Jack Milner
The start of the new season is a quiet time for many of the leading stables. There are no major features until September and the top horses are given their African Horse Sickness shots and rested until preparations begin for the summer season.
As a result, this is a great opportunity for the smaller stables to rack up a few winners and earn some money for the smaller owners in the game.
Joe Soma does not have a massive yard but he has done remarkably well over the years with the stock he has. While many of his winners have come from bread-and-butter races, he does have an excellent record in some of the leading races and when he does get a good horse, he knows how to extract the best out of that runner.
Horses such as Got The Greenlight won five Grade 1 races and was touched off in events like the Hollywoodbets Durban July and last season Soma proved he still had that Midas touch as three-year-old filly Fiery Pegasus came away with facile victory in the Grade 1 Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Classic over 1800m and the Grade 2 Wilgerbosdrift SA Oaks over 2450m.
The daughter of Captain Of All has not raced since that last victory on 29 March and while she might be views as the victim of the “out of sight, out of mind” syndrome in some quarters, no doubt Soma is busy preparing the next challenge for this talented four-year-old who has won five of her 11 races.
Soma also has a couple of runners at the Vaal on Thursday who, while not in the same league as Fiery Pegasus, are quite capable of picking up a few of those “bread-and-butter” wins.
There are two in particular who stand out, starting off with Rendevous In Rio in Race 2, a Maiden Plate for fillies and mares over 1400m.
This daughter of Trippi started her career off as a late three-year-old and has raced three times, finishing fifth on debut and then a well-beaten runner-up in her next two starts but behind two very recent fillies.
The first was against Rachel Wall, who has gone on to place in two feature races, and then against Tuscan Romance, who had shown excellent improvement since moving up to the Highveld from the Western Cape.
Those runs were over 1100m, 1200m and 1160m respectively and on breeding Rendevous In Rio will be better suited to this straight 1400m at the Vaal.
Soma’s second runner comes up in Race 7, a MR 76 Handicap over 1800m, where he sends out five-year-old Gimmeachoice. This son of Gimmethegreenlight only joined the yard in June and has had just one run.
It was a promising performance over 1450m on the Turffontein Inside track and after lying well off the pace for much of the journey, he produced the fastest final 400m to finish just 2.40 lengths off Richard The First.
Gimmeachoice’s penultimate race was in October last year and he was gelded a month later. As a result, that last race was, in fact, his first a gelding. Last year there were decent races against the likes of Thunee Playa and Archimedes and based on the manner in which he ran on last time, 1800m should be right up his alley.
If he shows the expected improvement in his second run for the yard, Gimmeachoice could well be an exotic bet banker.
Soma has been using jockey Julius Mariba with great success, and he will be riding both of those horses.
Jack Milner’s selections
Race 1: 5 Frere Jacques, 6 Palace Attack, 10 Bellerophon, 4 Trip To States
Race 2: 2 Rendevous In Rio, 8 Chantilly Dream, 3 Empress Wu, 6 Concordia
Race 3: 1 Inspector James, 2 Jet Querari, 3 Time Will Tell, 5 Cyber Spirit
Race 4: 2 Mister Wilson, 3 Arilena, 7 Blindfire, 8 William West
Race 5: 3 Hotaru, 1 Global Thunder, 8 Time For Charity, 5 Valieva
Race 6: 8 The Merciful, 7 Silver Flare, 2 Cartagena, 1 Rosy Lemon
Race 7: 1 Gimmeachoice, 4 Futurewolff, 3 Mizzen Sword, 5 Trident King
Race 8: 3 Cape Saffron, 5 Peregrine Falcon, 2 Dylan's Champ, 1 Paul Revere
BEST BET
Race 4: 2 Mister Wilson
VALUE BET
Race 6: 8 The Merciful
BEST SWINGER
Race 2 2x8
BIPOT
R288
Leg 1: 5, 6, 10
Leg 2: 2, 8
Leg 3: 1, 2, 3
Leg 4: 3
Leg 5: 1, 3, 5, 8
Leg 6: 1, 2, 7, 8
PLACE ACCUMULATOR
R162
Leg 1: 2, 8
Leg 2: 1, 2, 3
Leg 3: 2
Leg 4: 1, 3, 8
Leg 5: 2, 7, 8
Leg 6: 1
Leg 7: 2, 3, 5
PICK 6
R1800
Leg 1: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6
Leg 2: 2
Leg 3: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8
Leg 4: 1, 2, 4, 7, 8
Leg 5: 1, 3, 4
Leg 6: 1, 2, 3, 5
JACKPOT 1
R90
Leg 1: 2
Leg 2: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8
Leg 3: 1, 2, 4, 7, 8
Leg 4: 1, 3, 4
JACKPOT 2
R360
Leg 1: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8
Leg 2: 1, 2, 4, 7, 8
Leg 3: 1, 3, 4
Leg 4: 1, 2, 3, 5