Eight On Eighteen breaks par in the Met

Historians and old hands were proved wrong; punters and young guns like Justin Snaith got it right, at Saturday’s World Sports Betting Cape Town Met at Kenilworth.

Eight On Eighteen became only the second three-year-old in 25 years to win Cape Town’s premier race when he flashed up the inside rail to overhaul the flying front-runners in the final strides of the Grade 1 2,000m contest.

Trained and ridden by reigning champions Justin Snaith and Richard Fourie, and starting at 18-10, Eight On Eighteen won by 0.50 lengths from long-time leader Oriental Charm (8-1 joint second favourite), with another prominent galloper, Montien (20-1), third. Consistent top-level performer See It Again (17-2) was a close-up fourth.

Oh Susannah

The only other three-year-old to win the Met in the past quarter-decade was the filly Oh Susannah, also trained by Snaith.

Eight On Eighteen completed a current Met hat-trick for both Snaith and co-owner Nick Jonsson – after 2023 winner Jet Dark and 2024 victor Double Superlative.

Jonsson owns Eight On Eighteen in partnership with billionaire Johann Rupert, husband of Gaynor Rupert, who owns Drakenstein Stud, which bred the winner.

Only six previous outings

Snaith commented that the heat and excitement of the big day had caused many horses to sweat up in the prelims, but the young son of Lancaster Bomber had seemed entirely unconcerned and even sleepy.

“I said to him, ‘C’mon, wake up!’ He just looked at me!” laughed the trainer.

Of the race itself, he said the inside running on the Kenilworth straight was very quick and the one horse any rival would not have wanted to see flying up there was the fleet-footed Eight On Eighteen.

Fourie noted that the colt was “very young and a bit immature” but the connections had made a “very good realistic choice” to run him in the Met with just six previous outings to his name.