Top guns go head to head

Horseracing fans will be treated to a vintage display of raceriding skills when six of South Africa’s best jockeys go head to head with several top international riders in the RACING. IT’S A RUSH International Jockeys’ Challenge at Turffontein Racecourse this Saturday.

The Challenge comprises eight races over two race meetings - four at Turffontein and four at Kenilworth the next day.

S outh African jockeys have proven time and again they can compete with the world’s best. Michael “Muis” Roberts won the UK Jockeys' Championship in 1992 and first Basil Marcus and later Doug Whyte dominated the cosmopolitan Hong Kong Jockeys’ Championship for more than two decades from the 1990s onwards.

Felix Coetzee, Weichong Marwing and Anthony Delpech are some of the other South African riders who have made it big overseas.

SA won the Challenge three times running from its inception in 2008, but then suffered back-to-back defeats before coming good again last year when they won by a mere 25 points.

Reigning South African champion jockey S’manga Khumalo will captain the local team which includes six-time SA champion Piere Strydom, who many believe is one of the best jockeys on the planet, and Richard Fourie, who has four Grade 1 successes to his name this year.

The international

team boasts plenty of talent and will be captained by Englishman James Doyle, who has reeled off a string of big-race wins this year.

Add in his compatriot Adam Kirby, Irishman Martin Harley, French-based Belgian Gregory Benoist, who rode a winner at last year’s Challenge, plus riders from Turkey and Germany and you can bet the South Africans will not have things their own way.

Theoretically each team has roughly an equal chance. The runners in the Challenge races were seeded beforehand with each team then drawing a mount alternately from the top seed down.

The action at Turffontein kicks off at 11.50pm with the first of the four Challenge races (Race 5) scheduled to start at 2.35pm. The R400,000 Victory Moon Stakes is the headline event, so head to Turffontein and enjoy a great afternoon. Admission to the track is free.