Saturday’s Grand Parade Cape Guineas looks like being run at a searching gallop as the Mayfair Speculators team try to tee things up for probable favourite Table Bay.

Supplementary entry A New Dawn, who made the running in the Selangor, is to do the same job only faster and Derek Brugman said: “We want a very strong pace so that he (Table Bay) can sit further back.”

Anton Marcus, whose previous winning partners include Jay Peg and Variety Club, reckoned he might have sat too close too the pace in last month’s test.

But I Travel Light, the third Ramsden runner and only first reserve at the moment, was put into the race last Wednesday because he had gone close to Selangor winner Gold Standard on the latter’s previous start at Fairview.

Glen Kotzen, though, is bullish about Gold Standard’s chance and his optimism is buoyed by both the stable’s present form – two more winners on Saturday – and that of the colt’s jockey. Richard Fourie followed up Friday’s Fairview four-timer with three more on Saturday – one for Kotzen and two for Shane Humby.

Kotzen said: “Gold Standard is doing great and absolutely flying. He has cracked at decent draw (seven) and we are very excited. Look at the time of the Selangor (less than second outside Legislate’s course record). It was a proper-run race.”

But there are some notable absentees from the Guineas – in particular Our Mate Art and Grade 1 winner Always In Charge with Vaughan Marshall reporting about the latter: “He was never going to run drawn 19 – I wasn’t going to risk him.”

Plans are “undecided” but Our Mate Art has the Investec Cape Derby as his new target. “He got a very hard knock when he was cut into in the Selangor. We had him x-rayed and found he had chipped a piece of splint bone,” said Candice Bass-Robinson who reports that Sun Met favourite Marinaresco is fine after his great Green Point run. “Our Mate Art is on antibiotics at the moment but he is in light work.”

Carry On Alice pleased Sean Tarry after failing by only half a length to peg back 22-1 all-the-way scorer Jo’s Bond in the CTS Southern Cross Stakes at Kenilworth on Saturday.

“I thought she might just need it,” said the champion trainer. “There are two races for her before the Cape Flying Championship – the Diadem and the Sceptre – but I just might leave it at this. We will see.”

Real Princess, only fifth, goes for the Sceptre on January 6 when Dean Kannemeyer believes that the extra furlong will be just what she needs. Grant Behr reported: “I was right behind the winner but mine was then caught a bit flat-footed. She needs the 1 200m.”

Justin Snaith dismissed all suggestions of a Sceptre rematch with the winner, saying: “Jo’s Bond is a 1 000m horse and that is the trip she likes,” but rider Donovan Dillon came up with the quote of the day – “The Snaiths have often given me a bone but luckily there was a bit of meat on this one.”

Tarry has a string of 12 at Milnerton including two-year-olds and the first of these to run at Kenilworth was Jay Peg’s half-brother Barrack Street who readily justified 18-10 favouritism under S’Manga Khumalo in the Snaith Racing Maiden. “We can now get a line,” commented Tarry.

The Vaughan Marshall Racing Maiden Juvenile took more than four minutes to load with Jacinda, and Lacerta in particular, increasingly threatening to upset the others and afterwards Derek Brugman issued a heartfelt plea to the starter, saying: “You can’t have juveniles standing in the pens for nearly five minutes – that can ruin a horse’s whole career. It should be two tries and ‘sorry, that’s it.’”

Most owners and trainers will, I am sure, take the same view. Dennis Drier, who won the race with the heavily-backed and appropriately named Bank On It (Sean Veale), confirmed that Miss Frankel is on target to make her much-awaited debut next month.

There are three Frankel fillies and a colt in next month’s CTS Cape Premier Yearling Sale. All are from Southern Hemisphere coverings and are sold by Klawervlei whose boss John Koster said: “We bought the mares in the UK, put them in foal and then brought them out here. “ Klawervlei are also selling ten Rock Of Gibraltar yearlings plus a filly by the now-dead American sire sensation Scat Daddy.

By Michael Clower