Van Halen to make them jump in year’s last Highveld feature

The Grade 3 Lebelo Sprint is the final feature race of the year at Turffontein and Van Halen can defy top weight and take the top honours.

Corne Spies has his stable in fine fettle and this reliable fouryear-old gelding can add another feature race to an already impressive record. This son of Oratorio has had six wins in 19 runs and four of those victories have been in some sort of feature. He already added a Grade 1 title to his name when winning the Gold Medallion over 1200m at Scottsville as a twoyear-old.

He has been sparingly raced and last time came back from a four-month break to contest the Grade 2 Merchants over 1160m at Turffontein. Van Halen did not disgrace himself as he ran well to finish third, beaten 2.50 lengths by Mardi Gras. Based on that performance he has many of his opposition well held as all of Down To Zero, Gimme A Wave, Valbonne, Prince Of Kahal and William

The Silent finished behind him and are not weighted to turn that result around.

Of the horses who finished behind Van Halen in the Merchants, two had valid reasons for their disappointing performances. William The Silent is an extremely talented individual but does have his challenges. He put in a terrific display when touched off by Prince Of Kahal in the Listed Golden Loom Handicap over 1000m at this track – and that came after 364 days off the racetrack.

In the Merchants he was reported not to be striding out, but trainer Robbie Sage will have worked on his charge and that is unlikely to be an issue twice in a row. He has a top jockey in Gavin Lerena and as he would have had a number of options, the fact he chose to ride William The Silent is probably significant.

Prince Of Kahal was also reported not to be striding out which has not been an issue before and once again he is expected to be competitive in this event. Mark Khan takes the ride for trainer Roy Magner.

Mr Flood is coming back from a 417-day break, but this lightly raced four-year-old gelding has terrific speed. He has run five times for three wins, two of them coming after he was gelded, and if trainer Lucky Houdalakis has him close to his best, Mr Flood has the ability to drown all his opposition.

Marco van Rensburg takes the ride and he is the ideal jockey to cause the upset.

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