Turffontein racecourse will host the Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Guineas on Saturday. Picture: Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images
There are red-hot favourites and then there’s Gimme A Nother.
Punters might normally be delighted to see their old foes, the bookmakers, soiling themselves over a mere filly, but the problem is that the odds being posted alongside her name ahead of Saturday’s Wilgerbosdrift SA Fillies Guineas make it hardly worth the bother of placing a wager.
But, of course, she makes a handy banker choice for exotic bets, including a Pick 6 with an enticing predicted pool of R5-million.
The unbeaten Mauritzfontein starlet, trained by Mike de Kock, could be backed on Thursday at about 1-3 for the Grade 1 race, one of the marquee events at an action-packed Classic day – the second leg of The
Championships series and of the Triples series.
So poop-scared of Gimme A Nother are the pencillers, that they will give you a measly 5-10 on her scooping the Triple Tiara – meaning both the Fillies Classic and Leg 3 of the series, the SA Oaks. That’s odds on for two races, a month apart, against the best three-year-olds the country can muster.
If you think there’s a chance Gimme A Nother won’t pull this off and the Tiara won’t be won, you can place a bet at 11-10.
By comparison, top colt Sandringham Summit is at 14-10 to win the Triple Crown, with “no winner” a rather more conservative 7-20.
Many a Pick 6 player will be isolating both these stars. Fair enough. But there is yet another potential banker in the form of the sprinter Dyce – in the final leg, the TAB J J The Jet Plane Stakes over 1000m.
Trainer Lucky Houdalakis was the man who took the unforgettable “JJ” on his all-conquering campaign abroad. And he’s the man who’ll be saddling Dyce with an eye on serendipity.
After Dyce travelled to Cape Town recently and trounced the locals in the Flying Championship, Lucky was heard to murmur something about taking a gun to a knife fight. That’s how highly he rates this five-year-old, who has won relentlessly and become the country’s top-rated sprinter after overcoming early career injury problems.
Nominally the main event on the card is the Grade 1 Wilgerbosdrift HF Oppenheimer Horse Chestnut Stakes – one of the country’s premier mile contests.
Reigning Horse of the Year Princess Calla tops the boards, and rightly so as she is weighted to win comfortably.
But the mighty mare does take on some handy male rivals – notably Turffontein racecourse supremo Puerto Manzano, Cape raider At My Command and popular three-year-old Main Defender.
1,2,3,8,9 x 3,4,5,7,8,9,10 x 1 x 1.3.10 x 1,2,4,7,11,13,14 x 1 (R735)
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