Henk Steenkamp
THE defending champions have a tough task in Friday’s feature races (both Non-Black Type) at the Fairview Turf track.
Cherry Ano (Gavin Smith) will be back to defend his title in the R175 000 Fairview Mile and Evies First (Juan Nel) will be looking at back to back victories in the R175 000 Fairview Merchants.
Gimme’s Laddie (Smith) is the favourite to win the Merchants and rightly so. The son of Gimmethegreenlight is unbeaten from two starts over this track and the 1200m trip.
He’s drawn well and with a nice weight of 55kgs, jockey Craig Zackey can boot this one home.
There are many dangers and the consistent Anuschka’s World (Kelly Mitchley), carrying 52kgs, is certainly one of them.
It was a brilliant finish when Evies First won the Merchants last year and it is going to be a very exciting race again – race 7 at 16:00.
Cherry Ano is deadly over 1600m but the Cape Town raider Underworld (Justin Snaith) is also a huge factor.
Underworld has done well against strong opposition in Cape Town. If champion jockey Richard Fourie gets the best out of him, he could be too strong for the rest.
Cherry Ano is very gutsy and will be up for the challenge. The son of Capetown Noir gets the blinkers fitted to make sure he is focused on his task.
The Sharon Kotzen stable hasn’t been firing on all cylinders recently but Bush Tracker can’t be ignored over this track and trip.
In last year’s race the Snaith visitor Sachdev flopped and this time the locals are ready to take Underworld on – race 6 at 15:25.
The meeting starts at 12:30 with a Maiden Juvenile Plate for fillies, the first leg of the Bipot.
Splicethemainbrace (Alan Greeff) will be very hard to beat in the second race, the Breeders Guineas Plate for fillies over 1400m, at 13:05.
It is the first leg of the Place Accumulator and punters can start with Splicethemainbrace as a banker.
There is also a banker possibility in the first leg of the Pick Six, race 3 at 13:40. Phil The Fluter (Snaith) is the horse to beat.
As always – let’s give it a go!