Richard Fourie rides the Alan Greeff-trained East Cape Horse Of The Year, the four-year-old Fire Away gelding My Best Shot, in the Gr 1 Betway Summer Cup on Saturday (Pauline Herman Photography)
Richard Fourie will be out to complete the career grandslam at Turffontein Standside on Saturday as he has won Cape Town’s and Durban’s traditional biggest races, the WSB Met and Hollywoodbets Durban July respectively, but is yet to win Joburg’s traditional biggest race, the Betway Summer Cup.
A look at this year’s Hollywoodbets Durban July dampens hopes that his mount My Best Shot can do it.
Jumping from draw nine in the July, the Fire Away gelding made little impression in the straight from near the back of the field.
He was beaten 9,60 lengths into 12th place carrying joint bottom weight of 53kg off a 116 merit rating, which put him at half-a-kilogram under sufferance.
He will now carry joint bottom weight of 54kg off the same rating and this time sneaks into the handicap, but he will, for example, face Royal Victory on the same terms and will have to make up 6,85 lengths.
However, Fourie was bullish about his chances and explained:
“I think there’s a few mitigating factors with regards to the July run. I thought he ran a brilliant race under Chase, he ran really well. He moved up really good and then just ran up to a point, but there’s lots of fractions of information that will seehim being six lengths better than he was on July day. He could, for example, have possibly not travelled good, and he had a hard campaign going into the July. He ran every three or four weeks, so I think he could have been over the top, just a little bit on the tired side. But everybody loves to own a horse that runs in the July, because it’s our biggest race, so they took a chance and it probably wasn’t the right thing for the horse at that moment. But no harm was done and in fact the horse learnt a lot about travelling and being in stronger races, so it’s all systems go. I think the horse has got a bomb chance. I worked him last week Friday and I was super excited about it.”
My Best Shot jumps from a draw of 12 but tends to come from off the pace and has a fine turn of foot and a resolute finish.
The Turffontein course has a long straight like Fairview’s so it might well suit him.
On the downside Fairview training centre is at sea level while Summerveld is already at a third of the altitude of Joburg, so horses raiding rom the latter centre will theoretically have an easier time adapting to the rise in altitude.
Fourie has a number of other good rides like Shadowfax, whom he said was a horse who had given him “a proper” feel and added he definitely felt like one who would appreciate the step up to the mile of the Gr 2 Betway Dingaans.
He is also looking forward to riding the like of Gr 1 SA Fillies Sprint winner Mia Moo as well as East Cape-based stalwart Mercantour as well as the Frank Robinson-trained Cats Pajamas.
Most of his rides are for “Mr Tarry”, whom he described as a “maestro” and a man who always had a plan.
