Miss Paget and a clearly excited Athandiwe Mgudlwa take the Alyson Wright yard in to a three win lead in the KZN Championship. (Candiese Lenferna Photography)
Alyson Wright stormed in to the lead in the KZN Trainers Championship after a five-timer on the Hollywoodbets Greyville poly today.
This season’s championship has been an intriguing tussle between a number of trainers, with the lead having swapped a number of times.
A purple patch in which she scored six wins in three meetings saw Wright move in to the lead at the beginning of April.
However, Gareth van Zyl’s steady flow of wins since then saw him leading Wright by two wins before today’s (Wednesday’s) meeting.
However, Wright is now back in front by three wins.
She has had 45 wins in KZN this season achieved at a strike rate of 12.20%.
Van Zyl is on 42 wins at 15.11%.
Wendy Whitehead is next best on 38 wins at 11.88%.
Mike Miller and Garth Puller both have 36 wins at 9.47% and 8.93% respectively.
Peter Muscutt is on 32 wins and he has the highest strike rate on the table at 17.58%.
Numbers play a big part in winning the championship and Puller has had the most runs this season of the KZN trainers.
His yard’s horses have had 403 runs, with Miller next on 380, Wright on 369 and Whitehead on 320, while Van Zyl and Muscutt have only had 278 and 182 runs in KZN respectively.
However, Van Zyl would likely have boosted his numbers recently in KZN with the Champions Season now in full swing.
A lot of his best horses were in his yard in Cape Town for the Cape Summer season and some of them would likely have joined his Summerveld yard recently.
Puller, on the other hand, said he had sold a number of horses recently.
Van Zyl was the champion trainer two season ago and was a close second to Puller last season, with the latter ending on 60 wins and Van Zyl on 57.
Wright, Whitehead and Miller are all chasing their first KZN Championship.
It should be intriguing right until the finish.
The East Cape champion trainer race is intriguing every season, although it has been dominated by the Greeff and Smith yards literally for decades.
Alan Greeff took over the reins from his father Stanley Greeff in the 1990s, while Gavin Smith took over the reins from his father Andy Smith.
Gavin broke a long sequence of championship wins by Alan in the 2021/2022 season with 134 wins to 111.
Last season was a nailbiter, but Smith retained the title with a treble on the last day taking him to 126 with a rare blank on that same day by Greeff leaving him on 121.
However, this season Greeff has come from off the pace to hit the front with just over two months to go. He is on 113 wins to Smith’s 107.
On the Highveld Mike de Kock was crowned Highveld Feature Season champion trainer based on a points system.
If there is another award at the end of the season for the trainer with the most wins in the jurisdiction then Tony Peter is well clear on 79 wins ahead of Mike de Kock and Sean Tarry on 61 apiece. However, if it is decided on stakes then De Kock appears to be leading from Tarry and Peter.
In the Western Cape Justin Snaith has 85 wins to Candice Bass-Robinson’s 72 and he is also well clear in stakes.
