Andrew Harrison
THE corner table in the owners and trainers lounge at Hollywoodbets Scottsville may well have been empty today, but all would have been there in spirit as News Stream slipped home to win the Michael Roberts Handicap.
Most always the first people on course, Mary and the late Avison Carlisle, seldom missed a Scottsville meeting and it was somewhat fitting that News Stream, a home-bred by the Carlisle’s, sported the silks of the Kinmount Racing Syndicate, named after their Kinmount Stud in the KZN Midlands.
It was also somewhat fitting that News Stream is trained by Mark Dixon who shares a ring at Summerveld with Michael Roberts who was on hand to point out the trophies and that jockey Ashton Arries was mentored by Avison Carlisle who was the then chairman of the South African Jockey Academy.
It was always going to be a tricky race with a host of well performed light weights in the race thanks to a couple of Gavin van Zyl’s ‘heavy weight’s’ topping the handicap.
Trip To Africa, and the only filly in the race, Mary O set the early fractions at a fairly sedate gallop with favourite Baby Shooz and Mr Fitz in close attendance.
Once homeward bound the field concertinaed quickly into a race-callers nightmare with the field spread across the track. Mr Fitz looked to be going best of all up the inside rail but Arries threaded News Stream through a gap between the tiring pair of Baby Shooz and Mary O and made good use of his 52kg to win going away with Mr Fitz staying on for second and top-weight Marchingontogether finishing an excellent third.
There is an on-going debate as to whether same trainer couplings should be brought back for the exotic bets as in the past. The rules were changed ostensibly because Stanley Greeff and Andy Smith between them once used to saddle the majority of horses in each PE race where they once reigned supreme.
A further rationale was that by removing the couplings, spend would be bigger and exotic dividends would pay more to those who included all the horses from an individual stable, the supporting argument being that this would be countered by fractional betting. Given the recent plethora of Pick 6 carry overs, I don’t think that argument holds much water.
Alan Greeff and Gavin Smith now rule the roost in PE and, although dominant, they do not have as many runners in individual races. In Cape Town the less fancied of the bigger stable’s runners often upstage their more fancied stable companions.
So, the pertinent question is, does an ailing institution like the tote benefit from big payouts to a few, or smaller payouts to more?
The opening leg of yesterday’s Pick 6 did not have much concrete form to go on but if one was forced to choose between Lezeanne Forbes’s pair of Fat Cigar and Legislate’s Dance for your Pick 6, Fat Cigar would hardly have come into the equation for those with limited spend.
