Piere Strydom edging closer
Piere Strydom and Gavin Lerena dominated the Vaal meeting on Tuesday with a double and a quartet of winners respectively. While Lerena led the chase on the afternoon, Strydom’s climb to his milestone of 5000 winners has captured the public interest and he is now just 22 short of achieving that remarkable feat.
With the workriders meeting being held at the Vaal on Thursday, Striker has five rides at Turffontein on Saturday and then travels to his hometown on Sunday for the PE Festival Of Racing at Fairview.
He has a nice card of nine rides, including the promising Arion for Justin Snaith in the Gr3 Algoa Cup.
Gavin Lerena the star of the afternoon with 4 wnners
At his current strike rate, he is likely to ride winner number 5000 around the time of the Sansui Summer Cup meeting – but while that would be in an ideal marketer’s world, he is just as capable of doing it in half the time too!
Lerena is also riding in great form and he dedicated his outstanding achievement to the memory of the late Jimmy Lithgow, whom he said was a good family friend.
Lithgow passed away suddenly last Friday and a memorial celebration will be held at Turffontein at 15h30 on Friday afternoon.
Strydom leads the SA Jockey Championship log with 44 winners and a win strike rate of 24%, with Anton Marcus in second position on a total of 40.
Lerena is in joint sixth position with Greg Cheyne on 32 winners.
