Celestial Prince one to watch

More than ever, South African horse racing fans cannot wait for the action to start on the Fairview polytrack in Port Elizabeth today.

It has been a terrible week for racing in the country with three meetings lost due to heavy rain.

We would love some rain in the drought-stricken Eastern Cape but even then the PE meeting is safe, thanks to the polytrack.

There are no real stars in action in the nine races on the poly. But the PE meeting has certainly grown in stature after the abandoned meetings in Kimberley and at the Vaal this week.

Hopefully the punters saved up some money and are ready to attack the Fairview meeting.

The local Place Accumulator is one of the most popular bets among SA punters and it should be a nice big pool to get involved in.

There might not be a feature race on the card but as usual it will be ultracompetitive on the poly and the track should be lightning fast.

Last Friday, the visiting Cape Town stable of Candice Robinson helped punters with the standout banker and it should be the case again today.

Robinson has three runners but the one that stands out is the three-year-old gelding Celestial Prince in the fifth race, a Maiden Plate over 1,900m.

Celestial Prince has not been in action for three months but should still be too good for the rest with Cape Town jockey Bernard Fayd’Herbe in the saddle.

What a pleasure to have Bernie back at Fairview.

He has been in tremendous form lately and rode three winners last Friday.

In this sort of form it is unlikely that Bernie and Celestial Prince will let the punters down.

As a banker, Celestial Prince will make the Place Accumulator, Pick Six and Jackpot a lot easier for punters to structure.

The consistent Aldo is another possible banker after winning his last race in fine style.

Aldo runs in the seventh race but could be strongly challenged by Dawnbreaker.

It would be wise to keep Dawnbreaker in mind in wider selections.