Slack’s filly ready to notch second win
Mary Slack will be ecstatic about Golden Ducat’s Cape Derby win last weekend, but she will also be keeping track of events at the Vaal on Thursday.
The first produce of her talented mare Ilha Bela, who won seven races before being retired to stud, is expected to notch the second win of her career in Thursday’s seventh race.
Named Isle De France and trained by Mike de Kock, the grey daughter of Var has failed to win in five subsequent starts but the form of her latest effort has been franked.
The winner of the Turffontein race was Rio’s Winter who went on to run second behind her daughter Jessica Jell’s well-bred filly Summer Pudding in the Gauteng Fillies Guineas.
Summer Pudding and Rio’s Winter are set to clash in the SA Fillies Classic and Stephen Moffatt, trainer of the later, will be delighted his filly has drawn pole position.
It is interesting to note that Ilha Bela’s second produce, Azores, ran a creditable fifth — beaten less than five lengths — in last Saturday’s Cape Derby.
The grey, who cost R800,000 as a yearling and is trained by Dean Kannemeyer, seems like a horse to follow in the forthcoming Durban season.
He might even emerge as a Vodacom July candidate.
The only runner who can beat Isle De France at the Vaal on Thursday is Sean Tarry’s threeyear-old Rock The Globe. His supporters will point out he has a 16-point higher merit-rating than De Kock’s filly.
Nevertheless, the son of Seventh Rock has had a long journey to the Cape where he failed to shape in the Guineas so the year-older Isle De France is selected to come out on top.
Another Tarry inmate, Before Noon, is certain to start favourite for the sixth race over
2,400m and Gavin Lerena retains the ride on the son of Await The Dawn.
One runner who could trouble Before Noon is the Silvano filly Fife with apprentice Jason
Gates’s claim reducing the fouryear-old’s weight to just 49kg.
This means that Before Noon has to give the Azzie stable runner 9kg and that might be a tough task. The two appeal as a good exacta bet. Others with chances in this long-distance race are Fife’s stablemate Major Return and De Kock’s four-yearold Mr Greenlight.
One betting firm has priced up Alec Laird’s runner Ocean Forest at 10-1 for the first leg of the jackpot. The daughter of Duke Of Marmalade appeals as an attractive each-way proposition at those odds as she can mount a challenge to the morefancied contenders Fire Flower and Curvation.
Callan Murray, who rides Isle De France in the seventh race, has four other mounts for the De Kock stable and should go close on Riqaaby (second race) and Akwaan in the third. The latter looks the pick of the duo with the blinkers going on the son of I Am Invincible.