Paddy O'Reilly and jockey Bernard Fayd'Herbe could be hard to beat in the Glenlair Trophy at Fairview today.
Trainer Mike Stewart takes the son of Dynasty to Port Elizabeth today to contest the Listed Glenlair Trophy over 3 200m.
What is even more significant is that jockey Bernard Fayd’Herbe is making the trip to Fairview to ride the gelding and he has a remarkably high strike rate when on a Stewart-trained runner.
Paddy O’Reilly has his work cut out as wining over the marathon distance carrying 64kg is not an easy task.
Fortunately Fayd’Herbe is a heavyweight jockey and there will not be much dead weight for the horse to carry. He also will have to overcome No 13 draw, but over this distance that is of far less significance.
His last race was in the Grade 3 Chairman’s Cup over this distance at Kenilworth and he was able to run a decent 3.50-length fourth behind Hot Ticket who was all the rage that day. His previous race over 3200m was in the Kenilworth Cup and on that occasion, with Fayd’Herbe in the irons, Paddy O’Reilly came away to beat Posh Boy by 1.25 lengths.
He takes a drop in class in this event which is why he carries the extra weight, but his form over the distance looks far better than any of his opposition. He has raced at the track twice before but not over the distance.
Crown Of Gold has raced twice at Fairview since relocating from Cape Town and the son of Silvano looks to be the main danger. He also raced against Hot Ticket in the Chairman’s Cup and finished 2.70 lengths behind Paddy O’Reilly. The Tara Laing-trained runner is 1kg worse off so the chances of turning tables look somewhat remote.
