Champ Keagan on a Gold Cup quest

Reigning champion jockey Keagan de Melo will make a high-profile, popular return to the local racing scene on Gold Cup day at Greyville next Sunday, 28 July.

The rider, who campaigned in the recently concluded Hong Kong season, has been booked to ride several runners for Justin Snaith as the latter tries to defend his champion trainer title in a very close-run race that has at least five potential winners.

De Melo finished 16th on the jockey log in Hong Kong – a notoriously difficult place to break through as a newly arrived jockey – with 21 wins from 418 rides.

The jockey roster for the next racing season in the Chinese enclave has yet to be announced, so De Melo’s immediate future plans are still up in the air.

Though declarations for Gold Cup day are only due on Thursday, Snaith generally makes his plans known well before deadline and has De Melo down to partner eight horses at the 10-race meeting.

Riding Double Superlative

In the meeting’s elite race, the Grade 1 HKJC Champions Cup, De Melo teams up with Cape Town Met victor Double Superlative, who came out of retirement for a stab at the recent Hollywoodbets Durban July – where he finished in midfield, some five lengths off winner Oriental Charm.

Most pundits reckoned the five-year-old entire was short of a run that day, though Snaith was upbeat about the preparation. The mad dash for July glory would doubtless have sharpened up the horse fitness wise. This week he was quoted at 25-1 for the Champions Cup.

In the Grade 3 World Pool Gold Cup, De Melo will ride One Way Traffic, who finished fourth in the Gold Vase on July day. The six-year-old gelding, a five-time winner who has been consistent in long-distance races in recent times, is on offer at 20-1 in ante-post betting.

Snaith’s more fancied candidate for South Africa’s premier endurance race is ante-post 7-1 shot Future Swing, who finished a dismal 16th of 18 in the July. For that race, the four-year-old was the choice of current runaway championship leader Richard Fourie, but will now be handled by S’Manga Khumalo, with Fourie defecting to ruling favourite Future Pearl from the Sean Tarry yard.

Tarry, of course, is Snaith’s closest rival in the top trainer chase.

Gavin Smith’s runners

In another Grade 1 contest on the card, the Mercury Sprint, De Melo will swing a leg over 12-1 chance Royal Aussie, with Fourie going with hot-pot Lucky Lad – another Tarry charge.

Another welcome name among the early declarers is that of Eastern Cape master trainer Gavin Smith, who journeys three promising youngsters up the coast for a crack at the big money on offer in a trio of graded two-year-old contests.

Meanwhile, trainer Dean Kannemeyer has announced he will not be accepting to run his crack three-year-old Green With Envy in the Champions Cup. The colt started as the 7-2 favourite for the July but found himself well out of his ground in a briskly run race and could only manage seventh place.

After a busy time of it over several months, the son of Gimmethegreenlight will take a well-earned break and then be tuned up for a tilt at the L’Ormarins King’s Plate and Met double.