Took Two. Cliffie Miller saddled the fourth and fifth race winners.
A tractor on the track delayed the start of the Flamingo Park race-meeting on Monday 7 November. Most punters will probably be wishing that they had taken this as a cue to grab their money and plough it into something else. The results today were generally abysmal with only one tote favourite arriving.
That favourite was courtesy of the Shaun Miller yard, who only paid one visit to the winner’s enclosure with their sixteen runners. Jaap Visser, on the other hand, celebrated with a well-taken treble and was closely followed by Cliffie Miller who enjoyed a nice double, including a blow-out in the Pick 6 opener.
Cliffie Miller’s double included the smart Currahal who won the MR71 Handicap over 1000m – a race the Jaap Visser outfit would have expected to have at their mercy. Both their horses, Bader and Saxe Coburg, have been a model of consistency but they were left to fight over the minor spoils behind the Miller gelding who bounced back in smart style under Marco Van Rensburg. The pair also won the previous race when the Western Winter filly Danter went from start to finish to upset many Pick 6 hopes. She showed great courage when looking dead and buried with 200m to run.
Horseracing in Kimberley does not need these ridiculous results though, and while those that got their slice of the R340 000 Pick 6 dividend will be celebrating in style, the centre would not have endeared itself to form studiers. There is also no doubt that Northern Cape racing as a spectacle is looking rather tired at this stage of the year with fifty percent of the runners engaged at today’s meeting having run in either or both of the past two Monday meetings. That has the inevitable knock-on effect of creating a tedious environment where the same old horses are running against one another. And short of providing a gambling medium, it does not make for stimulating or particularly interesting racing. Quite frankly it is getting rather boring.
There was no explanation forthcoming for the tractor’s presence on the track either. And it is ironic indeed that our industry leaders were recently on record as saying that trainers, jockeys and officials must do their bit to ensure that races start punctually, as any delay understandably affects the credibility and desirability of our internationally televised product. Somehow one would think that a piece of equipment is a controllable item, surely?
Trainer Jaap Visser would not have bothered himself with those questions though. His hat-trick started with the shock 33-1 shot Poker Ride in the second race, a Maiden Plate over 1800m. A determined Gunter Wrogemann tracked and then outrode the talented JP Van Der Merwe on the pacemaking Sound Track in a close finish. Poker Ride is by Fort Wood out of a Centenary mare and while she had not run a place in her seven career starts to date, she won a gutsy race in this weak field . Her jockey expressed the sentiment in the post-race interview that she would battle to win again but Assistant trainer Joanne Visser was elated – and proceeded to tip their next two winners to Tellytrack viewers.
Six in two days! Muzi Yeni has regained his winning ways.
She was extremely bullish about the prospects of the six year old Spaceship mare, Go Me Gal, in the MR68 Handicap over 1000m. This was only her second run on the Flamingo Park sand but the result was never in doubt as she held on well to beat Viewer’s Sensation and record a sixth win from 28 starts. Visser also fancied Eye Of The World to win – and he led all the way to win the final leg of the jackpot, a Pinnacle Stakes, unextended, to give Muzi Yeni the first leg of a double. The fancied African Vision was never in the hunt here, and it looks like he is battling to get over the exertions of his Emerald Cup campaign.
Yeni rode four winners at Scottsville on Sunday, and continued his good form today. His win on the Visser horse was an armchair affair, but he rode a cracker in the final event to get David Niewenhuizen’s only runner of the day, Manyano home from a poor draw to beat a revitalised Shopping Paradise. The latter normally gets ridden from off the pace, but she was handier today over the longer trip and was rather unlucky to come up against a fit and fighting mare.
It was a rather miserable day for the Shaun Miller yard and after winning the first, he had to watch one fancied horse after the next going down. The highly rated Comedy Caravan, once described by champion jockey Andrew Fortune as the best sand horse he has ridden, also failed to deliver in the seventh race- but was reported by the Stipes to have injured a tendon during the race.
An ordinary day, best forgotten!
