THIS is a very exciting time for South African horse racing and the Eastern Cape is more than ready to contribute to the rebuilding of the industry.
The feature season on the Highveld ended with an impressive Champions’ Day meeting at Turffontein in Johannesburg on Saturday.
At this meeting, the 4Racing brand was launched and it officially started the rebuilding of the industry.
It is good to see that 4Racing will be engaging extensively with the government to build a better understanding in those circles of the sport.
This laid the platform for exciting times on the track.
After massively impressive performances by Gotthegreenlight and the sprinter, Rio Querari at Turffontein, the action continued the next day with the start of the winter season at Greyville in Durban.
Rainbow Bridge, Captain Ramson, and Linebacker were among the winners at Greyville who caught the eye with scintillating performances.
The build-up to the prestigious Vodacom Durban-July, which will be run on July 3, is now in full swing and other important races at Greyville are coming up this month.
Regarding this, the WSB 1 900 on May 16 and the Daily News 2 000 on the 29th stand out. It is already shaping up to be one of the best July races in a very long time and it will be a great opportunity for punters to see some of the big guns in action in their preparation races.
The racing at the Fairview track in May will be part of these exciting times because there are some wonderful races that lie ahead.
This coming Friday sees the third and last leg of the WSB East Cape Poly Challenge, being run over 1 600m. With a bonus of R50 000 up for grabs for the connections of the best performing horse in the Challenge, a lot of strategic planning will be done by those stables are still in with a chance.
The Poly Challenge has taken the local fraternity by storm and it is fascinating to see how the trainers go about their job to get the best out of their charges for the two different Fairview surfaces.
The WSB East Cape Derby is the biggest race day annually at Fairview, along with Algoa Cup Day in October, and racing fans countrywide will be interested in this one on May 14, this time on the Turf Track.
Unfortunately, race meetings are still behind closed doors and Derby Day won’t be the great social event of the past, but for the racing fans there will be more than enough quality to get the juices flowing.
This past Friday, the two-year-olds took centre stage at Fairview, when Whatever Next won the East Cape Nursery in fine style.
The Nursery proved that the next big race for the two-year-olds at Fairview, the Dahlia Plate on May 21, will be a fantastic race.
Whatever Next and the Nursery runner-up, Norton Sound, are both entered for the Dahlia Plate and a spectacular race is on the cards. This is not the time for racing fans to hide away!
