Three young ones to liven up Fairview

A standard Juvenile Plate race normally attracts little more than passing interest among racing fans, but the participation of a few wunderkinds in Race 2 at Fairview on Friday have turned it into the meeting highlight.

Three of the young runners have dropped heavy hints that they’ll be future stars and it will be fascinating to see how they rub up against each other for the first time.

Eastern Cape champion trainer Alan Greeff saddles four of the six horses that go to the 1200m post on the turf track, including the hot-pot favourite Cliff Top.

This colt by Canford Cliffs burst onto the scene when he travelled to Cape Town for Met day in January and sprinted the assembled local talent off its feet in the Listed Summer Juvenile Stakes. That was only his second start, after a runner-up effort in an 800m scurry back home, but he’d clearly made enormous strides on the gallops as he was backed into favouritism at Kenilworth.

Stable jockey Greg Cheyne continues the association and Cliff Top should have no problems with a 200m step up in trip. A two-month breather is likely to have seen him mature and strengthen rather than lost fitness.

Gavin Smith’s candidate is Khaya’s Hope, who was super-impressive in his only public appearance to date, a 3.25-length whipping of Maiden Juvenile opposition on Fairview’s turf 1200m a month ago.

He, too, will have come on a lot and has the country’s leading jockey, Warren Kennedy, to help him negotiate this tougher assignment.

Chere For Me, from Jacques Strydom’s stable, had pundits piling on the plaudits when she drew away to easily win the 1200m East Cape Fillies Nursery a fortnight ago. This was her second victory on the trot and set her well apart from fellow juvenile fillies.

Whether she can mix it with the colts is one of the intriguing themes of the race.

Is it a three-cornered contest? It would seem so, but two-year-olds can make sudden and significant improvement and one of the other three runners – most likely Greeff’s Feeling Foxy – could disrupt the narrative.

SELECTIONS

1: Tufaan, 5 Likeable, 6 No Greater Love, 3 This Time Round

2: 1 Cliff Top, 3 Chere For Me, 2 Khaya’s Hope, 5 Feeling Foxy

3: 11 Almighwaar, 1 Duke Of Orange, 8 Psychedelic Eric, 2 Jacksonville

4: 2 Jack In The Box, 1 Joe Harman, 3 Cape Point, 7 Empress Ki

5: 7 Integrity, 1 Colorado Springs, 10 Senescence, 8 Wings Of Fire

6: 1 Santa Therese, 7 Phoenix, 6 Irish Willow, 2 Freedom Seeker

7: 1 Herodotus, 3 Greenlighttoheaven, 6 Jean’s Man, 4 Legitimate

8: 6 Ideal View, 3 Emperors Decree, 1 Jet Mirage, 4 Born A Star

Pick 6: 1,2,3,8,11 x 1,2,3 x 1,2,7,8,10 x 1 x 1,2,3,4,6 x 1,3,4,6,15 (R1875)

PA: 1 x 1,11 x 1,2 x 1,7 x 1 x 1,3 x 1,3,6 (R48)