NO time to rest, as everyone involved with Nelson Mandela Bay racing is already back in the saddle for the brand-new season.
The Eastern Cape 2021/’22 season ended with an exciting meeting last Friday at Fairview and it was straight back into the action with the first meeting of the new season, two days ago, on the Polytrack.
August is indeed a very busy racing month at Fairview. With one meeting already behind us, there are five more to look forward to.
The best of these is probably this coming Friday’s meeting on the turf track.
Two big races, the East Cape Paddock Stakes and the Memorial Mile, will be part of this day.
The rest of the August meetings are all on the poly surface. The meeting on the 26th will see the running of the first leg of the popular East Cape Poly Challenge.
There are some interesting developments around jockeys at the two strongest Fairview stables of trainers Gavin Smith and Alan Greeff.
Both their first choice jockeys are not available anymore and will further their careers overseas – Warren Kennedy in New Zealand and Greg Cheyne in the United Kingdom.
Both popular riders were regulars at the Fairview meetings and will be missed by all.
Cheyne combined with the Greeff stable for many East Cape titles. He rode his last Fairview winner this past Friday and won the EC jockey title for the 10th time.
He holds the record for the most winners in an Eastern Cape season, when he rode an incredible 116 winners in 2019.
Kennedy played a huge role in helping Smith win the trainer’s title this past season for the first time since 2013.
With Cheyne and Kennedy not visiting, the Fairview fans will see a lot more of two top Cape Town jockeys, Richard Fourie and Aldo Domeyer.
Fourie had a brilliant season and is in tremendous form.
He will take a well-deserved breather but will soon be back to do duty for the Greeff stable.
Domeyer will visit to ride for the Smith stable, along with Smith’s son in-law, JP van der Merwe. Van der Merwe is a former Gqeberha-boy, living in Gauteng these days.
The Smith and Greeff stables are huge yards and they will also be using local jockeys as they are all set to dominate the scene once again.
