Racing Express, Tuesday 22 March 2022: Apache to flash up again

Flashy Apache was strongly fancied to win the Listed Derby Trial over 2000m at Turffontein on Saturday 12 March but trailed in a disappointing eighth of the nine runners, beaten by 12 lengths.

However, according to the report put in by the stipendiary stewards, jockey Denis Schwarz reported that he felt something amiss with the horse in running and clearly did not persevere with him. The veterinary surgeon was requested to examine the colt but he reported that he could detect nothing obviously wrong with the three-year-old son of The Apache.

Whatever the issue might have been, it could not have been too serious as Tyrone Zackey’s runner will be back in action at the Vaal on Tuesday in Race 3, where he will contest a Middle Stakes over 2000m.

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Zackey clearly had no issues with the jockey’s report either because Schwarz, who has done very well with this colt, is back in the irons again. As a result, it would probably be wise to just put a line through that performance because his form before that was excellent and it was against better opposition than he will meet in this event. He is also among the best weighted runners so it is prob-ably the right move to give Flashy Apache another chance, especially as he is drawn No 4 and has just 54kg on his back.

The Kop won his last race over this course and distance and while that was a far weaker field than this race, Sean Tarry has his stable in excellent form and his runners cannot be ignored. However, he has to give Flashy Apache 4kg and that could prove beyond him.

Kabelo Matsunyane won on him last time and Tarry has engaged him to ride the four-year-old Visionaire gelding once again.

Afraad is always there abouts and last Thursday ran a very decent 1.75-length second behind London Roads over 2600m on the Turffonten Inside track and Stephen Moffatt’s charge now drops to 2000m, a distance over which he has been less successful of late.

However, he needs to be included in all bets because the stable is in top form and he should be competitive at the weights, despite jockey Craig Zackey putting up 0.5kg overweight.

Twin Turbo is well handicapped and could be a threat in this field as he has raced against better.

However, in four races over 2000m he has not finished better than fourth on two occasions. In fact, in his last start, which was over 2000m on the Turffontein Inside track, he looked threatening with 400m to run but faded out to finish fourth, beaten by 9.20 lengths by Flying Bull. But he is dropping in class and will have in-form Muzi Yeni in the saddle.