Mike Bass has decided to run his four-time Grade 1 winner Inara under top weight in the Tibouchina Stakes at Greyville on Saturday rather than go for the Rising Sun Gold Challenge.

Daughter Candice Robinson said: “Inara galloped last week and she worked well. She has raced at Greyville before (in last year’s KRA Fillies Guineas, Woolavington and Garden Province) but she wasn’t at her best then so we will have to see how she handles it.”

Grant van Niekerk again takes the mount while Bernard Fayd’Herbe will team up with Cape Fillies Guineas winner Silver Mountain for the second time in this seven furlong test. Bass runs Paterfamilias (Van Niekerk) in the Gold Challenge but Helderberg Blue will miss the Cup Trial.

The stable, buoyed by Fly By Night’s return to form at Scottsville, also had the satisfaction of seeing Whose That Girl make up for her March disappointment by responding to Robert Khathi’s urgings to get up on the line in Saturday’s Kenilworth Maiden Juvenile.

“She was feeling her shins quite a bit last time and she didn’t really travel as a result but she still needs to mature a bit more,” Mrs Robinson reported.

Bernard Fayd’Herbe turned his back on the big bucks at Scottsville to stay loyal to his Ridgemont retainer and he was rewarded with success on joint top weight Make It Raine in the Place Your Bets Handicap even if the pens proved a fraught affair.

He related: “I knew I was in a bit of trouble – she was obviously still thinking about the bad experience she had last time – and she tried to flip over with me.”

Ridgemont manager Craig Carey added: “She is a little hot and, while I like them to have a bit of fire if they are going to go to stud, we will have to keep an eye on her temperament. She also has a breathing problem – you can hear it when she works on the track. It’s no problem racing on the straight course but I don’t know how it would affect her if she goes 1 400m.”

Fayd’Herbe was also riding for Brett Crawford when he was at the centre of the action in the mile maiden. His mount Navasha started a prohibitive 9-20 and looked like overhauling the pace-setting Dontknowhy only to falter in the closing stages and go down by a short head.

Her rider promptly lodged an objection and the close-circuit suggested he might get it but, as so often, you had to see the boardroom head-on to really tell what happened. Brandon May switched his whip from his right hand to his left and his mount promptly began to hang away from it. She moved two or three metres to her right and in the process her quarters twice slammed against those of the favourite like a wet sail in a gale.

The stipes had little hesitation in reversing the placings and in suspending May for a week (June 5-11). He and Darryl Hodgson had some compensation when Ocean’s Swell won two races later but the apprentice was promptly back in the boardroom, this time to be fined a grand for celebrating before the line.

Table Bay could be under consideration for the Langerman on June 25 after proving much too good in the 1 400m Juvenile Plate with Donovan Dillon predicting: “I think he will go a long way. He is getting better and better.”

Captain Bagg, who usually makes the running, benefitted from a switch to waiting tactics under Grant Behr in the Itsarush.co.za Handicap – although the change was not by design. “Normally we can’t stop him going to the front but this time there was a pace and he settled,” explained Eric Sands.

It was disturbing to see three horses having to be scratched from the last because there weren’t enough jockeys available but that didn’t worry Paul Reeves who took over Grant Knowles’s Declarator from Shane Humby a month ago, slapped on a pair of blinkers and let Richard Fourie do the rest.

Michael Clower