Titans SS and MD bump heads again at the Big T

Thrills come thick and fast for racing fans this weekend, with one of the highlights being the renewed rivalry between ballyhooed three-year-olds Sandringham Summit and Main Defender.

The battlefield this time is the 1400m Grade 3 Betway Got The Greenlight Stakes (formerly the Tony Ruffel), which honours one of Turffontein’s more recent star gallopers.

Head to head

Sandringham Summit and Main Defender, both trained at race venue Turffontein, by David Nieuwenhuizen and Tony Peter respectively, have met twice before – and the score stands at 1-1.

The first encounter was in the Grade 1 1600m Premiers Champion Stakes in Durban on the last day of last season, when Sandringham Summit announced himself as something special by romping home by 2.20 lengths at odds of 7-1. Main Defender, at a much shorter price, was unable to quicken smartly enough down the short Greyville finishing straight and was runner-up.

Revenge came three months later, back on the adversaries’ mutual home turf, with Main Defender showing plenty of guts to hold off his rival over the 1400m of the Grade 3 Graham Beck Stakes.

After that, on Summer Cup day on 25 November, Main Defender fell victim to the infamous mass scratching of Peter stable horses, while Sandringham Summit disappointed a multitude of supporters by only managing third place in the Grade 2 1600m Dingaans.

Nieuwenhuizen’s colt did suffer a rough passage in that race, without which he might have got closer than his two lengths to winner Purple Pitcher.

Since then, the son of Gimmethegreenlight has been syndicated for stud purposes but is continuing to race out of the Nieuwenhuizen yard – albeit now in Varsfontein Stud’s white and red silks.

In class of own

Both the star youngsters’ connections are yet to be drawn on their plans for the immediate future, though one might expect them to have a crack at the early stages of the Triple Crown before spending some lucrative wintertime in KwaZulu-Natal. This story could run and run.

Sunday will surely provide some answers for both connections and followers.

At the moment, the 1400m and the Big T’s long galloping straight appears to tilt things in Main Defender’s favour. But Sandringham Summit has shown a great turn of foot and a small field of seven will make it easy for jockey Gavin Lerena to keep him out of trouble.

Interestingly, Calvin Habib, who partnered Sandringham Summit in three of his earlier races, now gets the booking on Main Defender.

None of the five runners making up the numbers would seem to have the ability to threaten the top two, though Sean Tarry-trained The Africa House has kept good company so clearly shows ability at home and might be an improver.