Glen Kotzen believes the WSB Met is winnable for a three-year-old under weight for age conditions and also spoke of the formlines which puts his crack colt Cousin Casey in with a fine chance.
He said about his last run in the Grade 1 Hollywoodbets Cape Guineas, “It was a cracking run. Our plan had always been to be in front of Charles Dickens but Cousin Casey was a bit slow into stride and he had a few traffic problems in the straight. But the most encouraging thing was he overtook eight horses in the straight.”
He continued, “He is crying out for the ground of the Met and is a huge runner if you go on Charles Dickens run in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate. Charles Dickens was only narrowly beaten and if they rerun the race I think he would probably win. He came down the inside and had to bear the brunt of the wind, but that is not to take anything away from the winner who is a top, top miler.”
He also pointed out Cousin Casey would now be having his “peak run”, i.e his third run after a layoff.
He said the son of Vercingetorix had been “flying” at home.
Cousin Casey has had bad luck with draws.
However, at least the connections will have some hand in his draw for the WSB Met as there will be a draw ceremony next Wednesday.
Kotzen runs three in the Listed Jamaica Handicap over 2000m at Hollywoodbets Kenilworth on Saturday, Follow The Star, Flower Of Saigon and Winter Scout.
He mentioned Follow The Star and Flower Of Saigon as his chief candidates.
He said, “They are three lovely fillies and I have been waiting for these staying fillies to come to hand. They have been targeted at this race.”
Speaking about which one he preferred, he said, “Going on form Follow The Star and Flower Of Saigon are the best and there is nothing between them, whenever they have met they are within half-a-length of each other.”
Calvin Habib rides Flower Of Saigon, Keagan de Melo is aboard Follow The Star and JP van der Merwe rides Winter Scout.
They are drawn three, four and five respectively.
Kotzen has five horses entered in the Grade 3 Politician Stakes on January 21, which is otherwise known as “The Derby Trial”, as it is a springboard into the Grade 1 Cape Derby to be run on February 25.
Blackberry Malt, Dowser, Famous And Rich, Grinkov and Nothingelsematters are all “nice horses”.
Grinkov is the highest rated of them on 102 after bouncing back with a nice win over 1600m last time and Kotzen said, “Horses don’t lose their form, they just lose their way sometimes.”
Dowser has been a touch disappointing as one who struck as being a Derby type from day one, but he will be tried in the blinkers and bears watching.
