Marshall vs Viper Jet
RIVALRY. IT’S MARSHALL’S FORM VERSUS VIPER JET’S POTENTIAL
Hellofaride, Set The Standard and Gold Rock could have a say.
In effect, the role of the handicapper is to tell the story of a racehorse’s growth in the sport. Those merit ratings give credence to the ups and downs of a horse’s racing career and to which runners are improving at a faster rate.
That concept will come to the fore in Race 7 at the Vaal tomorrow, the Egoli Mile (Non-Black Type) for three-year-olds over 1600m on the Classic track. Top weight and likely favourite is Marshall from the Mike de Kock yard. We know he is highly rated by the stable and after winning his first two races, this three-year-old son of Vercingetorix started 22-10 favourite to win the Grade 2 Dingaans over 1600m at Turffontein.
Unfortunately, it all went wrong and after suffering an injury during the running of the race he finished 11th, 14 lengths behind Shango. He took some time off and during that break he was gelded.
Marshall returned to racing on 1 February and despite De Kock warning his charge might be in need of a run, the three-year-old ran out a very easy winner, beating stable companion Your Pace Or Mine by two lengths.
With three wins from four starts he sits with a merit rating of 99. But in his first outing, Marshall beat another debutant, Viper Jet, by 0.50 lengths. Based on that run, Sean Tarry’s charge was sent out a 6-10 favourite to win his next start but found Riverstown 4.25 lengths too good. In fairness to Viper Jet he kept coming up against some decent horses and was then beaten by Mohican, followed by Leopold and then Solarize before finally winning a work riders’ race, beating Pluviophile by three lengths.
The story of his run-up to the Egoli Mile is a merit rating of 83, 16 points lower than Marshall.
So he will be receiving 8kg from De Kock’s charge in this race. The question one needs to ask oneself is whether the handicapper’s story is accurate. Remember, their role is to predict a weight for each runner which would produce a dead heat. Obviously, that is not feasible but the two should finish close together again.
Based on the ease of his wins one has to support the fact that Marshall can still give Viper Jet 8kg and a beating based on the paths their careers have gone, but it also can turn out that Viper Jet is a late developer and is only starting to improve.
In the end it should be an interesting race. Others to consider are recently gelded Hellofaride, Set The Standard and Gold Rock.
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