult to get it to come down again. So, to just put a horse in the Sophomore to fill the race is sadly not the easiest or wisest thing to do.
Those that do understand this are not the happiest once their horse starts climbing the merit rating ladder and does not come back down again.
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