Hat chomping if See It Again doesn’t win the Met

The phrase “I’ll eat my hat” was brought into modern English parlance by Charles Dickens – in his novel Pickwick Papers in 1836.

Another Charles Dickens, an okay racehorse recently retired to a paddock in the Cape Winelands, might well be mulling the same words as he considers the extreme unlikelihood of his old mucker See It Again getting beat in Saturday’s WSB Cape Town Met at Kenilworth.

Indeed, others among us are also willing to risk having to scoff headgear if the four-year-old wonder horse doesn’t win Cape Town’s premier horse race, a Grade 1 R2-million contest.

But racing makes fools of us all. Many a fedora and fascinator has been feasted upon to great guffaws.

To be fair, a few “ifs” do crop up when one weighs up prospects for the race.

Unknown horses over 2,000m

If See It Again runs to his form of the past year – eight races in which he has finished either first or second – he will surely emerge victorious. On collateral and comparable form, his 11 rivals have next to no hope.

If a couple of rivals, as yet untested over the Met’s 2,000m trip, turn out to have the lung capacity for greatness, we could see an upset. Royal Aussie and Montien are nagging unknowns.

If the No 11 starting gate doesn’t leave See It Again out of his ground early in the race – which the vastly experienced trainer-jockey combo of Michael Roberts and Piere Strydom insist won’t happen – the big, even-tempered, level-headed chestnut will be well placed to deliver the coup de grace.

Finally, if they go at a brisk clip, with no sign of the infamous “Cape crawl”, the best horse should win; that horse carrying the delicate cyclamen and spectrum green silks of Durban owner Nick Jonsson – he of workwear fame.

Trainer Justin Snaith saddles five of the 12 starters, so will probably provide the pacemaker, at whom his most fancied contenders can take aim in the closing.

With a predicted R4-million-pool Quartet on the Met itself, Race 9 on the card, identifying the posse to follow See It Again home becomes a punter’s main challenge. Big races often see the odd roughie make the frame and longshot names to shuffle with include Montien, Without Question and Sugar Mountain.

SELECTION

11 See It Again, 8 Royal Aussie, 12 Montien, 6 Mucho Dinero