Champion Oh Susanna makes her comeback
STAR: FILLY HAS A GREAT RECORD, IS WELL HANDICAPPED AND LOOKS ALMOST A RACING CERTAINTY
Brave Move looks the next best runner.
The return of a champion to the racecourse is always an exciting moment in the world of horseracing. As we move towards the start of the Cape season the best horses in the country are beginning to make their appearances and there is not much better than Oh Susanna.
This Australian-bred daughter of Street Cry rewrote the record books last season when she became the first three-year-old filly in more than 100 years to win the Grade 1 Sun Met over 2000m at Kenilworth.
She also went to Durban for the winter season but had an injury and only had one run at Greyville, showing tremendous courage in winning the Grade 1 Woolavington 2000 after having looked beaten 100m from home.
She returns to contest a Pinnacle Stakes for fillies and mares over 1600m at Kenilworth tomorrow and based on the conditions, Justin Snaith’s charge looks as close to a racing certainty as one could find. She is at least 6.5kg better handicapped than her rivals and has beaten most of them.
She has yet to win over 1600m and there is little doubt this distance is 200m short of her best, but she is sure to return fresh and that should be in her favour.
The question is who will follow her home and even that does not look too hard to answer. Not too many horses can claim to winning six races in a row but that is exactly what Brave Move has achieved. This daughter of Horse Chestnut is trained by Adam Marcus, son of former jockey Basil Marcus.
He has done extraordinarily well with this five-year-old mare who just seems to be getting better with each run.
Whether she is good enough to trouble Oh Susanna only this race will tell but the one certainty about Brave Move is she loves 1600m.
Her race record is remarkable in that she has run 11 times for seven wins, three seconds and one third place, that coming on debut, so if there are any chinks in Oh Susanna’s armour, Brave Move is the runner to find them out.