He was hoping to see Al Muthana’s name as that would mean Cousin Casey would, as things stand, be receiving half-a-kilogram from the country’s highest rated three-year-old, See It Again, and be running at level weights with all of the other three-year-olds.

 

Instead, he will have to carry 57kg, together with See It Again, and they will both have to give lumps of weight to the rest of the three-year-olds.

 

Of course, merit ratings could still change down the line.

 

Kotzen pointed out, although in a forlorn tone, “Maybe they will supplement Al Muthana later.”

 

Kotzen won the July with Big City Life in 2009 and had no worries about weights that year because the great Pocket Power was in the line up which meant no fewer than 14 of the runners carried the minimum allowable weight for their age and gender, including Big City Life. He had won the Grade 1 Cape Derby, the Grade 2 KRA Guineas and the Grade 1 Daily News 2000, yet still carried just 51kg at a time when topweight was 58kg and bottom weight 50kg.

 

Cousin Casey has started off his KZN campaign in exactly the same way Big City Life started his, by finishing a close second in the Grade 3 Byerley Turk over 1400m, although it was at Hoillywoodbets Greyville in Cousin Casey’s case and at Scottsville in Big City Life’s case.

 

However, Kotzen is not sure Cousin Casey is going to go the WSB Guineas, Daily News 2000 route.

 

He is wary of facing the 132 merit-rated Charles Dickens because that runs the risk of a big merit rating increase.

 

He concluded, “He is doing exceptionally well and is on target for the July, we just need to work out how to get him there. We would have liked Al Muthana to have been among the entries.”

 

Cousin Casey’s big race jockey Grant van Niekerk will be coming to Summerveld next week to ride him.