Danish Dynamite makes it two wins from three starts and gives Luyola Mxothwa a treble (Pauline Herman Photography)
The first East Cape meeting of the season was on the Fairview turf and it saw Alan Greeff starting off where he left off with a treble.
It seems to have become an annual agreement that S’Manga Khumalo replaces Richard Fourie for the Greeff rides when the latter is away at the beginning of each season and Khumalo rode all three of the winners, while Luyola Mxothwa also scored a treble, two of them for Sharon Kotzen.
The most interesting of the day’s winners was the Gavin Smith-trained three-year-old Erik The Red filly Danish Dynamite, who led from start to finish under Mothwa over 1000m in the last race to beat the boys in a MR 66 Handicap.
She is a half-sister to My Best Shot, an Alan Greeff-trained Fire Away gelding who last season became the East Cape’s first runner in the Hollywoodbets Durban July for 21 years.
Smith is the arch rival of Greeff, but it was one way traffic last season with Greeff scoring 165 wins in the East Cape to Smith’s 116 and today Smith only had a single winner to Greeff’s three.
The next three on the log last season were Kelly Mitchley with 47 wins, Sharon Kotzen with 33 and Cliffie Miller with 29.
Kotzen got the new season off to a great start with a double and Mitchley also had a winner.
Juan Nel ended last season in fine form and started it off well with a winner today, ridden by in form Turf Talk-sponsored jockey Chad Little, who had a double on the Hollywoodbets Greyville turf on Sunday, both for Lucinda Woodruff.
