Rodney will be campaigned in top sprints like the Cape Flying Championship next season after showing his true colours in the Racing. It’s A Rush Pinnacle Stakes at Kenilworth on Saturday.
True, the three-year-old only collared 14-10 favourite Search Party on the line but the runner-up is much improved and this was Rodney’s first appearance since Met day.
Candice Robinson said: “He had done a lot of work at home but he’d only had one gallop and that was a month ago. Grant van Niekerk (pictured) said he would have won a bit easier but he got in behind horses and he was getting kickback in his face. He is a sprinter and a very talented horse.”
Rain for much of the afternoon saw the going changed from good to good-to-soft after race three but the official descriptions are linked to penetrometer readings and the jockeys reckoned it was soft from the word go. Some of them said it had turned heavy by mid-afternoon when the divots were really flying.
Richard Fourie found his reins so slippery going down to the start on Studioli in race three that he rubbed sand into his hands to get a better grip. Even so he dropped a rein and his whip when driving out the Glen Kotzen-trained winner in the closing stages.
However the rain suited In Limine who finally came good under Heavelon van der Hoven in the last. Greg Ennion reckons to win again with her before the winter is out and he also struck with 50-1 shot Jeremy despite Robert Khathi putting up half a kilo overweight to beat better fancied stable companion Chrome Blue a head.
Justin Snaith flew back from Durban on Friday evening to supervise the work of next Saturday’s Winter Derby meeting runners and he was rewarded by Oceans Trip landing the odds under Bernard Fayd’Herbe in the first.
Derek Brugman, on hand to see Epona score 35 minutes later – “she is a half-sister to Jay Peg and she will be worth her weight in gold as a broodmare,” reported that Red Ray had one eye closed and puss coming out of it following his disappointing run when favourite for the Post Merchants the previous evening.
Michael Clower
