Justin Snaith has 55 horses carded over the two days of the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate Festival at home base on Friday and Saturday.
But the SA champion will be keen to win the first feature race of 2018 before that – albeit in a minor centre – as a confidence booster.
Justin Snaith – a busy few days ahead
Snaith travels up the Garden Route on Wednesday with a trio of runners for the Fairview turf meeting.
He saddles two recent Cape maiden winners – Dancing Sally in the fourth and Elusive Fortune in the ninth. Both must have winning chances.
But the Sporting Post’s best of the day, Silvano filly Platinum Class, will be his chief focus. She runs in the R150 000 Listed Lady’s Bracelet where the 4yo takes on the local 3yo star Madame Speaker.
Last season’s champion 2yo filly, Madame Speaker has never been out of the money, having won 5 of her 10 starts. Those victories include successes in the Listed East Cape Nursery and the Listed Champion Juvenile Cup when beating the best of the boys.
Local star Madame Speaker (Pic – Pauline Herman Photography)
The dual stakes placed Platinum Class is the officially highest rated runner in the ten horse field.
She received 3kgs and was beaten 2,75 lengths by her esteemed stablemate Snowdance last time – the latter runs in the L’Ormarins Queen’s Plate on Saturday. That form should be good enough to take Madame Speaker all the way to the wire.
The pair certainly stand out – with Travel In Style the possible dark horse after winning her opening start here on Christmas eve.
The daughter of What A Winter has had her rating adjusted to a 72 – but should prefer the mile to the 1200m of that win and she could lift her game again for the Jacques Strydom team to run into the place money.
It should be an intriguing contest – with Madame Speaker having the home ground advantage. But Platinum Class is a year older and has shown fair major centre ability.
It should not be necessary to go more than the pair in the exotics.
