With the floods in Gauteng, fans will have to wait till Wednesday night for the two postponed Guineas’ to be staged at Turffontein. The absence of any action on the Highveld left the menu a bit thin, with moderate fields in Cape Town and Durban. Still there were a couple of useful performances.
Calvary has run 103 before on the Greyville poly and he proved way to speedy for MR 98 rivals on Sunday, under the handling of Anton Marcus. The son of Querari has won four of 15 starts and is an out and out sprinter.
Marcus also did the steering on Water Spirit (s/s 92) in a MR 94 contest at Kenilworth. He dictated the pace then kept the Jackson filly going all the way to the wire. Gimme Gimme Gimme weaved her way through the field to get up for second and should be winning soon.
Going back to last weeks Met won by One World, it again shows the importance of pace and positioning. Measuring the finishing fraction as a percentage ratio relative to the overall time is a helpful method. Typically, a finishing speed of around 103% is ideal at Kenilworth in races run at an even tempo and that’s exactly what jockey MJ Byleveld achieved on the perfectly placed, gallant winner.
One World got a speed figure for 108 for his accomplishment past Saturday – his career best is 112 attained as a three year -old, so he could conceivably run faster still. With his tremendous record from 1600m-2000m this son of Captain Al now looks an exciting stallion proposition.