The Hollywoodbets KZN Sizzling Summer Challenge offers a handy barometer of who is hot and who is not in the KZN trainer and jockey hierarchy.
The R750 000 challenge, which runs to 28 February 2020, continues at Hollywoodbets Greyville today where the R150 000 Listed Christmas Handicap is another tricky leg of the guaranteed R1,7 million Pick 6.
While Keagan de Melo and Paul Lafferty are the respective chart toppers, Anton Marcus and S’manga ‘Bling’ Khumalo have been making progressive, with the obvious man – and current national log leader – Warren Kennedy in the mix.
Have a look at the leaderboard here – and there is also betting on the competition itself.
Many would suggest that the Christmas Handicap is dishing out no gifts to Pick 6 players today and a big ‘f’ should be pencilled in on this leg of the perm.
But our top three would be narrowed down to Social Order (Marcus), the consistent Born To Perform(Khumalo) and Blackball (Kennedy).
Social Order ran a cracker in the Grand Heritage recently when only going down narrowly to the clearly smart 3yo Riverstown. Prior to that, the son of Count Dubois was narrowly beaten by progressive stablemate Tierra Del Fuego. The latter won a smart race again on Tuesday at the Vaal to endorse the form.
Social Order (yellow body) has been consistent recently and looks overdue to win again (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
Dennis Bosch’ Born To Perform, our Clockwatcher’s Best Bet, is a beautifully-bred son of Silvano, who has inherited his July winning Mom’s Dancer’s Daughter’s ability and attitude. It’s something of a miracle that he is racing and more so that he has won 5 of his 7 starts.
His trainer Dennis Bosch, a top jockey in his day, is on record as saying after the grey won early on: “I rode him for three months myself and I won’t do that again in a hurry. We gave him a lot of time to play in the paddock too and nursed him. A lot of work was put in by everybody in the yard. He is a sound horse but the main thing was his mind started coming right. There was still the worry of how we would get him to the racecourse, but both times we have taken him there he has been exceptionally well behaved. His whole attitude has changed and we got quite excited when he won due to the amount of work we had all put in. I don’t want to read too much into the win but while we have his mindset right we will plan another race. He has matured into a nice horse and I think he will go further. I think if he runs well next time we will know we have the horse we think we have.”
The handsome Born To Perform wins earlier this month (Pic – Candiese Lenferna)
His form since has been exemplary and a feature success would be a small cherry on the top of a cake long in the making.
The Michaelmas Handicap winner Blackball is in top form and goes for his third win on the trot. The son of Black Minnaloushe is probably at his best over slightly further but is now fulfilling his early promise and will be thereabouts.
Born To Perform could put it all together, to beat Social Order and Blackball.
