Hat Puntano on route to Summer Cup

THE Grade 2 Peermont Emperor’s Palace Charity Mile, which is one of the most important stepping stones into the GBets Summer Cup and will be run at Turffontein Standside on November 3, has attracted an entry of 45 horses and the joint-highest rated among them is last year’s winner Hat Puntano.

Azzie

This 118 merit-rated Mike Azzie-trained Argentinian-bred subsequently ran ninth in the L’Ormarin’s Queen’s Plate and was then laid off for nine months until a recent outing in the Grade 2 Joburg Spring Challenge over 1 450m on the Turffontein Inside track where well beaten.

The other 118 merit-rated entry is the Robbie Sage-trained Coral Fever, winner of the Grade 1 Premier’s Champion Challenge.

He also made his reappearance in the Joburg Spring Challenge and ran a good 3,4 length sixth with topweight.

Liege

Liege, last year’s Summer Cup winner, is among 12 Charity Mile entries for Sean Tarry. Liege and Matador Man on 108 are the highest rated of Tarry’s entries.

The two horses at the top of the Summer Cup boards, Noble Secret and Cascapedia, are among ten entries for Mike de Kock.

Soqrat

It is unusual for three-year-olds to run in the Charity Mile but De Kock has entered his two young stalwarts Soqrat and Alyaasaat.

However, they are also entries in the traditional three-year-old race on the day, the Graham Beck Stakes over 1 400m.

The only out of province entry is the Frank Robinson-trained Roy Had Enough who has won two Listed races over a mile. horse called Pride Of Pyrmont to run second in a Listed event on Melbourne Cup day. He also won a race at Moonee Valley with a horse called Regal Ruler from the very outside draw.

Taylor also trained standard-bred trotters in his time there.

He also spent a short time in New Zealand before returning to South Africa in 2003 .

Robb

He renewed his training license in 2006 and trained from a Private Establishment in Mooi River that was formally used by Nick Robb.

He later managed a stud farm across the road, and helped in the preparation, breaking in and pretraining of another stud farm's racing stock and helped transport horses to the races.

Taylor was a horseman through and through and his presence at the races in his cowboy hat will be missed by all in the racing fraternity. FOLLOWING the running of the Barrier Trial, concern was raised with regard to a patch which developed at the 500 metre mark. A panel was formed in terms of the Rules and a track inspection followed. The panel having inspected the track after the harrows had been through, was of the opinion that the affected area was inconsistent in relation to the areas leading up to and away from it. There was also a concern regarding a patch at the 1 200 metre mark. In the interest of safety, yesterday’s Greyville race meeting was abandoned.