Apprentice Lyle Hewitson, who rode 23 winners as a workrider, expects to have his first winner in the professional ranks at Fairview on Friday.

Fittingly it will be on a horse his father Carl owns a share in and also helps condition, being assistant trainer to Yvette Bremner.

Hewitson rides the Bremner-trained Blizzard Belle in a Conditions Plate for fillies and mares over 1000m.

The Western Winter mare has won her last five on the trot. She is second best in at the weights on Friday off her 99 merit rating.

However, Hewitson’s 4kg claim will alleviate some of the 7kg she is under sufferance with the best weighted horse in the race, stablemate Love To Sail.

The latter is a classy sort, who has her first run since being sent to Port Elizabeth from the Mike de Kock yard.

Love To Sail would prefer a touch further, but hasn’t run since last November, so could do well in this sprint.

Hewitson needs five qualifying rides down the straight before being allowed to race around the turn.

However, he is only allowed a maximum of two qualifying rides per racemeeting, even if he has more rides on the day. He has three qualifying rides under the belt to date.

Hewitson has had eight rides in the professional ranks to date for one third place and one fourth.

He compared it to riding in workrider races, “It is a lot tighter and there isn’t just one pace, there are changes of pace throughout the race.”

However, he added the communication between riders was a lot better, which obviously made the safety factor better.

He concluded, “It is just a lot more professional.”

By David Thiselton

Durbanville’s ridge and furrow, one of the main reasons for the Cape Town course failing to attract enough runners, is to be eliminated as part of the grand design for the racecourse and the Milnerton training centre.

Kenilworth Racing director Hassen Adams announced in November that a synthetic track would be installed alongside the grass one. He hoped then to have the work done by the end of this month but it has taken longer than planned to put all the necessary arrangements (including finance) in place.

Adams, the prime mover behind the project, is emphatic that it will all go ahead and will be accompanied by the replacement of the turf course.

He said: “Durbanville was originally established as an amateur racecourse used only during the winter months and so the corrugations didn’t much matter.

“The trainers still want to retain a grass track there and so what I would like to do is rip up the existing surface and take out the ridge and furrow.

“That won’t be expensive but putting in a polytrack will be. However I want to get an extension of the boundaries so we can have both grass and polytrack.

“I regard it as my job to make quite sure that we get the best out of Durbanville and it looks as if I will get the Milnerton development through quite quickly. That will give us enough money to be able to do all this.

“I have already secured the necessary environmental approval to make the Milnerton training track a circular one and, when that is done, we will have three tracks alongside one another – grass, polytrack and sand.”

The existing training track is less than five furlongs and riders have to start thinking about pulling up when they have only gone three and a half. As a result trainers have to use a race to get their horses fully fit. The new one will be around ten furlongs in circumference.

By Michael Clower

Captain America satisfied Brett Crawford when running on to take third in the Champions Day Pinnacle Stakes at Turffontein on Saturday. The five-year-old will now attempt to repeat last year’s HF Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut win on April 2.

Crawford said: “For a prep run I was happy enough. I don’t think the race was run to suit him. They went very slowly and he was caught three wide but he did come back at them at the end.”

Captain America was set to give weight all round and he drifted from 6-10 to 11-10. He looked like being swallowed up at the 200m mark but he responded well to JP van der Merwe’s urgings to finish third to Silver Scooter. Regular rider Corne Orffer will take over in the Horse Chestnut.

Cape Flying Championship runner-up Brutal Force is being aimed to the Computaform Sprint at Turffontein on April 30. The four-year-old is already in Johannesburg under the care of the Joey Ramsden assistant Alson.

Stable companion King Of Pain, winner of last month’s CTS Chairman’s Cup, is to go to Durban where he won the 2014 Rising Sun Gold Challenge. This time he will run in staying races.

By Michael Clower

Picture: Captain America (Liesl King)

Richard Fourie has decided, a little surprisingly perhaps, to ride as a freelance for the time being.

When he won on the Justin Snaith newcomer Le Harve on only his second ride back at Kenilworth on Saturday it looked business very much as usual, with his signature on the record-breaking trainer’s dotted line all that was needed to restore the pre-Hong Kong partnership.

But Fourie said afterwards: “I’m not making any decisions yet and at this stage I don’t want to commit myself to anything. I want to see if I can pick my rides.”

Snaith, meanwhile, is busy nurturing his two-year-old talent and said: “I will wait a bit with Le Harve, put him away and look after him. But Bishop’s Bounty could run in the 1 100m race on Saturday although he needs ground while I am tempted to geld Sergeant Hardy (Met day Listed winner) as he is a very big horse.”

Tar Heel, who led from halfway for Joey Ramsden in the OFYT Pinnacle, looks like having a crack at next month’s Computaform Sprint – albeit by default.

Derek Brugman reasoned: “He is an out-and-out 1 000m horse and Group-wise there is not much for him in Durban. The Computaform wouldn’t be first choice and you couldn’t go into it with a lot of confidence but I can’t see an alternative.”

Donovan Dillon, who rode the 7-1 shot, is developing a useful association with Glen Kotzen and gave the Woodhill trainer his 40^th winner of the season on newcomer South Side in the Birchwood Hotel Maiden.

Andre Nel is planning a tilt at the Fillies Winter Series with the Midas Handicap winner Captain’s Flame while Percival will also be kept in Cape Town after getting the better of Little Mo close home to justify some hefty support in the First Cut Handicap.

Nel said: “Captain’s Flame can be a little hot but she is pretty talented. Percival is improving all the time and I think he is going to enjoy the winter.”

Winners are what most jockeys want for their birthdays and Aldo Domeyer, who celebrated his 29^th with an Alan Greeff treble at Fairview on Friday, partnered both the Nel winners and got Pixelate up in the final furlong of the Boland Promotions Maiden for Shane Humby.

Both Bernard Fayd’Herbe and Brett Crawford are convinced that Me Myself And I will be better over further after the 8-1 chance came into her own in the closing stages of the mile Tytec Maiden. The winner is owned by the Ridgemont Stud which was also successful with the filly’s year older half-sister Chinawhite at Turffontein 90 minutes earlier.

Riding master Terrance Welch has abandoned post-CTS Million Dollar plans to go countrywide with Heavelon  van der Hoven who partnered the 17^th winner of his lucrative season after the Mike Robinson-trained Bold Aspen was backed from 12-1 to 6-1  in the Brilliant Glass Maiden.

Welch explained: “Heavelon will go to PE and possibly some apprentice races in Durban but riding elsewhere is not going to work. It’s in Cape Town that he gets his support and the trainers here want the jockeys with them in the mornings. Once riders start disappearing they don’t want them at all.”

By Michael Clower

Derreck David was pinching himself hard after he rode a winner at his very first Kranji ride, Poseidon – and in Friday night’s feature race for good measure.

The 27-year-old South African jockey was already grateful he had been given a chance to “live his lifelong dream” of riding in Singapore at an early stage of his relatively young career, but to win first-up was the icing on the cake he had not quite expected. In his own words, it was “unreal”.

The long and frustrating wait before he got the nod probably made him savour that moment even more. David has tried a few times to get in before but was unsuccessful, and when he finally got the stamp of approval, his original six-week tenure was whittled down to only one week through no fault of his – long processing time for his work permit.

The former South African champion apprentice jockey and reigning Mauritius champion jockey could have moaned or felt shortchanged but he remained positive.

To him, the six rides – two on Friday and four on Sunday – was still a crack in the door, and how he flung it wide open with a brilliant front-running ride aboard Poseidon in the $125,000 Racing Guide Classic (1400m).

Known as the “Prince of the Kilometre” in Mauritius for his knack at getting horses out of the barriers in a flash in 1000m scampers, David showed his reputation was not usurped.

Bouncing Poseidon ($36) out from the second worst barrier, David eagerly scrubbed up his mount until he was two lengths clear before crossing to the steel. The Gold Centre four-year-old was inclined to reef and tear a little, but David showed silky skills as he gave him a breather before they cornered for the judge as the horse to run down.

The $24 favourite Dragon Fury (Danny Beasley) and Hughsy (Wong Chin Chuen) closed him down but David had not gone for broke yet, easing Poseidon off to the middle part of the track first before throwing everything he had at him, like his life depended on it inside the last 100m.

Dragon Fury came huffing and puffing but was beaten a short head by Poseidon for that perfect mythological snapshot. The Dragon slain by the God of the Sea thanks to a divine ride from a mastercraftman named David.

“My dream has come true. I’m very emotional now, it feels unreal,” said David who had his equally ecstatic wife Angelique by his side after the win.

“It was already a dream to ride here at the Singapore Turf Club and to win at my first ride, it doesn’t get any better than this.

“I have to say the wide draw was a concern, but he really pinged the gates tonight. I got him out quickly, which is something I’m pretty good at and when I saw a couple of horses inside me were slow I knew half the battle would be won once we crossed over.

“He travelled beautifully and in the straight, with only 52.5kg on his back, he didn’t stop. I tried to come out to intimidate the others but I didn’t have to as he had his ears pricked and never stopped.

“He’s a nice progressive up-and-coming horse and I’d like to thank Mr Cliff Brown for putting me on him.”

The feeling was mutual with the Australian conditioner who had never met or heard of David before, but still took a chance with him and was repaid with a third consecutive win from the Olympian Stable-owned gelding.

“I was getting to know him and he was getting to know me, too. And we got a winner, how good is that?” said Brown. A

“This horse showed good gate speed at his last win with Rueven (Ravindra) and I told Derreck to do the same from the wide barrier tonight. He rode him very well and it’s good for him he got a winner at his very first ride here.

“Things are going really well with this horse and the owners too. They’re having a ball but we’ll just take it as it comes.

“He’s an easy horse to train. All we have to do is just get him ready, I don’t deserve much credit.

“He is a progressive horse and we may look at the Singapore Four-Year-Old series with him.

With that fifth win, Poseidon was completing a three-in-a-row with earnings closing in on the $320,000 mark.

– South China Morning Post