Anton Marcus will ride Trip To Heaven for the first time in the Computaform Sprint at Turffontein on Saturday.
It’s a fascinating prospect – the best starter in the business teamed up with perhaps the speediest horse in the country but one with a flaw in his make-up that often results in him giving away a fatal amount of ground at the start.
Marcus’s famed starting method involves pushing his weight almost impossibly far forward as the gates open, so encouraging the horse’s momentum, but the four-time champion faces an additional problem with Trip To Heaven because the Sean Tarry-trained gelding is not just slow out of the pens but also slow to get going.
When he started favourite In the Cape Flying Championship in January, with Grant van Niekerk in the irons, he was eight lengths last after 100m yet he finished far faster than anything and only failed to peg back stable companion Carry On Alice by a rapidly-dwindling neck.
Marcus, though, has been struck by how well the horse ran in his two races at Kenilworth and said: “He has got to bring his Cape Town form to Jo’burg.”
Trip To Heaven is 28-10 second favourite with Betting World which has Carry On Alice heading the market at 22-10 in her bid to become the first dual winner of the Computaform since Golden Loom at the end of the last century.
What A Winter in 2013 is the only Cape Town winner since Laisserfaire 15 years ago and Snaith Racing is not optimistic about the chances of Jo’s Bond (8-1) despite her close-up fourth in the Cape Flying and her more recent Listed win at Scottsville.
Jonathan Snaith said: “We are raiding from Summerveld and people don’t seem to realise that is only about 1 700 feet whereas Jo’burg is over 5 000 feet. This makes it very difficult and, while the shorter the distance of the race the better chance you have, we are not at all confident.”
Legal Eagle (Marcus ) is as short as 4-10 to repeat last year’s win in the Premier’s Champions Challenge and Heavenly Blue (Callan Murray) is 6-10 to give Mike de Kock his first SA Derby since Irish Flame seven years ago.
Michael Clower
