Jack Milner: Three feature races headline the Turffontein card on Saturday and they will hopefully kick off a profitable new year for bettors.
The nine-race card on the Turffontein Standside track features the Three Troikas Stakes for three-year-old fillies over 1400m, the Tony Ruffel Stakes for three-year-olds over the same distance and the London News Stakes over 1800m, all of which are Grade 3 events.
Perhaps the most exciting news is the return of unbeaten five-time winner Anything Goes.
She has been out of action since winning the Grade 2 Joburg Fillies And Mares Spring Challenge over 1450m on 3 October. She was withdrawn from the Emperors Palace Ready To Run Cup so she obviously did suffer some sort of setback.
However, Stuart Pettigrew is not the kind of trainer who would bring a filly of her quality to the track unless he was confident she could perform at her best. With Diego de Gouveia out of action, Marco van Rensburg has picked up the ride.
There is plenty of opposition, headed up by War Of Athena and Sentbydestiny.
War Of Athena won the Grade 2 Ipi Tombe Challenge over 1600m and had Queen Supreme, a winner since, and Sentbydestiny behind her.
Sentbydestiny, while 3.50 lengths back, will be 5kg better off this time. She is also likely to be a lot fitter as she was returning from a three-month break.
Trainer Paul Peter appears to dominate the Tony Ruffel Stakes with Catch Twentytwo and MK’s Pride. The former proved superior in the Dingaans but that was over 200m further.
It could get a lot closer this time but Catch Twentytwo won the Dingaans with authority and should repeat the performance.
Copper Mountain gave 4.5kg to highly regarded Paisley Park over this course and distance last time and clearly has some ability. Johan Janse van Vuuren’s charge needs to be included in bigger exotics but it could be significant that Gavin Lerena has opted to stay with Catch Twentytwo.
The London News Stakes looks tricky.
The main concern is that Barahin is coming back from a lengthy layoff, his last run taking place in the Hawaii Stakes over 1400m on 7 March. He will love this 1800m and he has come back well from a break before, so Mike de Kock’s charge has to be the first selection.
He is the best handicapped runner and has Callan Murray in the irons.
Five-year-old mare Running Brave, now trained by Fanie Bronkhorst, ran a great second behind Summer Pudding in the Grade 1 Gauteng Summer Cup and deserves respect.
Sean Tarry-trained Zillzaal ran poorly in the Summer Cup but is better than that and is very capable of winning a race like this.
Jack Milner’s selections
Race 1: 8 Ushuaia, 1 Leading Lad, 7 Castle Corner, 5 Fast Draw