Oriental Charm pictured winning the Gr 2 WSB Green Point Stakes easily. (Picture: Wayne Marks)
Oriental Charm remains the favourite for the WSB Met, despite running below par in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate, finishing a 8,95 length seventh.
James Crawford said about the run, “It was a little bit disappointing, we definitely expected a bit better. It wasn’t his best run by any means, he didn’t run terribly, but we expected him to perform better than that.”
Montien appeared to cross Oriental Charm when not sufficiently clear just before the first turn, which caused JP van der Merwe to take a stranglehold on Oriental Charm and the horse then seemed to peck slightly too.
However, James did not feel this made any difference to the end result.
James continued, “It is hard to judge and I will use See It Again as an example. Last season See It Again won the Green Point beating Charles Dickens and co, and Oriental won the Green Point well this season; See It Again then ran below par in the L’Ormarins King’s Plate, just as Oriental did; but See It Again should then arguably have won the Met, but things just didn’t quite pan out for him. You could also say for Oreintal it is second run after a bit of a rest, which I am bit more firm in the camp of than others, although he did pull up with one or two of his usual issues.”
James is still confident of Oriental Charm’s Met chances and commenting on his price of 7/2 with the sponsor, he said, “I think anywhere from 3/1 to 5/1 I wouldn’t disagree with.”
He ageed the yard’s best valued Met runner was Zapatillas, who on the formlines of the Cape Mile vs the King’s Plate actually comes out well ahead of Oriental Charm, but is out at a whopping 66/1 for the Met with the sponsor.
However, James had no regrets about not running Zapatillas in the King’s Plate and said, “I don’t think Zapatillas is a miler. He’s capable of it, but I think he is a better horse over nine or ten furlongs.”
Zapatillas finished a 1,70 length fifth in the Gr 2 Anthonij Rupert Wyne Premier Trophy over 1800m on Saturday.
James said, “He was also a little bit disappointing. I expected him to go a lot closer, but he never looked like he traveled well during the race. He started to pick it up a little bit in the latter stages with about 350m to go but at that point with how Hollywoodbets Kenilworth is running right now (very firm and very quick) to make up six or seven lengths with 350m to go , I think only Quid Pro Quo would maybe be able to do that.”
James concluded, “I think Zapatillas will give us an honest gutsy race in the Met and will be there or thereabouts for sure.”
He said Zapatillas was sound and doing “very well: at present.
The most backed horse in the Met looks to be the three-year-old Eight On Eighteen, who has been backed in to second favourite.
However, James thinks the probable most undervalued runner among the leading candidates is last year’s runner up Rascallion, who is 16/1 with the sponsor.
Rascallion comws off a gutsy victory in Saturday’s Premier Trophy.
James said, “Rascallion is a tough boy and he knows the track and trip, he’s a war veteran so to speak and he should definitely be shorter in the betting.”
