Both Owner Nick Jonsson and trainer Justin Snaith will be going for a fourth successive win in the WSB Met. Jonsson has three chances to do it, while Snaith has six chances (Picture: Wayne Marks)
Owner Nick Jonsson has won the Met three times in succession with three different horses, an incredible feat. He did it with his part-owned Jet Dark, his outright-owned Double Superlative and his part-owned Eight On Eighteen. He can make it four on the trot if Eight On Eighteen retains his crown or if two horses he owns outright, See It Again and Okavango, win it.
Etienne Braun was part-owner of the 2020 Met winner One World and he has a share in the runner Legal Counsel this year.
Champion Sire Vercingetorix has four of the eleven runners in this year’s WSB Met, Sail The Seas, Gladatorian , Garrix and Native Ruler. Vercingetorix will be out to win his first WSB Met.
Defending champion Eight On Eighteen was the first Met winner for the late sire Lancaster Bomber.
Twice Over, sire of Met runner See It Again, was sire of 2024 Met winner Double Superlative.
Galileo, sire of The Equator, was sire of the 2012 Met winner Igugu.
Gimmethegreenlight has The Real Prince in this year’s Met and the three-times champion sire will be out to land his first Met.
Master Of My Fate, sire of Okavango, Legislate, sire of Legal Counsel, and Querari, sire of Cosmic Speed, will all be out to land the Met for the first time too.
Drakenstein Stud were breeders of 2018 winner Oh Susanna as well as 2023 winner Jet Dark and last year’s winner Eight On Eighteen. This year they can do it again with any one of Eight On Eighteen, Sail The Seas or See It Again.
The world’s greatest thoroughbred breeders Coolmore are breeders of The Equator and bred Native Ruler in partnership with Maine Chance Farms.
Maine Chance Farms also bred Cosmic Speed.
Of the six yards still involved in this year’s Met only two have won the big race before, Justin Snaith and Sean Tarry.
Justin Snaith will be out to equal Mike Bass’s record of winning the Met for four years in a row and for a fifth time overall.
Bass won the Met five times in all and his four-in-a-row feat was with two progeny of Jet Master, three years in a row with the legendary Pocket Power from 2007 to 2009 and then with Pocket Power’s full sister River Jetez in 2010.
Snaith won it with Jet Dark in 2023, with Double Superlative in 2024 and with Eight On Eighteen in 2025. Both Jet Dark and Double Superlative are out of Jet Master mares.
Eight On Eighteen defends his crown this year.
If he wins it Snaith would obviously have done his four in succession with three different horses as opposed to Bass doing it with two horses.
Snaith will have achieved the remarkable feat of doing four in a row with four different horses if any of See It Again, Sail The Seas, Native Ruler, Okavango or Legal Counsel win the big race.
As far as the Jet Master sequence goes it will be fitting if Okavango does it, because he is by Jet Master’s son Master Of My Fate.
Snaith holds a world record of eight winners at a single meeting, which he achieved on Met day in 2016.
He will have a chance of breaking that record at this year’s Met meeting, because he contests every one of the races and has a total of 43 runners in all at the meeting.
Sean Tarry won the Met with Alastor in 2005.
Gavin Lerena will be riding Tarry’s runner this year, Cosmic Speed.
Lerena is one of only four jockeys in this year’s race to have won the Met before.
Richard Fourie, JP van der Merwe and Aldo Domeyer are the other three.
Fourie will be going for a third Met and the other three have only won one Met apiece.
The Real Prince is trained by Dean Kannemeyer and it is one of the most surprising facts in SA racing that this prolific big race winner is yet to win the Met.
Gladatorian is trained by Stuart Ferrie, who has only had his license for just under three years, but he has vast training experience having worked in the like of Dubai and the USA and he was for many years assistant trainer to the masterful Dennis Drier at Summerveld. This will be his first Met runner.
Tony Peter will also be having his first Met runner. He is trainer of The Equator.
Piet Steyn is in partnership with his son Elbert now and they send out Garrix. Piet has had his license since 1981 and his most recent Met runner was Gem King in 2023.
