Sean Tarry’s talented Highlands bred half-brothers Trip To Heaven and The Hangman step out under the lights at Turffontein on Tuesday evening in a quality Pinnacle Stakes. The SA champion trainer has confirmed that both are well and that Trip To Heaven is ‘slung in at the weights.’
Tarry has been in a rich vein of form and the stable is firing on all cylinders again.
Skipped The Mile
Trip To Heaven – is slung in at the weights
“Trip To Heaven got a hefty penalty and went from a 109 to 115 after his Gr2 Joburg Spring Challenge win. So I decided to bypass the Charity Mile. My short-term plan is to run him in the Gr2 Merchants on Summer Cup Day and then look at a race like the Horse Chestnut in the medium term,” he said.
Tarry confirmed that he was expecting a big run from his charge, who is a course and distance winner.
“And don’t discount The Hangman. He has had four months off, but he will come out fresh,” he cautioned.
Major Force
The talented Trip To Heaven certainly stands out but Joey Ramsden’s Brutal Force will not be far behind.
Brutal Force holds off another Tarry runner in Zambezi River in an earlier win
The son of Western Winter has his first Gauteng run after a good win at Scottsville. He has been off for 12 weeks and may just need it.
Louis Goosen has been banging home the winners in KZN and Gauteng and he gives the Greys Inn gelding One Man’s Dream his final prep for the Gr2 Merchants.
He showed some sweet pace last Saturday in the Golden Loom before fading out to 3,90 lengths behind his talented stablemate Doing It For Dan.
With Piere Strydom up, he will keep Trip To Heaven very honest.
Zaki Power
Dom Zaki’s Deliver The Power and the Weichong Marwing ridden Morpheus are both capable on their day.
Deliver The Power comes into the picture on his very best form but at 7 may have lost some of his edge. Morpheus has beaten Saturday’s impressive Golden Loom winner Doing It For Dan – he steps up on tougher terms here, but is very consistent.
Nervous Moments
Forest Indigo – returns from a break
Alec Laird’s recently gelded Forest Indigo – the 2013 Golden Horseshoe winner and a horse his trainer rated about his best three-year-old in the same year as Bouclette Top and Bezanova – will be making his reappearance after 18 months on the side lines due to injury.
“It was not a common injury, the ligament and sesamoid in a hind leg. It didn’t happen overnight. It was coming at him when he ran in the Cape Guineas in 2012. We were hoping to win the race and he was there, but stopped in the last 200m to finish fourth behind Elusive Gold. He then came out in the Gauteng Guineas in really soft going and Louis The King went past us like we were looking for parking. The injury became more serious after that. We had to scratch from the SA Classic and operate.
More Rest
“We were going to bring him back around this time last year, but he got another related strain on the ligament, so we had to rest him up again.
“This time we’ve given him more time off and have brought him along slowly. We take every workout as it goes, so when he runs on Tuesday it’ll be a nervous moment! If he stands up to that, we’ll have more hope going forward. So far, so good,” he told Tabnews’ Nicci Garner.
Michael Azzie – good coupling
Mike Azzie’s talented 4yo’s Splendid Garden and Malta Rocks may both be in need of the outing and have quite some work to do against Trip To Heaven on these weight terms.
Isphan is the third member of the Azz attack. His recent form is not inspiring.
Trip To Heaven looks too classy for them at these weights over the 1160m. He is a confident selection to register his fifth win.
