Strike with Keagan de Melo’s hot streak

Jockey Keagan de Melo had a weekend to remember and could extend the winning run into Monday when he continues his “frequent flyer” campaign at Greyville on the Polytrack.

In Cape Town on Saturday, he landed a triple, including the Grade 2 Diadem Stakes on Dean Kannemeyer-trained Cosmic Highway, before hopping to Joburg on Sunday to steer home impressive juvenile Karangetang for Johan Janse van Vuuren in the Listed Storm Bird Stakes at Turffontein.

To Durban on Monday and De Melo has seven bookings for a variety of trainers. All have bright chances, but perhaps the brightest are Antico Amore for Andre Nel in Race 1, Caesura for Alyson Wright in Race 4 and Hot Strike for Mark Dixon in Race 8.

Caesura looks one of the better bets on the day. The six-time winner has been in excellent form of late and clearly loves galloping on the Poly.

Two small doubts about the six-year-old are his 61kg impost and the fact that he has only once gone the 2000m of this contest – unsuccessfully. Balanced against that are that he has earned his merit rating with honest endeavour over the years and that he has been runner-up over 1900m and 1800m in his last two starts.

Hot Strike in the last is another with smart form. De Melo partnered the four-year-old filly to her maiden victory in August last year and was on board when she ran second at Scottsville in her last outing.

Here the question mark hangs over her Poly suitability, with her best performances having come on grass. But her experiences on the artificial surface were earlier in her career and she has clearly matured and improved since then.

SELECTIONS

1: 1 Ladies Day, 6 Antica Amore, 2 Winter Journey, 4 Perfect Appeal

2: 5 Trident King, 1 Bush Fire, 2 Without Doubt, 8 Rain Or Shine

3: 1 Shape Of You, 4 Purple Nkanyezi, 5 Ice Sunsation, 2 Tupelo Honey

4: 8 Caesura, 5 Deep Global, 1 Galabier, 9 Fever

5: 1 King’s Cove, 9 Living Waters, 2 Querari’s Cowboy, 3 Manhatten Café

6: 4 Time To Roll, 6 All Aglow, 2 Bella Siccone, 1 Chanty Lane

7: 3 Ibutho, 5 Airways Law, 9 Cupid’s Song, 4 Master Tobe

8: 2 Hot Strike, 3 Angel Of Justice, 8 Hatta, 1 Hot Money

Pick 6: 1,2,4,5 x 1,5,8 x 1,2,3,4,7,9 x 1,2,4,6 x 2,3,4,5,7,9 x 2,3,8 (R1728)

PA: 1,5 x 1,4 x 8 x 1,2,9 x 4,6 x 3,5,9 x 2 (R72)