De Melo had won five successive carded races when Blazing Fury scored on Friday night 14 August (Picture: Julia Marnewick)
Keagan de Melo’s nine winners over the last weekend put him in a position to break a South African record, although his subsequent form has probably scuppered his chances.
No rider has ever had 50 wins in one month of a South African season, but having had 23 wins after 16 days of the current month it looked feasible for De Melo to break the record of 47 held by Gavin Lerena and perhaps reach the 50 mark.
The odds were against him though, because he had ridden in eleven meetings the month and there were only ten more meetings available to him.
Upm to then he had only skipped only two meetings available to him, the meeting at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on the 5th and the one at Fairview on the 10th.
He was operating at a strike rate of 35.38%.
The Friday night meetings at Hollywoodbets Greyville are aiding his cause.
Last Friday’s meeting was on the poly and he was in devastating form, riding five winners in succession from race 2 to race 5.
It is unlikely that any rider in SA history has ridden the winner of six successive carded races, considering the only time the Pick 6 has been ridden, by Piere Strydom on July 14, 1990 at Gosforth Park, there was a match race in between the Pick 6 races won by Divine Act and Strydom was on the loser Brainteaser.
De Melo’s five winners were the Darryl Moore-trained Nautical Fire (Fire Away)(6/1), the Alyson Wright-trained Anything But Love (Act Of War) (15/10), the Justin Snaith-trained Bangkok Magic (Willow Magic) (5/2), the Yadav Singh-trained Victor Rail (Visionaries) (7/2) and The Louis Goosen-trained Blazing Fury (Vercingetorix) (18/10).
Ironically his shortest-priced ride on the night, Please Be True, on whom he was bidding to win a sixth successive carded race, did not make the frame, but his price of 56/100 was ridiculous considering he was at the bottom of his merit rated band and was thus 1kg out at the weights with the best weighted runners, one of whom was the winner the Nathan Kotzen-trained Rollo The Viking, who also had the advantage of 2,5kg claimer Dezahn Louw up.
At Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday De Melo added a treble, riding the Justin Snaith-trained Red Flag (Gimmethegreenlight) (9/4), the Snaith-trained Golden Shimmer (Rafeef) (2/1) and the Adam Marcus-trained Miss Attitude (Hawwaam) (9/4).
De Melo added a single winner at Turffontein on Sunday, the Johan Janse van Vuuren-trained first-timer Camillo Cavour (Master Of My Fate) (17/10).
He has only added two more wins since, but did not have full cards, so is now sitting on 25 wins and still has a high strike rate of 32.89%.
He is 16 wins clear of second-placed Kabelo Matsunyane, whose nine wins have been at a strike rate of 18.37%.
The question of whether he can break Richard Fourie’s record in one season of 378 wins will likely be posed soon, considering Fourie only had 32 wins by the end of September in his 2023/2024 record-breaking season.
