Le Harve could have a battle on his hands up against the equally impressive Miranda Frost in the Ian Balfour Juvenile Plate at Kenilworth tomorrow.
This has turned into a cracking race with three other previous winners also in the line-up, so different from Monday morning when it looked like another sorry episode in the Cape Town small fields saga.
There were two 1 000m two-year-old races but only six were declared for the colts’ event and four for the fillies’. The National Racing Bureau staff hastily rang the trainers and asked them to reinstate some of those not declared. But nobody would reconsider.
Then it was decided to amalgamate the two races but the trainers concerned had to be consulted again. “Fortunately they played ball,” said NRB kingpin Raf Sheik, recently promoted to Racing Executive of Gold Circle. “It would have been very different if one or two of them had said no.”
Justin Snaith (Nkosi Hlophe)
Le Harve looked so good four weeks ago that he is sure to start favourite even though Justin Snaith has been treating him with kid gloves – “I have done no grass work with him since his win because I think he has huge potential and he is such a big horse that I can’t do a lot of work with him. His brother (Scottsville Grade 1 winner Normanz) injured himself as a two-year-old and I don’t want to do that with this one.”
Miranda Frost really looked the part when making every metre of the 1 200 in February after being backed from 20-1 to 11-2. Joey Ramsden says he fully expected her to win that day. “She is a very nice filly and her form is standing up well. The only thing is that I didn’t want to run her over 1 000m but there are no races.”
The drop in distance is almost certainly against her – she is out of a Fort Wood mare – and that could swing it in favour of Le Harve but she will be a tough nut to crack.
Mike Bass has won seven Cape Town two-year-old races this term (only one less than Snaith) and he runs both first time scorer Bombs Away and Felicity Flyer who was fourth in the Met day Listed race and looks the better of the pair. “I think she is probably going to need her first run back against the colts,” cautions Candice Robinson.
Darryl Hodgson had intended to use this to give Chill Baby Chill more experience in advance of next month’s fillies features. “She is maturing and getting better but it has turned into a hot race against colts,” he says.
Half the field are newcomers but they are surely up against it. Sharp Peg narrowly holds Kwando 35 minutes later but the latter, a little disappointing when turned out again a week later, is likely to start at a better price and could be worth backing to reverse the placings.
Everything would appear to be against Persian Silk in race five – off for two months, first run out of the maidens and sometimes disappointing previously – but she really got it together last time and the handicappers have not been hard on her. At a forecast 8-1 she is suggested each way.
By Michael Clower
