The Fairview Polytrack meeting at the Greenbushes venue today, 9 January 2026 is the start of one of the biggest weekends of racing annually in the country.
It won’t feature the Lady’s Bracelet race though, which has been postponed so that it can take place on the Turf track as usual.
This race will now be run on the 16th. The Fairview grass is not ready to host this Friday’s meeting after receiving some treatment.
The massive King’s Plate meeting takes place tomorrow at Kenilworth in Cape Town. Punters will target the Fairview races today to set up a kitty for the huge Saturday pools.
Fantastic news for Nelson Mandela Bay Racing is that three Fairview stables will be representing the Eastern Cape in Cape Town.
Alan Greeff and two other Gqeberha trainers, Dean Smith and Zietsman Oosthuizen, will be saddling runners at the meeting, where the main event is the R3 million King’s Plate race.
Ten races will be run, and Smith will get straight into the action with the first race. He will be saddling Just Carter in the Charles Dickens Stakes over 1000m.
Greeff and Smith will both be involved in the seventh race, the R1.5 million Cape Flying Championship over 1000m, which will be one of the highlights of the day.
Smith has Kingdundee in the race, while Greeff’s entry is Direct Hit. These two horses are some of the brightest stars of the Eastern Cape. It will be interesting to see how they fare against the best sprinters in the country.
Kingdundee is a four-year-old gelding who has won 7 of his 10 starts. He will be ridden by Calvin Habib.
Direct Hit was one of the best two-year-old fillies in the country last season. The three-year-old has won 5 of her 6 races. Richard Fourie will be in the saddle.
George Handel is the Oosthuizen runner in the ninth race, the Chairman’s Cup over 2500m. It is going to be a huge challenge for George Handel against the top long distance campaigners. Philsande Mxoli is the jockey.
The Gqeberha jockey Yuzae Ramzan will do duty in the same race. He will ride one of the fancied horses in the race, Ahead of the Facts, for the national champion trainer Justin Snaith.
Get your tips for the meetings on the Facebook Page of Henk Se Wenk.
