While the R100 000 Northern Cape Stayers Handicap heads up the Flamingo Park card on Monday, the big attraction will be the appearance of Gauteng sprint star Trip Tease, who looks the proverbial good thing as he lines up in a 1000m Pinnacle Stakes.
Trip Tease scratched – Transport Breakdown – Ed
Trip Tease – should win
Trainer Louis Goosen is a master at managing our less-than-perfect racing programme and he has wisely adopted something of a holistic view of the national state of play – travelling to relatively far-flung venues in search of suitable races.
Trip Tease is being prepped for a second bid at the Gr1 Computaform Sprint at the end of this month – he ran a cracking fourth behind star filly Alboran Sea in the 2015 renewal of Joburg’s premier sprint – and we saw him travel to Scottsville a fortnight ago.
He stretched his legs in the novel 600m Easter Dash in the KZN capital city and beat a decent field going away.
While lengthy road trips are not ideal, Goosen travels his star to Kimberley where the R43 125 first cheque will only be a secondary consideration to the gelding getting through his run unscathed and pulling up well.
Varbration wins BW Sprint at Flamingo Park
His stablemate Varbration, who won the WSB Sprint over the course and distance last August, is the only runner who looks remotely capable of getting close to Trip Tease and gets a 4kg start courtesy of the claiming apprentice.
Goosen also saddles the Carpocrates gelding Wishful Heart, a more than useful sprinter, who ran a decent second to You Beauty at Flamingo last time.
But neither of the two travelling companions are remotely in Trip Tease’ class and he will be a popular banker for many.
One race where we may struggle to single out a banker is the R100 000 Northern Cape Stayers Handicap where a competitive field of thirteen lines up.
Tienie Prinsloo and Coerie Lensley saddle more than half the field between them and may be the yards to follow in terms of pure weight of numbers.
Lebeoana – pick of Prinsloo trio
The A P Arrow gelding Lebeoana appears the pick of the Prinsloo trio, despite his wide draw and the fact that he could be held by Evercell.
S’manga Khumalo rides the course and distance winner who won readily when beating the talented Jaguar over 400m shorter last time out.
He will strip a fit horse and must be thereabouts when it counts.
Pontedera has plenty of weight to carry
Topweight Pontedera is also a course and distance winner but appears to have lost form since his Summer Cup day sortie to Turffontein.
The son of Judpot stays well and is another who should be in the shake up.
Quid Rides has been tried only once over this trip and fared quite well when second to Sidecar. That was in much weaker company, though.
Cristal Arrow looks the best of the Lensley quartet after her fair second when supported in the betting and second to Beautiful Dawn in girl’s only company a week ago.
She was a runaway winner over the Vaal sand 2000m in September 2015 and may be looking for this kind of test to show her best form.
The handily weighted Maximo may be best of the balance from this yard.
The son of Whitechapel has had three largely ordinary runs in the Northern Cape but stays well.
Jannie Borman’s Told You So is an interesting runner off the 49,5kg mark.
The son of Mogok started his career in the Cape with Ronnie Sheehan before moving to Alyson Wright in KZN.
He has only won twice in 42 starts but has a fair turn of foot and may be worth considering as a value inclusion – even if his opening two runs here were unspectacular.
While Trip Tease is the standout banker of the week, it may pay to go wide in the staying feature.
