Sound Of Warning rings out across Cape Town

Half of the 16 runners in the Grade 2 Cartier Sceptre Stakes at Kenilworth in Cape Town on Friday are from the Justin Snaith’s stables. But racing isn’t a numbers game, in the strict sense of the phrase, and the champion trainer might walk away without the trophy.

The 4-1 ante-post race favourite is three-year-old Sound Of Warning, a lone raider from upcountry, saddled by Joburger Sean Tarry.

Two other top Western Cape conditioners, Candice Bass-Robinson, with five horses, and Brett Crawford, with two, make up the rest of the field and a formidable local cavalry for the 1200m weight-for-age-with-penalties contest for fillies and mares.

Bass-Robinson’s runner Amanzimtoti, another three-year-old, is Cape Town’s best hope of thwarting Sound Of Warning in the headline event of the first day of the Queen’s Plate Festival.

Amanzimtoti – named after a beach town in KwaZulu-Natal, a province that otherwise has no say in this event – is quoted at 9-2 by the bookmakers.

Crawford’s Capitana at 7-1 is the only other horse on the boards in single figures.

Before decamping to beyond the Grape Curtain, Sound Of Warning won a bruising battle with Big Burn in the Magnolia Handicap at Turffontein at the end of November. That was her second outing after a four-month holiday, so she goes to Kenilworth in peak shape.

As a juvenile in June, the daughter of Trippi was a gallant runner-up in the Grade 1 Alan Robertson Championship at tricky Scottsville, so her class credentials are firm. With top Cape rider Richard Fourie in the irons, Sound Of Warning is a worthy favourite, if not a banker bet.

Amanzimtoti disappointed in the Cape Fillies Guineas a month ago, but that 1600m might have been an overreach at this stage of her development and the drop to 1200m could allow her to show the speed that has won three from six.

There is plenty of quality in the rest of the line-up and a longer-odds winner would not be a major surprise. Both Crawford runners, Capitana and Kitty Cat Chat, must be included in permutations, while Snaith’s

Mercury Rising and Major Attraction look his best hopes.

SELECTIONS

1: 6 Pacific Green, 7 Philosophise, 4 Bonika, 3 Bella Mo

2: 7 King Of Colts, 3 Navy Strength, 1 Bluff On Bluff, 2 Forever Bill

3: 8 Raising Quinn, 7 Miss Greenlight, 5 Peut Etre Moi, 6 Zippy Over

4: 1 Zarina, 2 Really Royal, 4 Maria Querol, 5 Queen Of Shadows

5: 2 Hyde Park, 1 Sachdev, 5 My Bestie, 9 Winchester Mansion

6: 8 Silver Darling, 4 So Flawless, 6 Celtic Night, 10 Black Silver

7: 11 Sound Of Warning, 9 Amanzimtoti, 1 Kitty Cat Chat, 12 Santa Maria

8: 1 Polar World, 3 Sonic Burst, 5 La Folie Deuce, 6 Winter Furi

Pick 6: 3,5,6,7,8 x 1 x 1,2 x 4,6,8,9,10 x 1,2,9,11,12,13 x 1,3,5,6,9 (R1500)

PA: 1,3,7 x 5,7,8 x 1 x 1,2 x 4,8 x 11 x 1,3,5 (R108)