De Kock and Tarry are ready to charge
MIKE DE KOCK and Sean Tarry are both considering taking on the local hopes in the first Kenilworth Group races of the season on Saturday week.
De Kock has nominated Premiers Champion and Joburg Spring Challenge runner-up Alyaasaat for the Cape Classic and Ghaalla (a close-up third in the fillies Jobug Spring Challenge) for the Western Cape Fillies Championship - formerly the Choice Carriers and before that the Odessa. De Kock, successful with Ektifaa two years ago and with Phillipa Johnson in 2003, has also entered Nafaayes who has won two out of three.
Sweet Mary Lou, Anneka and Sally Called are the three Tarry entries for the 1 400m Grade 2 and the three-time champion trainer has also entered two for the Cape Classic including toprated Chimichuri Run who was third in both the SA Nursery and the Gold Medallion.
Vaughan Marshall, who used last year’s Cape Classic as Tap O’Noth’s stepping stone to the Cape Guineas, has nominated the Lanzerac Ready To Runbound Agent Of Fortune but stable companion One World is a notable absentee.
Marshall indicated earlier in the month that the Concord Cup (formerly Selangor) on 24 November is the more likely target. Joey Ramsden, successful in three of the last five runnings, has only one entry – Twist Of Fate who was third in the Premiers Champion.
Justin Snaith, who won his fifth WC Fillies Championship last season when Snowdance presaged her Cape Fillies Guineas and Majorca victories, has entered three plus seven for the Cape Classic which he has won only once – with Solo Traveller eight years ago.
THE decision to appoint Arnold Hyde as interim chief executive of the NHA until a replacement for the departed Lyndon Barends can be found smacks of commonsense. Hyde knows the racing game and, in the process of working his way up through the stipendiary ranks to the head of Racing Control, he has earned the respect of the professionals.
Indeed he has all the qualities needed to take the NHA’s top job on a permanent basis, the most important of these being integrity and the ability to ensure that this is carried all the way through every aspect by every official. It also needs somebody who understands and enjoys racing which is quite different from any other sport or activity.
What the NHA does not need is a businessman. It already has accountants to prepare budgets and ensure that they are adhered to, and making money is not it’s raison d’etre. Hopefully, it won’t be tempted into opting for political correctness either. Racing is too important to be swayed by that and it cannot afford for its governing body to make a mistake a second time.
DANNY MUSCUTT, son of Brett Crawford’s Summerveld assistant Peter Muscutt, faces a lengthy spell on the sidelines following a horror fall at Chelmsford in England last Thursday evening.
His mount Pico Boulevard, who had to be put down, appeared to clip heels and Muscutt broke a bone in his neck, three vertebrae and a rib.
He has ridden 21 winners since the championship season started on May 5 and last year he finished second on Fanciful Angel in the Arlington Million, his first ride in America. He also won on the horse in Dubai.