Racing Express, 7 February 2022: Feast of local racing for fans

Rain has played havoc with local racing this weekend with both Saturday’s Turffontein and yesterday’s Scottsville race meetings falling victim to the weather. But have no fear, nothing is lost. Plans have been made to reschedule both those meetings and the good news for bettors is this week will be spectacular for local racing fans.

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Firstly, last Saturday’s Guineas race meeting at Turffontein will now be run tomorrow and will form a bumper doubleheader with the Fairview meeting in Port Elizabeth. The action at Fairview will begin at 12:30 with Race 1 at Turffontein at 15:10. The last four races at Turffontein will be run under lights with the last of 10 races carded at 20:20.

All TAB bets taken on the postponed Turffontein races will be refunded and betting pools for the meeting will open anew today. New race times are: Race 1: 15:10 Race 2: 15:45 Race 3: 16:20 Race 4: 16:55 Race 5: 17:30 Race 6: 18:05 Race 7: 18:40 Race 8: 19:15 Race 9: 19:50 Race 10: 20:20.

In addition, 4Racing and Gold Circle have come together in a plan to reschedule yesterday’s Scottsville meeting. 4Racing have agreed to move Turffontein Sunday’s meeting to race alongside Kenilworth on Saturday 12 February. Gold Circle will add a race meeting at Scottsville on Sunday.

“With Hollywoodbets Greyville still under spring treatment turf racing is limited, and Gold Circle are pleased that the added race meeting will ease the pressure on trainers,” said Raf Sheik, Gold Circle’s racing executive. That means, if the weather plays ball, we will have nine local race meetings this week.

While there are no major scratchings for tomorrow’s Turffontein meeting at this stage, there are a couple of jockey change as both Marco van Rensburg and apprentice Kaidan Brewer are carded to ride at Fairview. At this stage apprentice Rachel Venniker is the major beneficiary of their decision as she has picked up the rides on JP Two Thousand in Race 3, Bella Chica in Race 4 and Mardi Gras in Race 10.

Chase Maujean will ride Vantage Point in Race 1. Meanwhile, they will be racing on the Polytrack at Hollywoodbets Greyville today and it is a typical midweek card with its customary pitfalls. However, there is one runner who looks to have potential and could be one to follow against better quality opposition.

Alyson Wright sends out Beyondtheboundary in Race 5, a MR 67 Handicap over 1600m, and he should provide punters with the best banker on the day. This gelded son of Gimmethegreenlight has only run twice, finishing fourth on debut and then running out an easy winner of his second starts. Both of those races were over 1400m on the Greyville turf track and in both cases produced the fastest 400m to finish. In his first run he was drawn No 14 of 14 and came from last to go down 2.90 lengths to Genie. In his next start he again came from well off the pace to beat Cyber Time by 1.30 lengths.

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The runner-up franked that form by winning his next outing by 4.40 lengths. In fact, three winners have come out of Beyondtheboundary’s debut run and two from his maiden win. He does try 1600m for the first time but based on the way he runs, that should not be a problem. The other unknown is that he is trying the Polytrack for the first time but that does not look too much of concern. Warren Kennedy rode him last time and he is back on board for this race – and this time he jumps from barrier No 3.

*Please note the fields for the Fairview meeting will be published in tomorrow’s Racing Express Update.