Trainer Sean Tarry holds the key to Joburg’s ‘greatest day’

The Highveld’s WSB Championships finale is on Champions Day at Turffontein on Saturday, with the main event being the Premier’s Champions Challenge.

The next day, at Scottsville, it’s the start of KZN’s Champions Season, which features the Alan Robertson Championship and concludes with the Premiers Champions Stakes, after which the focus moves to Cape Town for the Premier Trophy, the Fillies Championship and the Cape Flying Championship.

Racing’s current suits are a worthy a lot, deserving of thanks for keeping the show on the road, but one wishes they’d get a tad more creative in the naming department.

It’s interesting to see Saturday’s Champions Day being labelled Joburg’s Greatest Raceday on the race card. Whence Summer Cup day, one wonders.

There’s no doubting the relative greatness for punters, though, especially with a R7-million Pick 6 pool.

Grade 1 highlights

The WSB Premier’s Champions Challenge and the Jonsson Workwear Computaform Sprint are the meeting’s Grade 1 highlights, backed up by five other graded features.

And therein lies the rub. With so many above-average horses carded, finding standout bets is not easy. Compounding the problem is two legs being Grade 2 Nursery contests, full of precocious prodigies maturing at different rates.

Luckily, those two races have 11 and nine runners, so even opting for field selections is not going to make your Pick 6 permutation astronomically expensive.

Trainer Sean Tarry holds the key to this meeting, having clearly targeted the fixture to showcase his yard’s talent and tune up for the coming winter season at the coast. He offers up three potential Pick 6 bankers and a clutch of other runners with bright chances.

The 1000m Computaform Sprint pits defending champion (yes, again) Master Archie against star mare Princess Calla. The latter was an impressive winner of the Senor Santa Stakes 49 days ago, but a raised
temperature saw her having to skip the defence of her Empress Club title recently.

Tarry’s charge is classy and, if in her best nick, will be hard to beat with a 2.5kg advantage over her male opponents and being the best handicapped horse in the line-up.

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Earlier this week, Tarry, speaking to Turf Talk, described her chance as “massive”.

The Champions Challenge, over 2000m, sees another quality filly from Tarry’s stable taking on the boys at weight-for age. Triple Tiara holder Rain In Holland’s 2.5kg gender allowance could be enough to see her dominate the likes of Puerto Manzano, MK’s Pride, Golden Ducat and Red Saxon.

Three-year-old Billy Bowlegs, well thought of by trainer Alec Laird, could be Rain In Holland’s main threat, having 1kg less than her to carry.

A third possibility for a Pick 6 banker is yet another Tarry-trained filly, Bless My Stars in the 2000m Gerald Rosenberg Stakes (Race 9 and final leg of the Pick 6). She showed plenty of guts in the winning a tough SA Classic over 1800m in early March, before being a beaten favourite in the SA Oaks.

She came home with a snotty nose from that outing and should be in finer fettle by now.

“On best form she has to have a very good chance,” was the Tarry verdict.

Selections

Computaform Sprint (Race 6): 9 Princess Calla, 1 Master Archie, 4 Isivunguvungu, 10 Sheela Champions

Challenge (Race 7): 11 Rain In Holland, 12 Billy Bowlegs, 13 Rule By Force, 6 Red Saxon