Eight On Eighteen winning the Cape Town Met last month. Picture: Peter Heeger/Gallo Images
Good news for local racing fans is that there is no talk, yet, of South Africa’s newest thoroughbred prodigy, Eight On Eighteen, being spirited overseas.
After the three-year-old completed a rare WSB Cape Town Met and Splashout Cape Derby Grade 1 double at the weekend, Nick Jonsson said he looked forward to his globe-trotting co-owner Johann Rupert being present in this country when their colt next competes in a big race.
Pundit eyes are turning to the KwaZulu-Natal winter season for future assignments and Durban man Jonsson will be mindful of Greyville on the first Saturday in July.
With that in mind, the good news for Jonsson, Rupert and trainer Justin Snaith is that the official handicappers weren’t bowled over by Eight On Eighteen’s victory in the 2000m Cape Derby and left his merit rating unchanged on 127.
Unlike turf historians, and commentator Brandon Bailey who described the last-to-first finishing run as a “five-star performance”, the handicappers weren’t much enthused.
“The handicappers did not believe Eight On Eighteen had to run to the 127 performance which he produced when winning the WSB Met to account for the Splashout Cape Derby field, especially when considering that the Derby was run at a sedate pace,” said the official statement.
In his post-race interview, Snaith took issue with critics of the standard of the Derby field, saying his star had to work hard to beat the likes of runner-up Sail The Seas and third-placed Garrix, a pair he believed to be a match for other three-year-olds in the country.
Nonetheless, he’ll be happy the number crunchers disagree with him and his charge will not incur a heavier weight than he might have when he eventually tackles a handicap.
From a purist point of view, this is a blessing, too: what Snaith describes as “a very immature big baby” won’t have a blossoming career weighed down by lumps of lead.
Sail The Seas was raised to 112 from 103, while Garrix was adjusted to 107 from 97.
South Africa’s best racehorse Gimme A Prince also escaped the handicappers’ steadying hands – despite delivering his own five-star effort in the Grade 2 Khaya Stables Diadem Stakes over 1200m at Kenilworth on Saturday. Dean Kannemeyer’s super sprinter keeps his 134 rating.
Former top-rated horse See It Again continued his downward trajectory on the MR slope, getting eased from 128 to 127 after disappointing favourite backers in the Listed Jet Master Stakes over 1600m.
The five-length winner of that race, Kannemeyer’s rather unexposed four-year-old The Real Prince, was hiked from 107 to 118 and now boasts four wins from eight starts. He can start packing his bags for Durban.
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