Injured Fourie set to return to Kenilworth
Richard Fourie (pictured) returns at Kenilworth on Wednesday, a fortnight after that crashing fall on the ill-fated Rock Stewart at Durbanville, but he is no longer first-choice jockey for Justin Snaith.
The all-powerful Snaith Racing team has provided the 30-year-old with 27 of the 32 winners he has ridden this season but he is down to ride only one of the 43 horses it has either declared or provisionally declared from Wednesday to Sunday.
Top jockey
Fourie has made no secret of his wish to pick and choose his rides ever since he cut short his Hong Kong contract earlier in the year while the huge Snaith operation obviously needs to have first call on a top jockey.
It’s blistering form has been the glue that has kept the two together this term but apparently Fourie’s decision to ride the Mike Robinson-trained Smokey Affair in Saturday’s Choice Carriers Championship instead of any of the Snaith three has broken the bond.
Justin Snaith said on Saturday: “We will be using jockeys from up-country on certain days,” before adding: “If we have a horse that we think will suit Richard then he will ride it.”
Fourie added yesterday: “Yes, it’s very much like that.
“I am certainly making a comeback slowly and at this stage I am riding freelance.”
S’Manga Khumalo gets the call on Wednesday and Gavin Lerena on Saturday while at Kenilworth on Saturday last Raymond Danielson came down to partner two of Snaith’s five winners.
In the Choice Carriers, incidentally, the unbeaten The Secret Is Out (MJ Byleveld) heads the 15 declared despite concerns about her 12 draw and Vaughan Marshall said: “At this stage she is running.”
Anton Marcus flies down to partner Table Bay in the Drakenstein Vet Clinic Cape Classic in a bid to win the race for Joey Ramsden for the third time in four years.
Jockeys, though, are not Snaith’s only problem at the moment.
“There are no races for some of my horses,” he complained after Jo’s Bond’s all-the-way-romp under Craig Bantam in the 1 000m Conditions Plate.
“She has been ready for the past two months but there was nothing for her and nor is there a race for the likes of Bela-Bela at the moment.”
But there are for Ovidio who won the Woolavington Handicap for the second successive year, despite drifting from 5-2 to 9-2.
The top weight looked like being worn down by stable companion Francia just inside the final furlong but Jane and Ken Truter’s six-year-old answered Aldo Domeyer’s every call to hold on by half a length.
Ovidio
Snaith said: “Ovidio is such a game and genuine horse that he deserves everything he gets and, you never know, he might just end up in the Sun Met.”
Seemingly another crack at what was the J&B Stayers makes less appeal.
“That’s what did for him in the Gold Cup.
“Going into the Stayers he was on 93 and winning it made him 105,” he added.
Fred Crabbia’s African Night Sky is on the list for one of the two CTS $500 000 races after making it two out of two with a most convincing win in the Racing Association Handicap with Craig du Plooy declaring: “This horse is something special.
“He has a phenomenal action and he turns it on like you can’t believe.”
The stable also supplied five favourites but Harakiri in the last was found to be coughing after only managing third to MJ Byleveld and Adam Marcus’s Boomtown Belter in the last.
The winner drifted from 13-1 to 28-1 and, by curious coincidence, so did the Dean Kannemeyer-trained Star Of Joseph (Grant Behr) in race two.
Sean Veale got on the score sheet when leading throughout on the Brett Crawford-trained Winter Prince in the 1 400m handicap and staving off Danielson on Star Chestnut by the minimum margin.
Darryl Hodgson, so long kept at base with leg problems, was moving with all his old fluency thanks to new shoe implants and he had even more of a spring in his step after Grant van Niekerk kept Hassen Adams’ Royal Ginger going to land the 2 000m maiden.