Greeff v Laing, pick your fancy

Runners from the Alan Greeff and Tara Laing yards have been performing extremely well this season and they could face off at Fairview today in Race 8, a MR 87 Handicap over 1200m on the turf track. Not much separates their two runners, making this a great Exacta or Swinger bet.

Tara Laing-trained Reef Of Fortune is a 1200m specialist and is in pursuit of a hat-trick of wins so could be the runner to beat. He has yet to run out of the money in his last six outings and I don’t foresee this changing, at least not in this event. He holds stablemate Respectable Rebel on their last outing having defeated him by 1.25 lengths, although there is a large weight turnaround thanks to the apprentice allowance.

Interestingly enough, Baahir who finished third behind Reef Of Fortune in that outing, has gone on to win a race which only strengthens Greeff’s runners chances. Although he’s stepping up in class, this four-year-old son of Trippi has quite a lot in his favour. He jumps from No 2 draw and will shoulder a modest 52kg. Only one runner could rain on his parade and that’s Zevenastic.

The Greeff-trained gelding has finished fifth in both of his last two outing against stronger company. The only concern is the 60kg he has to carry, that’s 8.5kg more than Reef Of Fortune, which could be too much of an ask.

He enjoys the turf and the step up to 1200m could prove and advantage. He’s finished second twice over the trip and was only beaten by the narrowest of margins.

This son of Rebel King is rarely far off them and has been heavily backed on a number of occasions so the work at home must be decent. Zevenastic has been feature-race tested and defeated Reef Of Fortune by 3.25 lengths back in March even though he is now 4g worse off.