The two-year-old fillies will have the last say in what is always a fantastic month for local horse racing.
At Friday’s bumper meeting of nine races on the Fairview Turf track in Greenbushes, the feature race will be the R100 000 Lady’s Slipper Stakes.
A small, but quality field of two-year-old fillies will tackle each other over 1 400m. It should be a spectacular event.
So far this season Splicethemainbrace is the star two-year-old filly. She won the East Cape Fillies Nursery in March, and then also showed the boys a thing or two by winning the Nursery last month.
At this stage, Splicethemainbrace is the frontrunner to be named the East Cape Champion two-year-old filly when the season ends in two months’ time.
The name of the winner of Friday’s big race will also go into the hat for this award.
We have already seen top performances earlier in the month, although things didn’t quite go to plan last Friday.
The meeting started on the Turf track but the jockeys felt that the rain resulted in unsafe racing conditions.
After the first four races, the remaining four were moved to the Poly surface. This changed the complexion of the meeting, but the Gavin Smith stable adjusted brilliantly.
Smith won five of the eight races, including the Milkwood Stakes for fillies and mares over 1 000m.
The lightning-fast Paris Lass won the race with a fantastic run. This was just one of the sensational performances by a local three-year-old filly we have seen at Fairview this season.
The 63rd running of the East Cape Derby was won by three-year-old filly, Joy and Peace, earlier this month.
Three Rocks finished second in the Milkwood Stakes, but was another three-year-old filly which caught the eye with her victory in the Lady’s Pendant back in February. Luna Halo is another three-year-old gaining attention, winning the Breeders Guineas in March.
There are only 12 Fairview meetings left in the current East Cape season, and yet again it is a nailbiter to decide the Champion Trainer title.
Alan Greeff leads the race after saddling 116 winners with Smith, the defending champion, just four winners behind.
Both stables are in tremendous form. They dominated the last meeting, when Smith won those five races and Greeff the other three.
Last Friday, visiting Cape Town jockey Richard Fourie became only the second jockey in history to ride 100 winners in an East Cape season.
His next target will be the record of 116 winners, set by Greg Cheyne five seasons ago.
