Timkat is the Bright Flame
Khumalo, Ramsden a combination worth following
Unfortunately bad weather has become the racing community’s biggest enemy over the last week. Three of the five scheduled meetings during the week were abandoned due to heavy rain, and in what was a very first for most punters, the final race at Fairview on Friday afternoon was forced to be abandoned due to a protest lodged by the veterinary surgeon against the extreme heat! Following heavy rain and forecast of further rain, yesterday’s Scottsville meeting has been moved to Wednesday 20 February and the meeting scheduled for Greyville that day has been moved to Friday night, 22 February. Racing concluded trouble-free at Kenilworth on Saturday, and saw all of jockeys S'manga Khumalo, Richard Fourie and Bernard Fayd'Herbe walk away with two victories a piece.
Khumalo has really made Cape Town his second home, riding a lot of winners for trainer Joey Ramsden over the last few months. In fact they have an extremely high 22.58% win-strike rate this season! It could pay follow the career of two-year-old Visionaire colt, Minnesota Dream, who although drifting out from 10-1 to 13-1 in the betting, had absolutely no stage fright in his debut performance, defeating Kamadeva (Fayd'Herbe) by a gutsy 0.75-length over 1000m. The Kimberley 1400 (Non-Black Type) will headline proceedings at Flamingo Park today and although it looks a very competitive contest, the Cliffie Miller-trained duo of Timkat and Bright Flame look the two to fight out the finish, with Timkat making most appeal despite the fact he was narrowly touched off (0.05 lengths) by his stable companion in his most recent appearance, failing to justify 11-10 favouritism. In Timkat's defence, he shouldered 4.5kg more than Bright Flame on that occasion, and although this son of Fort Wood is very versatile, he has proven most lethal over this course and distance, registering two runaway triumphs and a close-up second from three efforts. Timkat should easy turn the form around with Bright Flame, simply because Marco van Rensburg's mount seems to find 1400m a touch too far. In three attempts over the distance the best this Sail From Seattle gelding has done is finish a 1.25 lengths second. Take a boxed Swinger or Exacta featuring the stablemates or float them with Icarus Flight, Notacademicatall, Arianos Bagofgold, All Of Me, Rock Pigeon and True Words in
your Quartet.
Laptop Wizard is weighted to easily win Race 2, a Maiden Plate over the minimum trip, and his case is further strengthened by the fact he gets the services of the in-form apprentice jockey, Nathan Klink, who takes 2.5kg off his back. The only real chink in this four-year-old son of Jay Peg's armour is that he returns from a 65-day stint off the racetrack so could suffer from a bit of ringrust.
Bill Human's charge has faced a lot stronger during his Highveld campaign, finishing third in three of his last four performances, and as a result appears a great BiPot banker in the first leg.