Love Lies might hold Pick 6 truth at the Vaal

A trappy card confronts punters at Tuesday’s Vaal Classic meeting and they’ll be thankful for Love Lies in Race 4, a standout bet and the only possible exotics banker.

Trained by Paul Peter, Love Lies has been well backed in three of his seven starts to date, but has had some rotten luck in running and has not been able to deliver on his evident promise.

A break and a gelding have brought him along since his rocky early days on the track. What looked like a dismal 12-length beating by Royal Wulff on 20 March turned out to be not a bad effort after all when that winner scorched to another impressive victory on Derby day at Turffontein.

Last time out, Love Lies was part of a Peter raiding party to the Greyville Polytrack and showed sharp pace over 1000m before conceding to his short-priced stablemate Greenhill at the death.

With champion jockey Warren Kennedy in the plate, he looks very hard to beat in this Maiden Plate down the 1000m straight course – especially with the field reduced to just six runners by the scratching of unraced Captain Lannister.

Night King and Trust The Fire have hints of form but don’t match the state of readiness of Love Lies.

With the first leg of the Pick 6, Race 3, a Maiden Juvenile Plate, featuring seven debutants among the 12 carded horses, punters should game the first-timer rule and only put in the three raced runners that have shown any scrap of potential – namely Eternity Ring, Franca and Stolen Kiss. The first previously raced horse home counts in the event of a first-timer winning.

That still leaves four legs to negotiate and they ain’t easy.

Selections

Race 1:

1 Chariot Master, 2 Trying Times, 8 Burmese Tiara, 5 Pomelo

Race 2: Watch the betting

Race 3: Watch the betting

Race 4:

1 Love Lies, 5 Night King, 2 Trust The Fire, 6 Lil Wahoo

Race 5:

5 Talladega, 9 Silvery Blue, 6 Sky Kingdom, 8 Aunt Lizzy

Race 6:

5 Romeo’s Magic, 2 Prospector, 4 Trend Master, 3 Imperial Master

Race 7:

8 All Aglow, 2 Bella Rosa, 10 Mode, 9 Louvain

Race 8:

11 Dynamic Lass, 3 Fasinada, 1 Cast The Dice, 12 Galaxy Raiders

Pick 6

1,4,7 x 1 x 5,6,9 x 2,3,4,5,6 x 2,8,9,10 x 1,3,11,12 (R720)

PA

7 x 1,4,7 x 1 x 5 x 2,5 x 2,8 x 3,11 (R24)

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