Keagan de Melo set for a good weekend – and season

Anyone looking for a long-odds, long-range bet, could do a lot worse than plonk a few rand on Keagan de Melo to be South Africa’s 2021/22 champion jockey. At 33-1.

The Durban-based rider might be quiet and unassuming, but he is fiercely determined, professional and widely admired within the game. Also, he’s not averse to travelling around the country like a dervish in search of winners – a championship prerequisite these days – and can ride as low as 53kg, which gives him gives him plenty of opportunities.

De Melo has been a top-10 rider for the past five years, even finishing third on the championship log in 2019/20. He rides for all the leading trainers and if he were to hit streaks of form with a couple of them – and throw in more regular jaunts to Eastern Cape – he could be breathing down the necks of Warren Kennedy and Muzi Yeni.

This Saturday, De Melo plies his trade at Kenilworth in Cape Town, where he has rides for in-form trainers Justin Snaith and Vaughan Marshall. Perhaps his best for the day, though, is Sky God in Race 4 for Candice Bass-Robinson.

On Saturday, the young man flits to Joburg for a full book of rides – spread across the yards of Candice Dawson, Stuart Pettigrew and St John Gray.

He starts his day in the first race on Dawson’s Slings And Arrows. Barring a spot of outrageous fortune, the son of Trippi should oblige.

De Melo then teams up with Pettigrew for the next three races, with Castletown, Admiral Dooley and Nice Move all fancied to do well and send him home to Durbs contemplating a titled future.

SELECTIONS

Kenilworth Saturday

Best: Race 2 No 6 Double Superlative

Value: Race 6 No 3 Gillian Anne

Turffontein Sunday

Race 1:

10 Slings And Arrows, 11 Val D’Orcia, 1 Coming In Hot, 7 JP Two Thousand

Race 2:

2 Castletown, 5 Zuzan, 1 Winter With Jo, 4 Look Yourself

Race 3:

1 Stay The Course, 5 My Master, 2 Quality Joker, 3 Admiral Dooley

Race 4:

7 Nice Move, 6 Indigo Winter, 2 Willow Lane, 1 Fort Snow

Race 5:

3 My Kingdom, 1 Grimaldi, 6 Willo’thewisp, 2 Light Without

Race 6:

2 Mariposa (VALUE BET), 3 Senescence, 1 Western Dance, 9 Go Dream Machine

Race 7:

2 Lucy In The Sky (BEST BET), 5 Feather The Nest, 7 Hear The Trumpet

Race 8:

1 Top Wesselton, 2 After Hours, 8 Capetown Affair, 5 Florida Keys

Pick 6:

1,2,3,5,8 x 6,7 x 1,2,3,5,6,7 x 1,2,3,9 x 2 x 1,2,3,5,7,8 (R1440)

PA:

2 x 1,2,5 x 7 x 1,3,6 x 2,3 x 2 x 1,2 (R36)