GOLDEN PALM HOLDS THE KEY

Henk Steenkamp

The East Cape champion combination of trainer Alan Greeff and jockey Richard Fourie are all set to make it three wins in a row in the Listed Lady’s Slipper Stakes.

They have won this race for two-year-old fillies over 1400m last year with Splicethemainbrace and with Luna Halo in 2023.

The Lady’s Slipper Stakes is the feature race at Friday’s Fairview meeting which is scheduled for the turf track and Golden Palm looks very hard to beat.

The daughter of Master Of My Fate will be looking at a hat trick of her own after she won her last two starts.

In her last start, Golden Palm won the Grade 2 Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Nursery when she showed good speed.

She finished her race off strongly and will appreciate the step up in distance. Golden Palm is drawn well in a small field of six fillies and looks the best bet on the card.

Punters will be very interested in Jackpot One which is boosted by R100 000. The Pool could reach R500 000.

Golden Palm is the banker in the fourth and last leg of Jackpot One, which is the seventh of the eight races. The fillies will jump at three minutes to four.

The first three legs of the Jackpot are much more competitive and start with the fourth race at 14:10.

In this handicap over 1600m Fourie is on the favourite Walkonthewildside for the Greeff stable, but it looks an open affair.

A field of 16 runners will face the starter in the fifth race over 1900m. Greeff and Fourie combine with another favourite, Mr Fox, but there are at least a handful of other runners in with a winning chance.

There are also 16 runners in race six and about half of the field have winning credentials.

The favourite is again the Greeff-Fourie horse, in this case Winter Emeralds which won well on the poly last time.

He is drawn wide which will give some of the other contenders hope of getting to the line before him – again a bit of a tricky race.

The first race is at 12:25 and is the first leg of the Bipot. The Greeff first timer Zambezi Sunset is expected to run a huge race with Fourie aboard.

Golden Grey, another Greeff-Fourie favourite, should not miss the first three in race two and a likely banker in the first leg of the Place Accumulator.

Pick Six players get involved from the third race at 13:35. The Western Cape visitor Winter Gamble, trained by Candice Bass-Robinson, is a possible banker in the first leg.

Her Cape Town form should be good enough to win this Maiden Plate for fillies and mares over 1600m. Twilight Bay (Gavin Smith) looks like the only danger.

Then it is Jackpot time where Golden Palm holds the key.

As always, let’s give it a go!