Oisin Murphy will make his Turffontein debut this weekend. Picture: Justin Tallis/AFP
Oisin Murphy won’t be able to ease slowly into his first experience of Turffontein when he appears as a star turn at Saturday’s Betway Summer Cup meeting.
The newly crowned British champion jockey has five rides on Joburg’s biggest race day and is pressed into action as early as Race 2. In that Conditional Maiden Plate up the 1160m straight track he partners Green Street, a three-year-old filly likely to start as one of the favourites.
An uncommonly large purse of R300,000 for a maiden has drawn a highly competitive line-up of promising young horses.
Green Street has as good a chance as any of the 18, but the combination of Murphy and leading Highveld trainer Sean Tarry will surely get plenty of punters onside.
The daughter of champion sire Gimmethegreenlight was runner-up in her only outing to date and will be a lot more track savvy this time. But the competition is fierce – not least from two stablemates, with the betting being a likely guide to Tarry’s assessment of his posse.
The bottom line is that Murphy’s first ride in South Africa must be included in all bets but cannot be a banker for exotics.
The three-time British champion’s next assignment is for local trainer Joe Soma, aboard filly Fiery Pegasus in Race 6, the Grade 3 Betway Fillies Mile which features the cream of the Highveld’s three-year-old females – with one notable exception.
Three top-class fillies will dominate the discussion: VJ’s Angel, who has a Grade 1 scalp, and Fatal Flaw and Olivia’s Way, both with Grade 3s to their names. All three were nominated to potentially take on males in the more valuable Dingaans on the day, but better draws here probably made up the connections’ minds for them.
Fiery Pegasus is fourth in the ante-post market at 15-2, but she is drawn 15 out of 16 and will need all Murphy’s skill to get her into the frame.
In contrast, a good draw saw Equus champion filly Quid Pro Quo take a different route from her sisters, opting for the Grade 2 Dingaans and a showdown with up-and-coming colts over 1600m.
According to the betting, this is a two-horse race between the unfashionably pedigreed Quid Pro Quo and the regally bred colt Greaterix – with Murphy’s mount Wild At War a 14-1 long shot.
The Irishman’s best chance of a historic victory comes in the headliner, the R6-million Betway Summer Cup over 2000m, in which he rides four-year-old filly Frances Ethel.
France Ethel’s co-owner Team Valor is behind Murphy’s trip and the rider will be keen to live up to expectation. With three races at the Big T under his belt by the time the big race rolls around at 4pm he’ll have some sense of the famous circuit’s idiosyncracies.
But there’s no-one in the world who knows Turffontein better than one Piere Strydom, who renews his partnership with Summer Cup favourite See It Again – the horse for whom he keeps postponing retirement.
Six-year-old See It Again is as honest as gallopers come and is the horse to beat, but Frances Ethel has plenty in her favour: a home track, a good preparation, a peak run, a neat no 7 draw alongside the favourite, a young trainer making waves, the “weighted-to-win” label and an international star in the irons.
Murphy signs off his Joburg sojourn in Race 9, the 2000m Betway Summer Cup Consolation, which is what is says on the tin with a field of top horses who just missed the cut.
He rides Tony Peter’s Meridius, a horse who always tries his heart out and is a tad unlucky not to have cracked a Cup nod. The five-year-old might be stretched over the trip, especially from a wide draw, but he has proven quality and could represent value in combination bets.
A R7-million Pick 6 pool is expected on the day and many a punter will be inclined to include all Oisin Murphy’s rides in their permutations.
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