Mcqueen holds Van Niekerk’s hopes for a Happy day

Trevor Reid

South African jockey Grant van Niekerk has made a good start to his stint in Hong Kong having ridden six winners in his 41 rides and is currently in joint second place and five behind Zac Purton.

Van Niekerk has managed to get rides in seven of the eight races at Happy Valley today and possibly his best two are in Race 2 with (7) Mcqueen and in Race 3 with (6) Megatron.

Mcqueen has only the one win to show in his 30 starts but his recent fourth-place finish indicated another win could be coming and it is noteworthy that van Niekerk was aboard this seven-year-old gelding that day.

Megatron looked good when winning over the course and distance in June this year and only tired late last time out when carrying a penalty so may have another win in him. Certainly worth an Eachway bet.

Callan Murray steered home some long shot winners last season and although he has not been able to repeat that feat this season he has two rides that are not completely out of it.

Giant Turtle in Race 2, one of Murray’s rides, usually gives of his best and will not be troubled by the slight drop in distance and the yard of Tony Millard has been in good form.

His other ride (9) Pickachu in Race 6 is a hard-knocking eightyear-old who does not win often.

But he is coming off two modest efforts and could pop up among the places as Pickachu likes this 1800m distance.

In joint second place with Van Niekerk is the Mauritian-born Karis Teetan and although Karis has seven rides on the day nearly all of them are at double-figure odds and he will do well to ride more than a winner.

Zac Purton is probably the jockey who has got the best rides on the card and (5) Insayshable in Race 7 could be the banker bet for all exotic players.