On My Honour was one of four winners for Serino Moodley at the Hollywoodbets Greyville twilight meeting on Friday
It is easy to criticise from the sidelines, but Michael Roberts did say after See It Again had failed to load on October 19, ” In hindsight, what should have happened was a handler should have been on the side rails before loading him, not this handler jumping up and pushing him back.”
The starter did appear to have a handler ready on the partition when attempting to load See It Again for a Conditions Plate event at Hollywoodbets Greyville on Friday, which was an important preparation event for a number of Betway Summer Cup contenders including See It Again.
However, the handler who led the hooded horse in while facing him once again tried to jump on to the partitions before the horse had been fully loaded and as soon as he did so, See It Again backed out again.
Subsequent efforts were without a hood and with just one handler, which was never going to work.
See It Again will now have to go to the Gr 1 Betway Summer Cup without a single preparation run instead of the intended two runs.
It remains to be seen whether he will be scratched or whether he will still take his chances.
When the 1600m race did get under way it was On My Honour who cruised up to the pacemaker Claw in the straight and duly found extra under Serino Moodley to win by 0,60 lengths from a flying King Pelles, who came from last.
Claw had led at a crawl and was beaten 0,90 lengths, a short-head ahead of Royal Victory. The latter made a big effort in the straight so would at least have been given some sort of workout in the canter-sprint affair.
Chill In The Air and Sequoia were well beaten.
Gareth van Zyl and Nathan Kotzen would have been pleased with the runs of King Pelles and Royal Victory respectively, although they might have liked a better pace and thus a harder race.
Generally speaking placed horses in Conditions events are not given merit rating increases.
However, Glen Kotzen will now have to sweat on whether the winner On My Honour is going to be given a merit rated raise.
His current 116 merit rating is the perfect number for a four-year-old in the Summer Cup, because it would see him sneaking into the handicap with the minimum weight of 54kg.
On My Honour was well weighted in Friday’s race with all accept Royal Victory, with whom he was 1kg under sufferance. So if the handicappers make Royal Victory the line horse then On My Honour will get four points and go to 120, meaning he will carry 56kg in the Summer Cup.
On My Honour was 3,5kg well in with King Pelles and considering the latter ran so well in a sprint last time he could be the wiser line horse and in that case On My Honour will escape without a raise.
In another interesting result on the night the Stuart Ferrie-trained star Gladatorian showed how good he is by giving the Gr 2 winner Cats Pajamas 10kg (if apprentice claims are included) and getting up to beat him by a short-head in a 1200m Conditions Plate event under Sean Veale.
