Nelson Mandela Bay Racing came in for stick from some exotic bet punters at Fairview on Friday when a jockey protest against worsening surface conditions, saw racing switched halfway through the card to the polytrack.
Inherit The Rain (Richard Fourie) stays on to beat Smanga Khumalo and Brenden James (Pic – Pauline Herman)
“Never in my 58 years of racing! I understand the need to get through racing, but exotic punters are locked in and the game changes. The surface is different, as a start. The racing goes from straight to the turn. So it’s more draw sensitive. It’s a different form-book. It’s ludicrous and there is no thought of the customer,” said longstanding racing man, Selwyn Elk, who questioned why the precautionary move of switching surfaces was not made before the start of the first.
And almost according to script, the 33-20 tote favourite Cherry Anno went missing in the support feature, the R175 000 Fairview 1400.
The son of Capetown Noir has two different sets of form for turf and poly, and ran accordingly as the rampant Richard Fourie drove Inherit The Rain (33-10) through to beat the fast finishing Brenden James (6-1) by a half length in a time of 80,48 secs.
It was Fourie’s 100th winner of the season in the Eastern Cape.
Zietsman Oosthuizen’s Funky Music (20-1) caught the eye in third and is one for the notebook.
An objection was lodged by Smanga Khumalo, the rider of the runner-up, on the grounds of interference some 500m from home. It was overruled and the winner found the number 1 box for the first time since August 2022.
The winner is a son of the ill-fated Soft Falling Rain (National Assembly) out of the one-time winning Rich Man’s Gold mare, The Heiress.
A R2 million National Yearling Sale purchase, the winner was bred by Wilgerbosdrift and Mauritzfontein and has now won 8 races with 22 places from 46 starts for stakes of R774 412.
