NELSON Mandela Bay will be represented by five horses at one of South Africa’s biggest horse racing events.
The two top Fairview trainers, Alan Greeff and Gavin Smith, will be saddling the horses at Kenilworth in Cape Town on Saturday on the WSB Cape Met Day.
It is a huge challenge that awaits these two top stables. There are always risks involved when travelling with horses and the Kenilworth track will be an unknown venue for most of them.
The biggest challenge, though, will be to compete against the best in South Africa in their respective races.
The Bay horses have all produced some brilliant performances at Fairview but this time the opposition is way stronger.
Greeff, Smith and the owners of the horses feel their horses are good enough to compete in these top races.
Their performances will give the trainers a clear indication about the way forward for their stars. In the race for two-year-olds, the babies as the youngsters are called in racing circles, Cruise Control (Smith) and Cliff Top (Greeff), will try to follow up on their fine debut runs at Fairview.
In the Cape Flying Championship, two Fairview horses, Viking Moon (Greeff) and Stranger Danger (Smith), will be among the 14 runners competing for prize money of R1 million.
Santa Therese (Greeff) is competing in the Majorca Stakes.
She will be taking on a superstar in the filly, Captain’s Ransom.
Racing fans can follow the progress of the Bay horses on the Tellytrack channel, DStv channel 249. All the races will be broadcast live.
The Cape Town meeting consists of 12 races, with the big one the WSB Cape Town Met, in which 11 horses will be competing for prize money of R2 million.
The betting pools will be huge and Friday’s Fairview meeting will play its part in the big racing weekend.
This meeting has been structured to be full of quality races and to attract the punters to get involved and start the weekend on the right tone.
The Merchants, Mile, Lakeside Handicap and Breeders Guineas Plate, will all be part of the meeting at Fairview.
The recent return to the turf track at Fairview after a long spell on the poly has made sure of big fields and some very competitive and exciting racing.
A look at the Fairview stats for the season shows that Smith (66 winners) and Greeff (63) are dominating but the stables of Zietsman Oosthuizen (30) and Juan Nel (21) are also enjoying a fine season.
It was good to see the Jacques Strydom yard bouncing back last Friday, with two winners and two second places.
Follow the Bay horses in Cape Town:
Race 5: 14:30: Summer Juvenile Stakes:
Cruise Control (Number 1)
Cliff Top (Number 7)
Race 7: 15:40: Cape Flying Championship:
Viking Moon (number 5)
Stranger Danger (number 9)
Race 8: 16:15: Majorca Stakes:
Santa Therese (number 5)
