The battle for the third slot in the SA team to take on the UK, Australia and Asia in the PGI Jockeys Challenge in Singapore on 25 September gained further momentum in advance of the last four days of our current season with Highlands-Ridgemont rider Greg Cheyne booting Western Wu home to win the R110 000 Friendly City Stakes at Fairview on Friday.
Greg Cheyne – edges ahead
Cheyne also steered Suave to a good win in the final event and holds a lead of three wins over his hometown colleague Aldo Domeyer for third place on the SA national log, with each having two meetings left this season.
They clash head-on at Kenilworth on Saturday, with Domeyer boasting a full card of rides, including the R3,6 million yearling Varsity Lover in the second. Cheyne has 8 rides on the same card.
Aldo Domeyer makes the trip to Kimberley on Monday (Pic – Chase Liebeberg Photogrraphy)
On Monday Domeyer makes a rare trip to Flamingo Park, where he has 7 rides. It all rests with Cheyne who will will know where he stands as he commences his 8 rides at Fairview on Tuesday to wind up the Eastern Cape Championship for the powerful Alan Greeff yard.
Lyle Hewitson and Muzi Yeni have already booked their tickets in the three man teams for the Singapore PGI Challenge, where the bragging rights as the best jockeys in the world will be at stake.
A weak 9-2 favourite, and with Greg Cheyne declaring a half kilo overweight, Western Wu won the non black-type Fairview Friday feature as he ran on strongly to win by 2,25 lengths in a time of 113.58 secs.
Greg Cheyne has Western Wu well balanced to win the Friendly City Stakes (Pic – Pauline Herman Photography)
Road To Indy came out of the pack to run second a half length ahead of Sabbatical, with Cape Rebel tiring late into fourth.
Gimme The Stars moved up menacing 350m from home but went very one-paced late to run out of the money.
Western Wu was purchased by Joey Ramsden off the Arc En Ciel draft for R140 000 at the 2012 Cape Premier Yearling Sale Book 2.
He was originally trained out of Milnerton by Ramsden. Western Wu has won .8 races with 7 places from 43 starts for stakes of R426 025.
Bred by Peter de Beyer, Western Wu is a 7yo gelded son of Dynasty (Fort Wood) out of the three-time winning Centenary mare, Beautiful Noise. The latter raced in the De Beyer silks and was trained by Stephen Page in her track career where she won up to 1200m.
