Fans in for racing feast on fast track

A FEAST awaits horse racing fans on the Fairview polytrack with meetings today and Monday on this surface.

The polytrack is running very fast and there will be no time to waste when the jockeys send their horses home in the short straight.

In the main race today, the speed will really be on when some fine sprinters tackle each other over 1 200m. Captain Alfredo and Normanz are the main contenders to take this one.

There is no feature race but it gets better from next Friday, when the Friendly City Stakes will be the big attraction.

This will be followed by the Breeders Stakes on the 30th and the Champions Juvenile Cup on the first Friday in July.

It might be a good idea to get to Fairview on the 30th as that meeting will coincide with the track’s 40th birthday.

Remember the day in June when that racing fundi, old Piet “Promises” Koornhof, officially opened the new Fairview track – well, that is already 40 years ago.

The Greeff racing family was also around then and champion trainer Alan is enjoying yet another wonderful season.

With the season coming to an end at the end of next month, it is worth taking a look at the trainer and jockey stats.

Even in these very competitive days, Greeff has already notched up 127 winners for the season. He could better his personal record of 140 winners from nine seasons ago.

Dorrie Sham, Yvette Bremner, Gavin Smith and Justin Snaith (satellite yard) are also enjoying great success and saddled 50 or more winners in the season already. Tara Laing is just two away from joining this club.

Cape Town jockey Greg Cheyne missed a few Fairview meetings during the season but is still well on his way to better his own record for the most wins in an East Cape season.

He has already ridden 76 winners and the record 83 winners from two seasons ago is probably not going to last very long.

Do not miss the announcement on Tuesday of the final field for this year’s Vodacom Durban July. It should be very interesting to see which horses will be lining up in the big one on July 1.

Punters’ Pal tips:

Fairview: PA R 256 1-7/7/2-10/2-5-7-12/1/2-4-9-13/3-4-8-15

PICK 6 R 1 470 6-7/2-5-10/1-2-5-6-7-12-15/1/2-4-7-9-13/2-3-4-6-8-14-15