Picture: Mucho Dinero bursts through down the inside and puts himself in the WSB Met picture (Image: Wayne Marks)
Turf Talk
If horse ownership was like stamp collecting Nick Jonsson would be in the pound seats because he would have virtually cornered the Twice Over market.
The unfashionable Klawervlei Stud-based British-bred son of Observatory has produced four individual Gr 1 winners, three of them owned by Jonsson including the celebrated Do It Again.
Twice Over has now also produced three individual Gr 2 winners after the Jonsson-owned Justin Snaith-trained Drakenstein Stud-bred four-year-old gelding Mucho Dinero won Saturday’s Antonij Rupert Wyne Premier Trophy over 1800m.
Mucho Dinero is now unbeaten in four starts from 1800m to 2400m this season.
The ride Grant van Niekerk gave him on Saturday could be an early qualifier for ride of the month.
From draw six he held the gelding up and he was in the last quartet turning for home.
Van Niekerk went for a daring run towards the inside and pulled it off as the gelding scythed through the field and got up by a neck from the perennial bridesmaid At My Command.
Mucho Dinero was supplemented in to the WSB Met at the final supplementary stage on Monday (January 8).
Some believe he is a runner there and that is not too far fetched a prediction considering that despite running off a 99 merit rating he carried the same weight as 124-rated At My Command and beat him.
In third place, beaten 0,30 lengths, was Mucho Dinero’s 111-rated stablemate Pacaya, who gave the winner 1,5kg, and in a 0,35 length fourth place was the 106-rated Sugar Mountain, who gave the winner half-a-kilogram.
In fifth and sixth were the 122-rated and 120-rated pair Rascallion and Without Question and they were beaten 2,60 lengths and 4,10 lengths giving the winner 1,5kgs and running at level weights respectively.
In the the WSB Met betting after the final supplementary stage Mucho Dinero was quoted by the sponsor at 20/1.
Jonsson would have arrived on course on Saturday hoping to win the King’s Plate with Twice Over superstar colt See It Again, who is a three-parts brother to Do It Again. However, he had to settle for second.
Gaynor Rupert was quick to mention Jonsson’s sportmanship. He was the first to congratulate Gaynor after Charles Dickens’ superb victory.
Nevethertheless, See It Again is a marginal favourite with the sponsor for the WSB Met at 15/10 with Charles Dickens at 16/10.
Jonsson’s other Gr 1-winning Twice Over entire Double Superlative was a far from disgraced 5,35 length sixth in the King’s Plate. He is also bound for the Met.
Jonsson also owns the useful 106 merit rated Twice Over gelding Triple Time, who finished a 1,50 length second in the Gr 3 Glorious Goodwood Chairmans Cup over 2500m on Saturday. He gave the winner Future Swing 4kg, so could well become another Graded Jonsson-owned Twice Over winner.
